April 3, 2010 Saturday Afternoon, Open Circle Group, Berkeley
Discussion on Working with Vipassana and Pure Awareness Practice
Keywords: vipassana, pure awareness, grace, lokuttara citta, Unconditioned
Aaron: This is Saturday afternoon and we’re gathered in a circle here for some discussion. We began after a short lunch break with the vipassana practitioners, and others have joined the circle as they returned from lunch. I have just started the recorder, ½ hour into our discussion. Right now a personal question I’m answering about practice, from a student I know well…
My sense, J, as I look at your practice: one moves into a space with vipassana where one is aware of arising, how everything is arising out of conditions; there’s a sense of wonder to it. Then one begins to see how everything that arises, dissolves, and there’s fear and dismay, “I can’t hold on to anything.” Eventually as the self dissolves from that picture there’s increasing equanimity with arising and dissolution. You have experienced that equanimity, you understand what I’m saying.
Then there are – this is from the traditional, they’re called knowledges, from the bookVisuddhi Magga– the progression of insights.Visuddhi Magganot the scriptures themselves but a commentary on the scriptures. The next knowledge after equanimity with arising and dissolution is what’s called change of lineage knowledge, which is a fancy way of saying, “The Unconditioned isn’t here, I’m just experiencing the play of conditions. Where is the Unconditioned?” Asking that, one is ready to look elsewhere but in the conditioned realm for what one seeks.
At that point, the lokuttara citta become accessible. These are the citta capable of perceiving the unconditioned. They’ve always been accessible. It’s like sitting with your back to the window and saying, “What happened to the light? Where did it go? I’m sure it was here somewhere. Ah, there it is. It’s always been there.”
As the lokuttara citta become more accessible you become increasingly aware of the ground and the expressions of the ground into the conditioned realm, and that everything that’s expressing in the conditioned realm is non-dual, all inter-related, expressing out of that same ground. Then the sense of separation falls away. The sense of a separate self falls away. You’ve had those kinds of experiences too.
The next step is a harder one…
Q:It’s not integrated yet.
Aaron: Not yet, but coming. What I see is you come to this place frequently where there’s equanimity with arising and dissolution. The lokuttara citta are open. You’re resting in awareness and you mistake the experience of awareness itself as the Unconditioned. This is because of you extensive training with resting in awareness, and it’s not a problem, is helpful actually, just not far enough. To go further is to go completely into the disintegration of body and self without losing mindfulness.
The value of merging vipassana practice and pure awareness practice is that mindfulness becomes strong and steady. Then when awareness touches the Unconditioned, instead of just finding a resting space, mindfulness accompanies awareness into that space and is able to look around in that space and allow that space to be fully revealed. Let’s call that space now the Unconditioned, the heart of the Unconditioned itself, not just the expressions of the Unconditioned, not just spaciousness or peacefulness or light, but the heart of the Unconditioned reveals itself and dharma reveals itself.
Dharma will reveal itself in whatever language is familiar to you. It may not reveal itself in Buddhist terms. If you’re a Christian it will reveal itself in Christian terms. But the truths of the way things are reveals itself in that space.
So yes, I think that the deepening of your vipassana practice is the most important for you right now because I’d like to see you come to that space in a deeper way and go through it, not stop just into the doorway.
When you come to that space it’s like being at the top of a cliff and suddenly somebody says, “Jump!” What’s out there? Will I annihilate myself? Because until that time, conditioned consciousness has accompanied you to some extent but suddenly the whole body and ego are dissolving and there’s nobody left. Then there’s just awareness. It’s not my awareness anymore. But mindful awareness is able to watch everything including the conditioned human with kindness.
(the following series of questions are from L-M)
Q:Did you say that there’s a difference between pure awareness and the Unconditioned ?
Aaron: Yes, there’s a difference. Pure awareness is the citta or consciousness that’s able to take the Unconditioned as an object. Just like there’s a difference between hearing consciousness and sound. With a sense organ, sound and contact, hearing consciousness arises. The sense organ touches a sound; it touches an object. Awareness is simply a form of consciousness.
Read some Abhidhamma. This goes into it in great detail. A very specific part of it talks about consciousness; mundane and supramundane consciousness. Pure awareness is simply supramundane consciousness and it needs an object. The object is the Unconditioned. But once there is contact, there must also be mindfulness.
So one difficulty with some kinds of practice is it leads you to a stable resting in pure awareness without pointing you directly at the Unconditioned and without mindfulness. The pure awareness in itself, the experience of resting in pure awareness, becomes a plateau and people mistake the plateau for the Unconditioned.
