Meditating on the Six Realms of Existence

hey everybody how's it going michael taft here again on thursday night bringing guided meditation for you from me and san francisco dharma collective so hello nice to see you it's always a huge pleasure to be here on thursday nights and wow what in october i don't think i'll ever forget october 2020 this is an amazingly intense time lots going on and so we're gonna do an amazingly intense guided meditation tonight um for all of you from all of me so um as usual let's not goof around let's just dive in uh starting right now less than a minute in we're already starting the meditation that's what i like so here's what i want you to do i want you to get into your meditation posture sitting nice and upright your back straight and it's best if it's unsupported your lower back is curved in so that your upper back gets nice and upright and um hands folded in your lap shoulders down and back your chin is just slightly slightly slightly down we don't want it to be up like that just down just a little bit opens up the back your neck and just feel yourself settling into that perfect posture of sitting it feels just right feels like stable solid and yet relaxed it's this relaxed upright thing which is the physical analog of the relaxed alert posture of our mind so mind and body are not really two different things right they're really one system and so when we hold the muscles and spine in this relaxed yet upright way relaxed but alert way our mind can't help it it also becomes alert and relaxed and so now i just want you to tune in to the fact of your already existing buddhahood the fact that we are never meditating to somehow uh fix ourselves or make ourselves um you know grow towards buddhahood the fact is you are already completely ultimately totally and fully permanently enlightened your buddhahood is already a fact and all we're doing when we're meditating is kind of removing any obscurations any um sense that you might not really know that about yourself already our meditation just helps to kind of clear the water so that we can see through with perfect clarity into this already existing buddhahood so to tune in to the fact of your inherent awakeness your inherent perfection of mind this quality of bright lucid clear awareness tremendously open heart and a kind of um deep deep wisdom and just have perfect confidence that's already there you don't have to do anything to make that happen and by sitting we're simply expressing this already existing buddhahood or in some cases maybe even uncovering it more covering it more uncovering it more so just tune into that aspect and begin to do your shamatha with an object so simply focusing on breathing you can feel your breath through your whole body the rising and falling of your belly the expansion and contraction of your chest even the feeling of the breath going in and out of the nose or you could meditate on whatever other object you want you can do a mantra you can visualize something you can stare at a object like a mandala you can focus on a luminous nimita in your mind whatever works for you okay and while you're doing that i will guide you in some relaxation so just let my guided relaxation occur in the background while you're doing your focus uh relaxing and alerting meditation right we're getting relaxed but we're also getting alert just like our body is relaxed and upright our mind is relaxed and bright relaxed and clear it's spontaneous natural luminous quality the luminous quality of the mind really shining forth okay probably the luminous quality of the mind so let's begin so as you're continuing to sink into your relaxed alertness allow your scalp and forehead to release and relax and let go your eyebrows and your eyelids and your eye muscles and the muscles all around your eyes to just release and relax allowing all the tension to drain away any tension in your eyes just drains away and it's replaced by a kind of ease a kind of openness your cheeks relax your mouth and lips all the muscles around your mouth and lips let go and release all the tension drains out of your jaw and your upper and lower teeth separate so they're not touching and your tongue just floats gently in your mouth and you just notice a sense of ease and a sense of openness and a sense of really dropping dropping now into a deeper and more profound utterly relaxed sense of ease and relief as all the tension drains out of the body and is replaced with a kind of bright clear uplifting relaxed alertness notice now too how your throat releases and the neck relaxes all tension drains out of the shoulders the shoulders release and let go become gentle and soft and open [Music] you can breathe more easily your throat lets go and the shoulders and the neck and the throat and the jaw and the face and the head all feel very very easeful peaceful open and at ease and now just allow the arms and hands and fingers to drain all tension all tension just draining away draining away draining away leaving your arms and hands and fingers as loose as wet noodles as limp as wet rags with zero tension and feeling a kind of ease and openness a kind of relaxed almost liberative feeling in the arms and hands and then noticing how the upper chest and the upper back and the whole area of the heart and lungs inside begins to participate in this relaxation begins to release tension begins to open begins to feel a real sense of