October 16, 2010 Saturday Afternoon Venture Fourth
Access Concentration vs. Pure Awareness
Barbara: We’re sitting outdoors by the lake and the sun is rippling off the water. We’re going to do 15 minutes of dzogchen, a short guided meditation to begin.
Body erect but relaxed. Eyes softly open. Let the mouth be a bit open, the jaw just hanging slack, the tongue resting so it does not touch the teeth or roof of the mouth.
Breathing out a long, gentle, ahhh….. Breathing in, a million diamonds of sunlight hitting the water. Breathe it in. Fill yourself with that light. Ahhh… And yet even that is too much doing. Just being, and with the natural in-breath, letting those million points of light fill you, allowing, relaxing and allowing.
And then releasing, ahhh… Letting pure awareness arise naturally without force. Present with joy, with wonder, at ease with things just as they are.
We’re looking, most of us, at the lake through these small trees and evergreen branches. Try to let go of the form of tree, just seeing lines and shapes, nothing special. The sunlight dancing through, the water dancing through. Earth, water, fire, air, all becoming one in this beautiful dance of light. Include yourself in that dance, feeling all of the elements also in you.
Nothing to do, nowhere to go. At ease with things just as they are. Keeping the eyes soft and unfocused. The body relaxed. We are those beings of sunlight. We are the ripples in the water. We are the breeze. Just be. Resting in rigpa, in awareness.
If any thought comes or a strong object like an insect crawling on your leg that pulls you out, just note, “Anything here that’s out of the dance?” The thought dancing through. The little bug dancing through. A momentary chiller breeze dancing through.
The separation is not in the object and self, the object is in the illusion the self maintains at that moment that something is separate. Let it go. Just relaxing back into spaciousness. No matter how many times you’re pulled out of awareness, simply note in this way. These leaves blowing down are wonderful to note, so clearly the movements of conditions. Perfect if one happens to land on you, as one just did on me. Touching, touching. Just more of this divine radiance expressing off a tree.
But if the body contracts, note the contraction with the same love and tenderness, the same spaciousness. I’ll be quiet now and we’ll sit for about 10 minutes.
(sitting)
(continuing, there is now a sound like rain or running water, hard to hear participants)
So what is the experience– not conceptual, what’s the direct experience of awareness?
Q: Spaciousness.
Barbara: Spaciousness is one characteristic of it. What are some of the other characteristics?
Q: Light.
Q: Unconditioned.
Barbara: The Unconditioned, it is unconditioned. What does that mean to you?
Q: (inaudible)
Barbara: Being at ease where thoughts do not intrude.
Q: Boundlessness, centeredness, openness.
Barbara: Uncontracted. Any more?
Q: (inaudible)
Barbara: Clarity. Emptiness.
Q: Spaciousness.
Barbara: Not my clarity, just clarity… Were there a lot of thoughts? Few thoughts or no thoughts? When there are thoughts, do they stick or do they just kind of bounce off and go? Bounce off and go. So we could call this pure awareness mind “teflon mind,” no stick, (inaudible) of the everyday Velcro mind.
Stick to Q, and when you note that they’re sticking, what happens, Q?
Q: They stick.
Barbara: Okay. So then you are not resting in pure awareness but there’s mindfulness, awareness that they’re sticking. This is our next step, looking at what’s the distinction between pure awareness and mindfulness and on to access concentration. Let’s stay with pure awareness just a minute longer.
For me, the non-contractedness of awareness is a predominant part of it. When there’s no self, there’s nothing and no one to contract, so there’s no experience of contraction. If contraction comes, it’s noted as coming with that temporary myth of self and dissolving.
This is important in that when we’re resting in awareness we’re outside the karmic field. When you’re really completely in that space, there’s no karma, you’re outside of karma. Then of course you come back. You’re sitting there and the bee lands on your face. Aaagh! Aversion! Karma!
Watching that whole flow of contraction and non-contraction, I begin to see how the contraction happens in a field of non-contraction, rather than them being alternating experiences. So that the non-contraction is predominant, and into that non-contraction little bits of contraction come.
Please, others share your experiences.
Q: Timelessness.
Q: Recently I had a (inaudible). If I use, for example, Q’s timelessness, there’s a duality because that refers to time.
Barbara: It’s the same non-duality of spaciousness and contraction, timelessness and time. The vast field of timelessness into which bits of time <thinking> insert themselves, or time experience insert themselves. But for me at least there’s an experience of that being simultaneous. That which is resting in the timelessness observes this apparition of time and then goes. That which is resting in infiniteness observes this apparition of contraction and then it goes.
Q: So I’m going through a period where I’m not allowing conceptual mind to turn toward that space. I only allow that space to come through the <> mind.
Barbara: As long as there’s somebody there allowing or disallowing, you can’t rest in awareness.
Q: I’m not resting when I’m (inaudible). I’m not communicating well.
Barbara: The one who’s allowing or disallowing is a somebody.
Q: Being a somebody, I know I’m somebody! I know I’m somebody when I’m doing that.
Signer: When he names things then he feels like he IS a somebody. When he stops to name the experience, it is a somebody naming the experience.
Barbara: Resting in awareness, we can’t name the experience. It’s only afterward that we can name it because the conceptual mind isn’t there, resting in rigpa.
Q: Okay, that was my point.