Q:In the experience of resting in what I call pure awareness, it doesn’t seem like there’s anything beyond that.
Aaron: That’s where the vipassana practice becomes useful. Then the vipassana practice is a tool to take you deeper. Barbara was talking about this in the Venture Fourth group.
Resting in pure awareness, one rests in this vast spaciousness, ease, peace, joy. The ease and peace and joy are not the awareness, they are the result of resting in that spaciousness. But you’re sitting outside the Unconditioned looking in, in a sense.
The most pronounced difference, perhaps, is that in that space, resting in awareness, there is still the possibility of objects arising and dissolving. Awareness holds those objects. There’s no reaction to the objects; they’re seen as arising and disappearing. There’s ease; there’s happiness; there’s space.
That becomes a plateau. When you take this back, then, to the vipassana practice – and this is specifically what Barbara spoke about at Venture Fourth, in relation to the experience she had on a self-retreat probably 2 decades ago, sitting outside doing pure awareness practice all day and coming into the meditation hall, and how strong luminosity was when she came in and shifted to vipassana practice. – she said that that luminosity became the primary object, just sitting, eyes closed, aware of that radiance. It took her directly through what we just spoke of to J, objects arising, objects passing away, equanimity. And then through that, the lokuttara citta open. The lokuttara citta are open in awareness but there’s no mindfulness.
This next step needs mindfulness. One brings mindfulness to the happiness, the contentedness, the ease and spaciousness. They’re also seen as objects dissolving and passing away. And then it brings you through to the experience of cessation of arising and dissolution. It’s not equanimity with; it’s total cessation of arising and dissolution. Then if mindfulness is strong, it’s able to be within that experience of cessation and observe the characteristics of it.
In pure awareness this emptiness seems to be nothing, but when you go directly into the Unconditioned you feel the somethingness of it, But it’s not a thing-ness; it’s an empty energy, light, vibration. It’s rich, it’s full. It’s not a void, it’s everything. But in that everything, nothing is arising and dissolving because it’s all there. How could it arise and dissolve? What is there beyond this, that could possibly arise or dissolve? It is complete.
Q:Most of the time when I’m not sitting in meditation, I experience what I call pure awareness. It has a presence to it, and simultaneously objects arising and falling like thoughts, feelings, sensations. Simultaneous; I can experience both at the same time.
When I sit in meditation sometimes it’s only awareness, pure peace, pure bliss, no objects. But in everyday life I have both.
Aaron: Precisely, and it’s at that time that I would like you then to just shut your eyes and move into vipassana practice and experience whatever is predominant, perhaps the spaciousness, to use that as the primary object with the vipassana practice. There is full presence with the primary object – present with spaciousness, present with sound or whatever may come– and very quickly arising and dissolution and equanimity with arising and dissolution will come. And then this shift, taking pure awareness deeper so that it directly perceives the Unconditioned.
Right now you’re seeing the Unconditioned, like seeing the reflection of the moon on the water and the lake is so still that it seems like it’s the perfect moon, but you’re still seeing the reflection of the moon, not the moon. Or sitting in the sunlight you feel the warmth of the sun. We would say yes, you’re sitting in the sun. It’s hot, you feel it but you’re not yet in the heart of the sun. So the next step is to take you right into the heart of it. Don’t stop where you are.
Q:Okay I am totally confused. Are you saying that the reflection is the qualities of the pure awareness, like presence, peace, silence, and I’m taking that to be the Unconditioned?
Aaron: Yes, in a sense that is accurate, taking the qualities perceived by Awareness as the Unconditioned, but I think I used a confusing image and I apologize. I think the image of the sun is clearer than the moon image. You feel the direct heat of the sun, you see the light and shadow of the sun but you’re not yet in the heart of the sun. So you don’t want to stop there just with the sun’s warmth and light, you want to go into the heart of it. With the image of the moon and the water, there is some distortion because the reflection is not the moon. Perhaps a better image is opening a window, looking outside at a beautiful view that’s at the end of a long hallway. You can see it, you see glimpses of it, but what you might do is walk down the hallway and outside into it.
Resting in pure awareness is like sitting inside looking at the doorway at the end of the hall. You see out the door but you’re not yet in that space. The full experience of the Unconditioned takes you into that space directly.
Q:You can see into my experience, but you’re saying I’m meditating in pure awareness but not in the Unconditioned, is that correct?
Aaron: That’s correct. You are touching the Unconditioned. You are sitting inside with the long hallway looking out. But you’ve got to get up and go down the hallway and out the door. And that’s where the vipassana experience can take you. Resting in pure awareness is just resting in pure awareness. Awareness is a citta, it needs an object. The Unconditioned is the object. What is this object? What is the direct experience of the Unconditioned?