letting go a real quality of ease and relief and as the head and the neck and the shoulders and the arms and the hands and the upper chest really tune into this relaxed and alert quality it allows the entire being to simply now drop into a much much deeper state of relaxed clarity of a kind of alert bright open ease that is more in alignment with your actual being allowing a really innate indigenous sense of peace and beauty and kindness to bubble up as the body continues to just shed tension and expand with openness and a real sense of relief noticing how this relief spreads to the belly region and the kidney region in back and the whole basin of the pelvis and all the internal organs all the stress all the tension draining away draining away draining away and being replaced with this uplifting bright clear relaxed relief sensation very soft very gentle very beautiful it feels good allow that good feeling to permeate your entire torso spreading now to your hips upper legs knees lower legs ankles feet toes the legs and feet become as limp as wet noodles absolutely draining away the last little tiny drops of tension all gone now all tension gone and the entire being now as the whole body feels relieved the entire being now simply totally is able to drop now into a much much much more profound stillness and radiance clarity and openness and a deep deep abiding sense of relief good now let's shift into our dropping the ball our shine without form shamatha without form where we're over and over again noticing the somatic sensation of the mind grabbing on to an object and then when we notice that grabbing we're just relaxing and not grabbing so that the mind is never concentrating on any particular object at all but rather just simply relaxing over and over again you're just noticing if the mind is paying attention to something and if it is you simply relax the mind and don't pay attention to it during this phase which we often call dropping the ball we're not focusing on anything we're not focusing on the breath we're not focusing on the body we're not focusing on present moment sensations we are not focusing we're dropping the ball just relaxing the bright alert mind into kind of a openness a kind of almost like a flower blossoming it's just wide open just relaxed if this is too hard you find yourself continuing and just deeply struggling go back to focusing on your shamatha object otherwise just over and over again [Music] relax anytime the mind tightens up this particular form of meditation works again because we are already fully awakened buddhas and as we let the stirring of thinking and the stirring of trying to do and the tumultuous activity of thinking and doing as we allow that to die down [Music] the natural clarity and radiance and relaxed beauty of the mind slowly slowly slowly reveals itself the kind of already perfect already complete wakeful ease that is the actual condition of the mind simply is noticed by the mind that's why anytime you are thinking you just relax anytime you're trying to focus or do meditation instead just relax just relax and open and allow there is absolutely no struggle in this if you're struggling stop struggling if you're trying stop trying if you really want to figure it out you can't figure this out there is no figuring it out just be some people find this meditation easier to do with their eyes open and if that is comfortable for you then you might want to give that a shot again it works with eyes open we're not trying to somehow shut out the world and go into a special state this is the natural mind this is the already awake buddha mind there's no special state about it it's always there you notice that we're not saying you have to stop thinking thinking can occur we're just not getting involved with it we're not grabbing onto it and following it if you find yourself grabbing onto it just relax the grabbing don't grab on don't pay any attention to it at all you notice how the mind can just become relaxed and wide open totally open very bright very alert organically luminous effortlessly wide awake clear and bright you so okay there's a way that sometimes meditating like this can bring on a kind of sleepiness so make sure you stay awake and alert if you have to open your eyes real wide or sit up straight again i want to keep that alertness as part of this one of the ways our buddha nature are to talk to the karma gets obscured is just sleepiness unconsciousness so we want to stay nice and bright crisp and alert even while being tremendously relaxed and at ease sometimes this form of meditation is compared to a king or a queen just lounging there's this sense of tremendous confidence and a kind of nobility or regalness tremendous alertness but it's this sense of relaxed power relaxed nobility just resting in the regalness of the buddha nature okay good now into this wide open vast spacious awareness i want you to allow a sense of meta to arise a sense of beauty and kindness and love just allow that to arise let mental images of love and kindness come up mental talk of love and kindness maybe body sensations of emotion of joy of beauty in this case it can be meta or it can also just be feelings of pleasure feelings of ease and really allow these to arise these thoughts and feelings of pleasure and beauty and joy but without getting involved this is the this is the interesting part these thoughts and feelings of pleasure and