Q:My root teacher taught me that the primary practice is to rest in awareness and the movement beyond that, beyond duality, conditions, comes by grace.
Aaron: Let me put it in this way. I agree it comes by grace. Yet it also comes by intention. The intention invites the grace. The grace will come in its own time. But if there’s not the intention, if you’re just sitting there and saying, “Ah, the view is lovely,” there’s not the intention to find one’s legs to walk down the hallway and out the door. So one has to proceed, without grasping. If there’s grasping that says, “Iwant to experience the Unconditioned,” that just backs you up into a further back room. But when there’s awareness, perceiving the Unconditioned in the distance, and yet not resting fully in the Unconditioned, awareness is self-aware, self-cognizant, aware of itself, aware of that shimmer of the Unconditioned on the horizon, out the door.
Then various kinds of spiritual work will help you, I won’t even say walk so much as just glide down the hallway. It’s an effortless effort. There’s no self to it, there’s just that smooth progression.
So, many practices come into play here such as simply, tonglen for example, replacing self and other, opening the heart deeply. The kind of work we’ve been doing in Venture Fourth where we’ve been looking deeply at various habitual patterns, seeing something like humility that we worked with in the beginning and how it’s neither false pride nor false self-effacement but finding that place in the middle, empty of self. Patience, not somebody being patient, not hatred of one’s patterns of impatience, but finding the innate patience. One does all this work with sila, with opening the heart. This is the way we support the arising of grace, or invite it. So yes, it’s grace, but also the grace comes because of the willingness to do the work.
Have I confused you further?
Q:Yes.
Aaron: A little confusion never hurt anyone! Simply note it. Open your heart to it. Total confusion is simply total confusion. What is this mind that wants to know? It wants certainty.
You are on a clear path; trust yourself. You’re doing fine. If I were you I would spend some time looking at doubt as an object and seeing how it’s simply arising out of conditions, and not be so self-identified with it. It is just doubt; doubt of the path, doubt of the self, doubt of the capacity for awakening.
New Q: My Buddhist teacher taught that by experiencing pure awareness alternating with mundane experience, this was like dyeing cloth the old-fashioned way. You hang the cloth in the sun and it fades but then you keep dyeing it, in this case by exposing the mind to pure consciousness and eventually it sticks even during activity. So in other words it stabilizes the experience of pure consciousness while acting in the relative realm.
Aaron: That sounds very accurate.
Q:It seems as though you’re saying that some additional effort of practice of vipassana or some kind of mindfulness is required to stabilize the pure consciousness.
Aaron: It’s not needed to help stabilize to pure awareness. It’s needed to help pure awareness break through into the object of the Unconditioned. It is as you have said, “alternating pure awareness with mundane experience.” But there must be profound mindfulness so as not to become lost in the mundane experiences. This is the function of vipassana.
It’s a matter of intention more than effort, of aiming. If I want to walk out to that side of the room, I need to face that way, I can’t face this way. I need to hold the intention. If I grasp and say, “I’ve got to get there,” I may stumble on my way to get there so fast.
If I simply hold the loving intention while knowing at another level there’s no place to go, there’s never been any place to go, I’m already there; I merely haven’t yet realized it. If I’m in a process of developing this conditioned human mind, in the process of knowing its true essence and nature, I have to point mind in the direction I want it to go. And I can see what holds me back.
For instance, if there’s a habitual energy toward grasping, grasping at material things, grasping at spiritual attainment, then I can work with that skillfully in a mundane kind of practice, just watching it, seeing how it arises. “Oh, I want that,” grasping, grasping, noting it. That which is aware of grasping is not grasping. Coming back into that spaciousness that’s not grasping, sending kindness to the human that is grasping, gradually the habit energy is purified; the karma is purified. Then I’m not going to be grasping over some kind of attainment so much. The energy is released. This is your dyeing and hanging in the sun.
I keep attending to these places in my life not to become enlightened but simply because I don’t want to grasp and take somebody else’s tea(reaching for a cup of tea). That’s not skillful. So I want to watch it, I want to live with more kindness. We simply start with that intention, to live with more kindness, more compassion, more skill. We aim in that way and then we trust the grace that develops, the whole process of grace, and we trust the innate essence of ourselves that’s already awake, to recognize its awakenedness. That which is awake already knows the Unconditioned.
New Q(J): Isn’t the Unconditioned non-dual with awareness?
Aaron: The Unconditioned is non-dual with awareness; everything in the universe is non-dual. But the awareness is that which takes the Unconditioned as an object. Is hearing consciousness dual with the sound?
Q:No.
Aaron: The hearing consciousness takes sound as an object but they are also non-dual. Awareness takes the Unconditioned as the object; they are also non-dual.
Q:In dzogchen the essence is emptiness, openness.
Aaron: Yes…
Q:Its very nature is awareness. These two are non-dual.
Aaron: Yes. Correct. Spacious, cognizant awareness is the nature of mind. That empty cognizance can know the Unconditioned, which is non-dual with it.
Q:I’m confused. Isn’t the Unconditioned the same as the emptiness?
Aaron: The emptiness is one expression of the Unconditioned. The nature of the Unconditioned is to be empty. If you go through the emptiness– the emptiness, let’s say, is like the surface of the ocean and you want to dive down a hundred yards. When you touch the emptiness you’re just touching the surface of the Unconditioned. All of these expressions of the Unconditioned–emptiness, space, luminosity, nada–these are not the heart of the Unconditioned, they’re expressing out of the Unconditioned. What is that from which they are expressing? Don’t stop at the surface, dive deep.
Q:I invite you to take me all the way.
Aaron: Let’s do it.
Q:Thank you.
Aaron: Begin with knowing that it is possible.
Q:I believe it is.
Aaron: It’s 3:30. We had intended a Q&A period on meditation and this has taken more than the direct subject of vipassana practice, but I think that’s good. Those of you who have not practiced vipassana, I hope we have inspired you. Those who have practiced, I hope you have gained something from the discussion.
Let’s go back to the broader workshop, here. The whole group has now arrived back.
Q:Can I ask one thing? It’s really quick. What are these files you’re talking about?
Aaron: The Akashic records, let’s call it a vast filing cabinet in the sky in which all of your past lives are written. Do you remember before you had computers you had a filing card system in the library? It’s a little bit like that. You look up not your present name but your essence and you find all the various lifetimes and the various details, and you can see the karma, how the karmic threads of one lifetime have led to the conditions that brought forth the next lifetime, and what the predominant streams of karma have been. What has been released – that thread has faded away and gone – and what still exists and is asking to be attended to? The term akashic records relates to the word “akasha” or ether, which is one of the elements.
Q:Can I google that?
Aaron: You can google Akashic records! I don’t think you’ll be able to google yourself in the Akashic records! Meditation is a better route.
Q:Yesterday we talked about the equanimity, that that’s stabilized and the quality of the plateau. So in a way it’s pure consciousness or pure awareness taking seat everywhere, and that’s being accomplished by, for instance, vipassana. Pure awareness is kind of leaning, going through the door and taking seat everywhere so there is no separation.
Aaron: Yes, that is a clear phrasing . Again, pure awareness is the citta, the consciousness that perceives non-duality. It is not non-duality itself. It’s the doorway. Non-duality is one expression of the Unconditioned. One begins to experience how everything is arising from conditions and passing away, inter-related. Right here, this wood stage, this is a tree, and if it’s a tree it’s a cloud, the sunshine, the earth. We’re sitting right here in a cloud.
Nothing is separate. Vipassana takes you to a direct experience of that non-separation. Resting in pure awareness–I’m trying to take this into experience, not just speak conceptually… Resting in pure awarenesscan, doesn’t always, but if there is mindfulness that’s able to focus the pure awareness, if the light of awareness focused on non-duality, then it can perceive non-duality.
Pure awareness can perceive the expressions of the Unconditioned. It can perceive luminosity everywhere; it can perceive spaciousness, the energy, such as the qi gong energy. It can experience the true experience of everything breaking up and coming together in the conditioned realm, everything non-dual. But it’s still not going all the way into the ground.
What goes into that ground is something that relates to pure awareness but it’s a directed pure awareness. Here is where the vipassana and dzogchen or pure awareness practice come together. The vipassana gives you the training to stay with an object with mindfulness and to direct mindfulness. Pure awareness gives you the ability to rest stably in that big mind. To break through into the Unconditioned and know the Unconditioned, they need to come together. As L-M pointed out, at a certain point you do not make it happen anymore, you get out of the way of it happening. The ego gets out of the way. Grace, love, all of this opens and comes together and takes you through the doorway.
What is the experience of the Unconditioned I’m talking about? It’s this complete cessation experience, the cessation of all arising and dissolution, and the profound peace in that experience, and there is a knowing that it’s not, how shall we say it, it’s not a voidness but contains everything. It’s the seed before the seed. If everything is arising out of conditions, there has to be a seed out of which that everything arises. And before the seed, what is there?