beauty arise in awareness they appear in awareness but you're not getting caught into them and if you do get caught up in them just relax like you've been doing just drop back out and just notice them allow awareness to effortlessly be aware of them without being caught up foreign so you're feeling feelings of joy ease pleasure maybe kindness and a sense of real contentment sense like of real fulfillment and just notice the thoughts and feelings of that and again do not get caught up in them and if you do get caught up in them just allow yourself to relax back out of that as soon as you notice so awareness is aware of these thoughts and feelings and yet not sucked up into them okay good now let go of those thoughts and feelings and just come back for a moment to resting at ease in the natural mind just dropping the ball not noticing thoughts and feelings at all okay good next within this wide-open vast space of awareness allow to arise thoughts of ego thoughts of dominating dominating other people or beings being in charge feelings of striving to get power feelings of jealousy and wanting to have what others have feelings like you get when you're going to fight it out on the internet with someone who's wrong or you disagree with and you're going to prove you're right and notice if already you're caught up in those thoughts and feelings and what i want you to do is just relax back and just allow those thoughts and feelings of striving and of jealousy and of aggression and power just allow those to arise within awareness but without becoming caught up in it and each time you do become caught up in it just dropping back out to awareness aware of these thoughts and feelings you you okay good now let go of this jealous power-hungry intensity and just come back to resting in the natural mind resting in vast spacious awareness for a little while okay next into this wide open space of awareness notice a sense of seeking comfort avoiding anything uncomfortable and just kind of that those thoughts and feelings of just kind of wanting to wrap yourself up in a warm blanket or cuddle up on the couch and just eat a bunch of food and drink a bunch of wine or you know something that really is kind of soothing and and just like vegging out on some kind of totally mindless tv and just this kind of ignorant comfort avoidance of anything difficult or painful and just bring up thoughts of doing that and [Music] emotions around doing that that kind of oh it's so cozy and i just kind of want the world to go away and i just sort of want to shut everything off and sort of go to sleep almost and just notice that arising in awareness those thoughts and feelings again not getting caught up in them that if you do get caught up in them pulling yourself back up but still being with them noticing them allowing them to arise and really feeling them good now let go of that and just drop back into the natural mind uninvolved with anything open and bright and clear foreign good next bring up feelings of frustration feelings of not being able to get what you want feelings of unfulfilled desires feelings of needing stuff so badly that you can't get almost like the feeling as if you were hungry and there's a bunch of food on the other side of a plate glass window and you can't get through the window and you just can never ever get the food so anything like that anything that you're frustrated by desires that can't be fulfilled that real sense of neediness and hunger and it's never ever ever enough never ever ever satisfied there's no support and there's no help and everything's wrong just bring up those sorts of feelings thoughts and feelings allow them to arise in awareness and remain [Music] uninvolved you good now let go of that and just relax back into vast spacious awareness feeling relief feeling ease and openness you next i want you to bring up thoughts of rage of anger even of hate and really feel rage anger hate and imagine you're like i don't know you you just had a fight with someone you're really mad you're outside it's freezing cold you can't get you can't get warm your body's really uncomfortable or um you're outside and it's tremendously hot like a night that is just humid and hot you can't physically get comfortable and you're just in inner lead soaking in rage hate anger upset and just bring up these thoughts and feelings and at the same time do not get caught up in them allow them to just simply shine in awareness thoughts and feelings arising in awareness without you becoming involved and if you do become involved you simply relax and let go you you okay good now let go of that discomfort and that rage and that hatred i'm sure it feels good to let go of and just relax back into bass spacious awareness letting go of everything allowing the mind to be easeful and open do good now let's do some meta so just allow awareness to drop into the heart and allow the heart to glow with feelings of kindness feelings of caring feelings of compassion feelings of gratitude feelings of generosity and so on and again we're allowing these to be very large very powerful feelings but without getting involved we're just allowing them to arise in awareness you continuing to just allow thoughts of kindness and caring and joy and gratitude to arise and feeling those emotions and again just allowing them to be in awareness you're not getting up inside them you don't have to believe them you don't have