Since the Unconditioned realm does not arise and cease, that seed, that ground, that essence of everything is what you find when you come into the Unconditioned and that’s why there’s such joy in the experience; it’s such a sense of fullness and completion.
How many of you are finding this discussion helpful? How many of you are not finding it so helpful? is it outside of your immediate field of experience because you have not practiced these meditations? Okay. I think it would be better at this point to stop and bring it back so it’s relevant to everyone…
If we don’t have to be out of here promptly at 5 I’m willing to pick up this discussion at 5 for another 20 minutes, or half and hour. Not longer than that but for ½ hour. I don’t know if this place must be closed or if we must leave promptly.
Q:It seemed like the majority of the people raised their hand that it’s useful, right?
Aaron: Yes, but I still want to return now to the main stream of the workshop. I want to invite all of you to come to Michigan to our June retreat. We have a one week retreat… (details) It’s a silent vipassana retreat, a chance to deepen your vipassana practice. But we also have unstructured afternoon time, with people doing their own practice and an option to gather in a circle like this and have just the kind of discussion we’ve been having. So there’s an hour and a half discussion period each day that’s optional for anybody that wants to sit in on that kind of discussion. And of course dharma talks at night sometimes get into the same topics. Instruction periods for senior practitioners will get into the same topics. So anybody who’s interested in this simply look on the Deep Spring website or Barbara can give you information. That’s the best I can offer you; a chance to spend a week with this.
Let’s bring this back now to where we were before lunch.
You all need to become awakened and graduate from this physical existence so that you’re telepathic and we can talk to each other from our minds and dispense with the microphones!
We practice with relative reality, with the experiences of the mind and body, especially the challenging ones such as body pain, difficult emotions. We practice in ways that release the self-identification with those experiences, to find more spaciousness with them, and increase the ability to respond with kindness and with wisdom. You have to learn to live in that way in this conditioned world. If you only wanted experiences that transcended the challenges of mind and body, you would not have incarnated. At some level you knew what you were getting into and you invited it for a reason. It’s your teacher.
We approach those experiences with kindness and with wisdom including the wisdom of the Unconditioned, the wisdom of non-duality, that which knows that, using anger as example, right there with anger is that which is not angry. Not knowing as concept but learning through resting in awareness to rest in that spaciousness. It’s not the Unconditioned yet, as we’ve just spoken. It is a doorway. What is that which is not angry? What are its characteristics? This expansiveness; this spaciousness. Often there’s a sense of a lot of light. In the body the Unconditioned is free of contraction, or if not fully free, there is no contraction around any contraction. No self. Contraction is merely an object.
Tense your fists; hold tension. Feeling it, “Contraction, contraction.” Now breathe in with that contraction and then release the contraction of the breath. I want you to feel not just the body contraction but the energy field. It’s the way it felt when you were pushed or pushing and you let go of the sense of a self to it. Nobody was pushing, nobody was being pushed, there was just pressure. The contraction releases slowly from the body but it does release.
Can you feel the difference between the physical contraction which is simply body, and the idea, “I am a contracted self”? Open it; release.
Being human you’re all habituated to the viewpoint of these small minds and body. When I say small I don’t mean that in a derogatory way, simply the individuated human, the individuated consciousness. We can begin to think in the bigger terms, the bigger consciousness.
I want to do an exercise here with you to help you experience that directly. Do we have markers? (pause looking for markers) Perhaps it will be enough. It’s not the way I envisioned it but I will let go of the way I envisioned it.(discussion of how to set up the exercise, people get in groups)
Now we’re going to do this as a 2-step exercise. Each group is going to get an array of markers or crayons. The first time we do it– each group will sit on the floor and encircle the paper… (pause) Each group will begin the first step of the exercise. One person in the group, going around in any order, one person at a time will pick up a marker or pencil and draw one continuous line. It can be like that (demonstrating), it can be a long line or it can spin out. When I say one continuous line, a zigzag line is a continuous line, but without lifting the pen. When they put down their marker or color, whoever wants to go next will pick up a color and draw one continuous line.
In the beginning you’re each going to have a concept. If the first person draws a line that looks like that with blue, he may have in mind the ocean, drawing the sea. What happens when the next person draws an orange zigzag on top? Somebody says, “Oh, well, it can be sails on the sea.” They’ve put something that looks like that, for waves. Somebody else cuts into that by putting an inverted V underneath.
You may keep attaching to an idea, “It could be this or it could be that,“ and then letting go of that idea. I want you to watch the sense of a self that wants to try to direct the group’s drawing, that wants it to be one way or another. Do it slowly with open heart and watch what comes up in you. Watch any move into the separated self.
We’re going to do this in complete silence; you’re not talking within the group. Then after the first drawing, when the group nods and agrees, “We’re finished,” or when I say, “That’s it,” you can talk about the experience.
Then you’re going to take the fresh piece of paper. You’re going to do something almost the same, but before you start you’re going to hold hands and just sit for a minute and feel yourself to be part of this group, part of this circle. The hand that’s drawing is your hand. I want you to see the difference as you merge and become the group, how you shift out of the individuated, “I wanted it this way,” consciousness and into this more connected consciousness, and to see what happens in the drawing as you do this. You’ll be surprised to see that there is a difference in the drawing. At some level you’re picking up each others’ thoughts and experiences, you’re merging and becoming one continuous hand that’s picking out different colors with different arms. You’re thinking with each others’ minds.
Don’t try to start that way, start just as the self, picking up a marker, and then in the second drawing we’ll make the shift. Are there questions?
Q:So the second time we’re holding hands, everybody’s holding hands while the person drawing has one hand free and is drawing the line with that hand?
Aaron: No, I had envisioned dropping the hands when you want to start to draw. But if you want to try holding hands and one person just drops one hand and picks up the marker, that’s fine. It would be an interesting experiment.
Q:It wasn’t clear, that the original thing, you could draw your line anywhere it continues from the last line?
Aaron: No, it’s completely independent. It may continue but it’s completely independent.
Okay… (setting up exercise beginning with counting off by 4s)
Aaron: You have 3 sheets of paper so you can try this 3 times…
(exercise continues for a long time)
Aaron: I am Aaron. I regret we don’t have more time to spend some time sharing your experiences with the exercise. I hope you will share more with each other, I know many of you know each other and come in contact outside of this workshop.
As I watched each group I knew that you all felt the change in consciousness, moving outside of the limited ego self and connecting to the group through that connection of the deeper essence of your being. Let’s call it the awareness mind. We’ve been talking about pure awareness. For some of you it was pure awareness doing the drawing. I’m not going to ask how many of you felt the difference, it’s clear to me that many of you did, perhaps not all and that’s okay. The drawings show the difference.
One of the prime directions of this workshop today was the question, how do we live from that centered space? It is that centered space that knows its non-limitation and it’s only the ego that thinks of itself as limited. Here you had an experience of working within a group from that essence of being. But that same heart essence can express itself out into the world connecting with and co-creating with the world. When you co-create with the world you are unlimited.
That which is co-creating with the world cannot think of itself in terms of, “Oh, I can’t do that,” only “How do we together co-create this?” How do you co-create peace in your world? How do you create abundance in your world? How do you co-create joy in your world? Never from the ego place. The ego place is trying too hard and too caught up in the self to understand what is needed in the bigger picture, figuratively and literally.
But when you looked at this bigger picture on the floor through the eyes of your circle, each of you saw what was needed and picked up on, not conflicting with the energies of the other but merging with an expanding upon.
We’ve covered 2 related areas today. In the morning we talked more about working with meditation, deeper awareness of objects arising and passing away from one’s consciousness, and the texture of that arising object, the texture of mind and how it relates to that arising object and that you do have a choice. Objects can be experienced as painful and with your separation from it or you can open your heart to it.
Whatever arises, if it’s pleasant, know it as pleasant. If it’s unpleasant, know it as unpleasant. And if tension arises around that object and its unpleasantness or pleasantness, know that, and be aware of whether the small self is trying to fix that tension, to control the experience, f or whether the greater self, the pure essence of being, is able to hold whatever emotion or body sensation has arisen in this open heart.
Become increasingly aware of the mind as it jumps into the idea of limitations. Whatever it is you most deeply aspire to, watch the part of you that says confidently, “Yes, we can do that.” Yes we can have peace in the world. Yes we can have end to starvation in the world. Yes I can have a deep experience of awakening. Yes I can open my heart to the person who feels most offensive to me, and truly love that person even if I don’t like them. And watch the part of you that says, “I can’t do that.”
Begin to discern when you are in that small mind, small self, when you are more in the pure awareness mind and spaciousness, and that just because the small mind is present doesn’t mean you have lost the big mind. The big mind is always there. Where did you put it? What blocked your access to it? Just the remembering that you have a choice is often enough to lead you back into the big mind.
So don’t get locked into the small mind with its belief in limitations. That which is aware of fear is not afraid. It is not respectful to the human to deny the experience of fear, hurt, anger or any other experience, and it is equally not respectful to the human to believe you have no choice but to act it out or to suppress it.