to become them they're simply activities and awareness in this case beautiful activities and awareness of love kindness sweetness joy and so on so now just dissolve back allow everything to dissolve utterly vanish and just dwell in vast spacious awareness for just a moment you okay good let's end the meditation there allow yourself to very very very slowly begin to move and stretch maybe orient yourself to the room around you hope your eyes have been closed don't stand up fast because maybe your feet are asleep now the first parts of that meditation were very typical of what we do on these guided meditations right there was we did some bodhichitta or a rousing bodhichitta where we tune into our already existing buddha nature and the fact of our confidence and our clarity and our wisdom that is already present and then we did shamatha with an object so focusing on something and then show it to without an object where we don't focus at all right so we always almost always not every time but almost always go through that sequence for the first half hour but then the second half hour we did something unusual now often i do have you in the second half hour um bring up thoughts and feelings right and this is this is vipassana i'm saying it in the sanskrit way instead of the pali way so paliway's vapasana right but in sanskrit we call it same word same meaning just different language and in vipassana we are allowing things to arise in awareness and we're in certain ways examining those things right that's the meaning of the pashno one of the meanings is like not seeing clearly or kind of examining so we do that a lot in the second part we don't want to just do the resting in vast spacious awareness or the dropping the ball all the time as our only meditation instead we use that you know to to stabilize our um our concentration on just awareness itself to just drop into this natural mind and kind of feel that openness and relaxed clarity and from there then we do something that does require a little effort or that does require it's a different kind of um intention or a different kind of activity where we're allowing now ourselves to notice thought and feeling which we were not doing in dropping the ball right we weren't going with thought and feeling now we're allowing them to arise and you know feeling and seeing them clearly but in an uninvolved way we're not getting caught up in them and in that way we're allowing awareness to just notice what it's like to to experience thought and feeling so this is our vipassana segment and we often do one of those but tonight we did a special version um based on the uh realms of being right which is buddhist cosmology in buddhist cosmology you know samsara the wheel of life has six possible spots where we get reborn and maybe you've seen one of these images before it's like there's the big god of death holding you know the wheel of samsara that circles the wheel and then inside the circle you see six different spots there's six spots inside the wheel and those are the six realms and we just went through those six realms um in our contacting of thought and feeling so the first one we did was the heaven realm the realm of like angels and gods and remember in buddhism you get reborn over and over and over so you can go to heaven you can go to hell or whatever but you're not there permanently you're just there for a while and then you get reborn somewhere else so we started out in the hell realm which was like pleasant easy joyful okay and it said that the heaven realm is of course very nice and you go there because of good karma but interestingly you can't get enlightened there because it's so pleasant that um you're not you don't care about the suffering of others you're not feeling compassionate you're just kind of dealing with your own pleasure and again we're taking these not as real cosmological um existent realms we're examining this psychologically how we can how in our own experience in this life in a human birth we can sometimes be lost in our own pleasure our own joy and sort of tune out the fact that the world is on fire and people are suffering right and uh so we tune in in this meditation to what it's like to be in metaphorically in this heaven realm state and and we allow that to arise in awareness and notice it and then come back out of it right into just dropping the ball into vast spacious awareness then the next one we went into was the it's a in sanskrit they're called asuras or in english they're called jealous gods so this is like sometimes they're called the titans like the greek anti-gods so the the devas who are the regular gods and the titans sort of the anti-gods fight and so in buddhist cosmology the anti-gods or asuras are jealous and they're power-hungry and all they can think about is kind of like who they can dominate and so when we're in that realm we bring that up we bring up our our sense of egoic aggression and domination and wanting to be in charge and oppressing all those kinds of feelings again allowing those to come up and then seeing if we can just be in open awareness with those we're not trying to get rid of them but rather we're trying to have a relationship with them that where we're not caught up then we go back into bass vicious awareness and the next realm we went into is the animal realm and that's the realm of just kind of kind of wanting to eat some food and drink a drink and curl up