Beyond acting out that which is unwholesome or suppressing it is the choice simply to rest in the big mind, to rest in spaciousness, and to observe: whatever has the nature to arise has the nature to cease. And it is not me or mine. I take care of it with love. I watch it pass away and then I rest in what remains. And when another object comes I do the same.
And after awhile you’ll find you stop getting pulled out of this center by these objects that come stomping through. You just smile at them and say, “Ah, so. Here you are. Have tea.” Nothing to fix. Here is where you bring it all together.
There is so much more I could say to you. We could easily spend a second and even a third day together. Right now the clock says 5 o’clock so we need to end. I raised the question earlier whether we could continue that deeper dharma conversation just for a short while or whether we need to be out of the building. I am told we must depart soon but have a little time.
(discussion)
Those who wish to leave, my blessings to you all. Feel free to leave. I’m going to leave the body for a moment so Barbara can say goodbye to you… (pause)
Barbara: Okay… Aaron has said goodbye… (announcements)
Those of you who need to leave now, feel free to do so. I have enjoyed meeting you all. We’re going to just give you 2 minutes to pick up and be on your way out, and then Aaron is going to talk just for 10 or 15 minutes because needs to be cleaned up, to be closed up. So anybody who wants to stay and talk more to Aaron about some of his meditation questions and non-duality questions, we’re happy to address that.
Okay, Aaron is going to come back…
Aaron: I am Aaron. So let us continue…
Q:I have kind of a selfish question. I would be very interested if you could look in the Akashic records and communicate to me.
Signer: Anything in particular?
Q:Everything! (laughter) I don’t have anywhere to go…
Aaron: Do we have until next week? … Icando that, in terms of yes, I am capable. I will not do it. Everybody would want this and we just won’t have time to get into that kind of personal sharing. I also would not do it because it simply feeds the ego to hear everything that’s there. I would share with you what you need to know and you can contact Barbara for a personal meeting, if you wish. You can meet by telephone or ichat, IM, a number of ways we can meet privately. So you can contact Barbara; email her. She will not be home for another 6 weeks or so, much traveling and teaching, but later in the spring she’ll be available for meetings.
Q:One more… There’s a woman who said, “I’m also losing my hearing,” and you mentioned that you’d be willing to email her your book? Could I ask to be able to read that too?
Aaron: This would be up to Barbara, but my personal feeling, when I offered her the new book was there was a very direct reason, immediate in her personal life right now why the material in the book would be helpful to her. She’s trying to learn how to find the balance between not grasping at hearing but inviting hearing. The rest of you can be patient and wait for the book. It will be out in the early spring!
Q:Aaron, where you live is in a different plane from where we are. Can you speak to what life is like there? Are you an individual or a collective? And what is the purpose of existence on your plane?
Aaron: Thank you, B. First, I think of the whole universe in different terms than you do. You have the experience of a physical, an emotional, a mental, and a spirit body. I no longer have a physical body. You are still self-identified with the emotional and mental bodies. I am not thusly identified.
The emotional body is resolved. By that I mean that although joy and sorrow will arise, there’s no anger, there’s no fear, none of those kinds of emotions. I still retain the use of a mental body. It is a tool. There is no self-identity with it. But without the use of the mental body I can’t communicate with you, so I do not choose to move on to that place where the mental body would need to be released.
You call the being who returns to incarnation a bodhisattva, a being that’s enlightened but returns to help others. What you fail to realize is that there are many bodhisattvas on non-physical planes, beings that have the capacity to move on into the full awakening experience–let’s say the drop of water that falls into the ocean and merges with all that is; it doesn’t cease to exist but it no longer has anything that you can identify as that drop of water. It simply merges with the ocean.
When a very highly realized being with a very high vibration and a great purity decides to become that drop of water, to release all separation, of course it raises the vibration of the ocean. In the same way, when a highly realized being moves into that higher density experience and releases the mental body so it’s just pure spirit, pure being, it gives a higher vibration and light to the Ground itself.
The Unconditioned, being unconditioned it cannot be improved, and yet in a certain way it can be supported in its clearer expression. If you have a clear piece of glass and you hide it behind black paper, you cannot see it. If you treat that black paper so it becomes transparent, then the glass is visible.
So those beings that move on are serving in their way, and those beings that choose as I do to stay and be available to you as teachers, guides, angels, whatever you wish to call us, we’re also doing this in service. There are many such beings.