on the couch and veg out that's considered to be the animal realm it's supposed to be kind of an ignorance realm and notice how i don't know it's really attractive right we we like those creature comforts that notice even in english they're called creature which means animal comforts right and there's a way that it's very cozy but it's also sleepy it puts you to sleep and so it's very fascinating to tune into the animal realm uh animal realm in buddhism is considered to be um a hell realm because you have to eat other animals and you have to you know live under water or whatever they they're they have a kind of negative view of the animal room but in terms of psychologically that that feeling of just wanting it all to go away and wanting to go to sleep that's and just eat some food and go to sleep that's that's this animal realm so it's interesting to tune into then the next one we went into is the hungry ghosts the realm of the hungry ghosts hungry ghosts are described as beings that are intensely frustrated they're starving and they can't eat they need all kinds of stuff and they can't get it if you've ever watched um pirates of the caribbean you know uh you've got all the the pirates of the caribbean ghosts and they have this great scene where they're all you know skeletons and they've got this huge feast of all these like turkeys and you know like incredibly delicious food and all this wine and they eat the food and drink the wine and it drops through their skeleton there's no satisfaction at all they can't eat it so they're just miserable right that's the idea of a hungry ghost and [Music] again if we encounter this psychologically we see that our culture is very good at creating hungry ghosts we create people who cannot find any kind of satisfaction if you um tic not han the [Music] vietnamese and teacher very amazing zen teacher says that western culture creates hungry ghosts people who have the psychology of a hungry ghoster just need need and nothing no matter how many things we buy no matter how much we consume no matter how much cars we have or houses we get or whatever clothes we just keep getting getting getting and nothing satisfies right so that's that feeling of being a hungry ghost so tuning into that and just allowing that to come up and seeing what that's like is really powerful um and then after that we did the next round which is just hell and again remember in buddhism any of these realms you get um [Music] you get born into them but then you die out of them also it's not like christian hell where you're there forever but it still sucks i mean it's um uh beings in hell in buddhist hell anyway are angry and they're filled with hate and rage and they're always either just like in dante they're always either um freezing cold so super uncomfortable or so hot it's terribly uncomfortable and so they're burning up with rage and they're either freezing or hot it's really really shitty to be in buddhist health but all of us go there you know whenever we get caught up in our anger caught up in our rage caught up in in a situation where we're just uncomfortable and that's our buddhist hell realm and so when we notice that again we meditate on that we um allow those thoughts and feelings to er the feelings to arise but then just notice them in awareness have a total clarity about their arising each of these states has its its difficulty but if we see it with if we allow it to arise in awareness is aware of the state in its depth each of these states has a gift each of these states has a kind of transmute it almost like transmutes into an awakening and that's what we're doing the final state we did was the human being state and in that state we did meta that's when we were doing kindness compassion in buddhist cosmology the human realm is the only place you can get enlightened all the other realms all you can do is live out your life in that realm until you die in all of the other five realms the beings just want to become humans they want to be reborn as humans because as a human being you can hear the dharma and then do your meditation and get enlightened and get off the wheel get out of samsara yeah which is the goal of buddhist meditation to be released from this cosmo cosmological cycle so it does buddhism does have a soteriological dimension right a dimension of liberation of being saved but in the way that we're working with it each of these different states each of these different realms represents a psychological state and being with it with awareness is the liberation in that moment right so this this the soteriological element is in the moment that we see that the anger when met with awareness just becomes a kind of clarity right we see that each of these realms has a kind of liberated quality available to it not by somehow getting rid of the emotion but by being with the emotion fully and total so when we're d when we're using these six realms as kind of a psychological description and we're stepping into the thoughts and into the feelings with awareness not not merging with them but stepping into it we're not meaning we're not denying or getting rid of them when we greet them like that with awareness openness non-fixation [Music] right then the the liberation from samsara happens in that moment in each moment right so it's very powerful way to work my friend the buddhist teacher kenneth folk is very very into this way of of working this psychological way of working with the the six realms and it's compelling it's a powerful powerful mental model okay so let's look at questions here for just a little while um starting with someone named mr cashy 84. the late robber beer talks about perception being dependent on clinging would resting in vast spacious awareness cause perception of phenomena to fade and lead to cessation of perception it can it definitely can rob i think is correct that if there's absolute non-clinging then cessation occurs um even having sight arise at all even having uh hearing arise at all depends on a little tiny bit of fabrication a little tiny bit of fabrication depends on a little tiny bit of clinging the interesting thing is um you know if we are well it's that's a whole discussion i'll talk about another time but what i will say is resting in vast spacious awareness uh is one way to begin to go in that direction to really go in that direction if you're trying to use it for a cessation you would want to really start digging into going further than just resting and start again as i said in the vipassana section you would be doing vipassana on emptiness but pasta on emptiness for pasta and emptiness which we do sometimes if you go back some of the meditations that i've led on youtube do that so check that out keerglow after allowing feelings and thoughts of love i felt a lot more expanded and spacious yeah you know um love is the opposite of boundaries right i mean i don't mean that psychologically i mean in meditation that kind of opening uh is is a kind of dropping of boundaries and so it can feel really really expensive angela while dropping the ball i regularly feel sensations of pressure in the front and sides of my head um i don't know you know but what i would say is that possibly there's a kind of um [Music] tension in what you're doing right you're actually trying a little bit there or you're trying to hold your eyes in a certain way or you're trying to hold a stance remember that all we're doing is relaxing it's effortless so we're relaxing so either there's some tension in how you're doing it or actually there's some mild psychological material trying to come up and so the emotion is causing a little bit of tension it's hard to know without asking you a bunch of questions but i will say this look into that during the vipassana phase so after dropping the ball when we're examining examine that pressure sensation in the front and sides of your head allow it to arise in awareness and really notice it and be with it that you'll learn something okay um mr cashy is back with another question would dropping the ball practice be conducive to the formless jhanas into the realm of nothingness they're kind of different practices but they do really help each other right if you do um particularly john five and six relate to dropping the ball um okay tanya what was kenneth's last what was kenneth's last name folk like with an f as in fox kind of folk um during the meditation sometimes there seems to be moments of no thoughts but also no clarity can you say more about the clarity aspect since we're not concentrating on anything when we're doing drop the dropping the ball section sometimes it's hard to notice the clarity because usually the clarity is indicated by the clarity of the objects so you know you're looking at an apple and because you're seeing this apple with more and more detail and the colors more and more bright and all that the clarity aspect becomes very obvious when we're doing dropping the ball the clarity aspect is just it's a it's a kind of like the clarity of awareness itself okay awareness itself when awareness is resting in awareness it feels uh very vivid and clear but it's not vivid and clear about anything in particular and if it's not feeling that way then you're getting just probably a little bit dull like a little bit sleepy so we want to bring back up that sense of of brightness and alertness eric says vast awareness while it can be felt as compassionate and kind at the same time as fundamentally empty how to be able to experience it without at the same time turning it into a thing or a concept um i mean what i want to say is well don't turn it into a thing or a concept um not having it not be a thing having it not be a concept is the emptiness right and so um if you're really having a hard time noticing the compassion because somehow the emptiness is getting in the way just stick with the emptiness make sure you have a strong sense of emptiness remember that emptiness in english in buddhist english does not mean there's nothing there it means the things that are there are fabricated right they are they are made and so um be have a real sense of that emptiness and then allow the compassion to come up and the compassion is empty too right but that doesn't mean it it's it's insignificant it just means it's empty even the awareness is empty even the emptiness is empty right so we just allow ourselves to [Music] get better and better at noticing the emptiness and then once we do that we start bringing back in the form elements right because just emptiness alone is not enough we need emptiness combined with form and then we start seeing that the form is not different than the emptiness emptiness is not different than the form so eventually there's we see both at the same time eli asks in dropping the ball practice the instruction is when you notice the