Beings of a lower vibration, beings between incarnations in the bardo state, are still self-identified to some degree with the emotions and the mental body. Beings who have evolved beyond the karmic pull to incarnation are not thusly identified. But those beings between incarnations can also serve in that state.
I am telepathic. You are also telepathic but you have not fully realized that and you don’t allow it. It’s one of the limits you believe in because it’s frightening to you. What if you were fully telepathic in this moment? What if you could read the thoughts of everybody in the room and they could read your thoughts; would that be okay? Have you thought anything in the past few hours that would bring you a little discomfort if everybody knew it?(people laughing and nodding)
So until the emotional body is resolved, and to some degree the mental body, you’re not ready to become telepathic in that way, you’re not ready to release that limit. But for us, for my colleagues, if I may call them that, we’re fully telepathic. And if for a somewhat younger being a negative thought should arise, it simply evokes compassion.
There is what I would call a Brotherhood/Sisterhood of Light. Now, remembering on a basic level we’re all androgynous, you might ask why Brotherhood/Sisterhood? There’s no difference but we still express our energy at one time as male, another time as female. However, I’m not fixed to that form. Let me see how I can do this…
(in a softer feminine voice) Softening my energy and inviting the female essence of me. It’s a deeper expression. I can become Arianna and begin to express as a female energy because I am not inherently male. I am both male and female.
I chose to express as Aaron simply because Aaron was a being I was in a past lifetime who was a wise and loving teacher. Barbara needed something other than just light and a name other than “Hey, you.” Aaron seemed a good identity to express from. I don’t try to replicate Aaron precisely; I only use him as a base model. But that’s not who I am. You could not pronounce my real name. You could not think it. You could not pronounce or think your own real names, but I invite you to look for them, to try to find out more directly who you are.
The beings on my plane, which is a highly positively polarized 6thdensity awareness, that’s what we call it, that’s what I would call it, are beings who are deeply grounded in love and in non-duality. We converse together, we laugh. I even have my version of a cat, which is a small lower density energy that is very attracted to me and loves to rub itself against me. I enjoy its energy. I love it and help it to evolve into a higher density. I don’t consider it a pet; that would be demeaning. I consider it a young soul, no less than I am, simply not as evolved.
I could say more but perhaps that’s enough. We’ll leave room for other questions.
Q:(L-M): In the Tibetan dzogchen teachings such as theSong of the Garuda, they teach that resting in, to use their words, presence, wakefulness or awareness, it’s all you need. There is no mention of, you also need vipassana. (laughter)
Aaron: I cannot dispute that. I have not followed that path to awakening. I’ve said this to you and to a group of you before, that certainly there are fully awakened masters who have awakened through that tradition. I don’t have the skills to teach you that. Let me phrase it differently– at this point I have the skills but I have not moved through that path as a human so my articulation of that path would not be one from my direct experience. If that’s the path you wish to follow, you need to follow it through an awakened master who has followed that path in human experience.
I can show you the path that I have followed in human experience and how it has become integrated for me with the pure awareness teachings, which I also practiced in human experience although I did not awaken in those lifetimes. So I understand this path and this is what I can teach. I am not saying and have never said that the vipassana path is the only path, only that it is a clear and viable path.
I would love at some point to have the opportunity with a group to share a platform and talk about this with someone like Lama Surya Das, someone who is open to my presence. I think we could have a very interesting discussion together and perhaps clarify things for people, because I know at that level there would not be any competitiveness between us, neither of us seeking to be right but only to elucidate.
I see that we’re at 5:20 so we need to stop… Last question, then.
Q:Brief question. I’m wondering if Aaron was to address a group of people who spoke a different language, if Aaron is able to access that language from his past lives, and would he be able to go through Barbara or would he need another medium.
Aaron: While I have a clear knowledge of some languages such as Thai, it is archaic Thai, archaic French, not modern Thai or French. Furthermore, Barbara’s mouth and tongue are not configured to allow me to use the correct accent of those languages. I can only use what this body can handle. For example I was an excellent swordsman in one lifetime but this body could not do that.
We have taught in many other countries, in Japan and France and Mexico, with simultaneous translation, and that seemed to work well. That’s the way I would choose to do it.
My blessings and love to you all. Thank you for sharing yourselves with me today. I hope to have the opportunity to speak with you again this way in the body but if that doesn’t come, please remember that I am never far. If you have a question to ask of me, just ask it. “Aaron, come here! I need you. Can you help me with this?” And then sit quietly in your meditation and listen.
You have enormous wisdom; don’t cut yourself short. When you touch into that wisdom heart, that truly enlightened heart, you know everything you need to know. Let it come forth.
My love to you.