mind fixating on one thing then you drop the ball and let the mind relax who or what is the you that is doing the practice um look you know that's an inquiry question so um i would just say there is no you doing the practice the practice is just happening but if you if it feels like you really need a who or what to be doing the practice then um after you're done dropping the ball do that for like 15 minutes and then you're like okay i'm going to do an inquiry practice and i'm going to inquire i'm going to look what is doing practicing now and just look and look really carefully so it's a deep question see if you can find the answer christine is confused by why conjuring up emotions would fall under vapasana because otherwise we're sitting there with nothing it's true that if if thoughts and feelings are already arising then when we do the vipassana we can just be with thoughts and feelings that are arising but in vajrayana there's nothing wrong with conjuring them on purpose this is not burmese vapasana this is vajrayana it's the pashana so the rules are a little different so it's don't be confused it's just that's one of the ways that vapasana is different than the pashana we're talking about two different strands of buddhism so these are just little details of how practice is done not you know something to be concerned about just know which one you're doing right now and do do it the way that particular practice is done hi ari ari says often times when dropping the ball my thoughts will still be there but sound mushy and not like words um is that because i'm tired or does that tend to happen um well it it it could be either you know um but probably it's because um when we're not fixated and driven we're not pushing the thoughts to this kind of clarity and i don't mean clarity of seeing them i mean the thoughts themselves coming into more focus as thoughts we're not giving them that much energy and so they're staying a little less formed okay so uh let's let go of the questions now and we'll move into the um generosity portion of the program um in the generosity in the generosity portion of the program um i just encourage you to feel feelings of generosity and of course this means any kind of generosity generosity of heart generosity of helping generosity of caring for others generosity of giving of yourself to others doing kind things any kind of generosity is an aspect of bodhisattva we want to be generous and to express our generosity so right now notice your own generosity as part of that generosity san francisco dharma collective and myself provide these meditations free to the world we provide these guided meditations online for free to anyone who wants to see them right that's the dharma we're just putting it out there out of a real spirit of generosity and at the same time um one of the ways that generosity can be expressed is uh with money and so if you are both feeling very generous and you feel like giving money and you have a lot of money to give feel free to donate uh to san francisco dharma collective and myself to help make these meditations available for free to the whole world right and if you don't have that kind of cash laying around or you want to give some other kind of generosity to the world the generosity of your wonderful smile hidden beneath the mask or whatever or a smiley god zoom go ahead and do that right it's all good it's all good um katie of san francisco dharma collective has put the link for donations in the in the chat window so if you're feeling generous in that way go ahead and do that um as always i love seeing you guys here we're gonna have a big night saturday night saturday night is halloween saturday night is a full moon saturday night is um saturday and so we're gonna do death sangha uh with these big three things happening all at once we're going to do a three-hour death sangha from 7 p.m to 10 p.m pacific time we're going to not do it on youtube we're going to do it on san francisco dharma collective zoom channel so this is a big deal if you're going to come be prepared to participate on zoom i'm going to ask you to say stuff i want you to wear death makeup a death mask or skull makeup or i'm going to do a corpse makeup but you got to be made up don't show up unless you've got a mask and makeup and don't show up unless you're ready to participate okay but it's going to be a blast um we're going to do some really powerful really intense really gruesome buddhist death meditation i'm super stoked and i've heard through the grapevine that we might even get a visit um from the queen of hell so that could be very fascinating so join me saturday night join us all on san francisco dharma collective zoom for death sangha and i'll look forward to that that's going to be a big fun thing especially before this super wild crazy election in the states all right everybody thank you so much so good to see you and i'll see you on saturday night and also back here on youtube next thursday night all right everybody be well oh wait you have to see my t-shirt just a minute i love this t-shirt it'll all work out in the end that's my message for you tonight it'll all work out in the end all right everybody bye bye

Channel: Michael Taft

Views: 1,514

Keywords: meditation, buddhism, dharma, nondual, mahayana, vajrayana, zen, dzogchen

Id: dtCYQVuHGyo

Length: 91min 22sec (5482 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 30 2020