Barbara: Okay, but afterward you can talk about it because there’s memory of it. So you can call upon the conceptual mind to express the experience that was unnamable while you were within it.
Q: So how come there is memory of it? Who or what remembers?
Barbara: I have to give that one to Aaron! Who or what is remembering, Aaron?
Aaron: I am Aaron. Just paraphrasing through Barbara. A different level of conceptual mind. It’s simultaneous. How can I phrase it? The clear blue sky and the clouds in the sky. The clouds don’t cease to exist because the clear blue sky is there. The conceptual mind that’s capable of naming does not completely cease to exist because there’s resting in awareness, only because it’s in the background it cannot name it. When you step out of awareness you’re capable of naming again.
Q: And at that point, that’s when you can access the memory?
Barbara: Aaron says that’s when you can see the memories. There’s a you there to see the memories. If there’s no self, there’s nobody to have memories.
Aaron: I am Aaron. Clearly I have memories of many different lifetimes and yet I tell you that I am not a self, that I have no self-identification with any of the aggregates. I am not those various bodies or memories or thoughts or plans or ideas. Nevertheless, the memories still exist. I can access the mental body. I’m not attached to any view about the memory, it’s just a memory, and it may have been pleasant or unpleasant or neutral.
Q: I want to turn this question upside-down for a second because sometimes I am in what I might call rigpa, but am not present enough and then don’t have memories of what happened. Sort of like, what is it called… sinking mind.
Barbara: Not quite sinking mind but needing to be more present to bring mindfulness and rigpa together more.
Q: But if I am in that state then there are no memories. If I am in rigpa then I am on some level aware of the memories being recorded, if that makes sense.
Barbara: There’s awareness of the memories being recorded but there’s no ability to articulate them. Exactly.
Okay, I promised 10 more minutes and we would take the cold people inside. So am I correct in assuming you still want to go in, the people that wanted to go in?
(group moves inside)
So, moving on from here. This is the experience of awareness. What is the experience of access concentration?
Q: I know that the awake space is unspeakable, but speaking happens. And I also know that my lamas teach from the state of rigpa and so did the Buddha and the Dalai Lama. It’s non-dual. Everything, anything is unspeakable if you look at it, but that doesn’t keep us from speaking.
Barbara: It’s the simultaneity of ultimate and relative. At first we enter the ultimate or even to the fringes of the ultimate and we lose touch with the relative. Gradually we learn how to stay in both. What we were speaking of this morning of dharmakaya and nirmanakaya and the sambhogakaya bridge.
Rigpa goes deep into the dharmakaya but one foot is there on the bridge so one can bring down the experience and articulate. At first it seems impossible but gradually it becomes fluent.
Q: I’m not sure I’ve ever experienced the Unconditioned.
Barbara: We’re talking about 2 different things when we speak about rigpa and the Unconditioned. Rigpa, pure awareness, is citta, consciousness. Citta takes the Unconditioned as object. Citta is capable of perceiving the Unconditioned. The lokuttara citta, the supramundane citta, are capable of taking the Unconditioned as object but the citta is not the Unconditioned any more than seeing consciousness is the rug.
So when we talk about resting in awareness, we’re talking about resting in that level of consciousness that is capable of perceiving the Unconditioned. When we talk about access concentration we’re also resting in the level of consciousness that’s capable of perceiving the Unconditioned. But access concentration and pure awareness are quite different. Access concentration focuses in, pure awareness opens out. It’s like a camera lens or zoom lens.
So what we’re talking about here is opening the doorway, that level of consciousness that’s capable of experiencing the Unconditioned. And these two, I don’t want to call them paths, simply two experiences of pure awareness and of access concentration, just so you have a clearer sense of what each is.
I would like to ask you all, if you’ve not already done so, probably 3 years ago I did a semester class on consciousness and its objects, including mundane consciousness and pure awareness and access concentration. The culmination of the class was a weekend retreat. It’s all online. I’m not sure exactly where but it’s in the Deep Spring archives all in one folder called Consciousness and Its Objects. Please read these. It’s probably 4 class transcripts and a retreat transcript.
So, for those who have experienced it, what is access concentration? For those who have not experienced it, don’t worry about it, just listen and it will help you have a bit of a map and understand what this is better.
Q: I’m not clear if I have experienced access concentration or not. After listening to it being spoken of, I have the impression it is a transitory experience that comes and goes, or can’t stay for a longer period of time, similar to, which would occur under conditions like we were exercising in the last 2 days, or just in ordinary everyday life. I’ve only had one experience and it seemed odd. I did not doubt that it was a genuine experience but the oddness was in its seeming artificiality. It was almost like a Powerpoint presentation.
Barbara: That’s a good way of phrasing it!
Q: It was a non-dual experience, I’m sure of that, because it was like I was the witness watching my ego latch onto an object or my ego being averted from an object, I myself remaining totally indifferent.
Barbara: That sounds like access concentration.
Q: But I’ve never experienced anything like that since, or in actual life, it happening.
Barbara: Okay! Keep practicing. I like the Powerpoint presentation model. Others?
Q: I think I was doing access concentration and I couldn’t get into the sparkly things… A bee flew quite near me onto some cups. So I decided to watch the bee. I invited oneness with the bee and I wanted to touch it. Normally I’m afraid of bees, or I would be afraid of touching them. So I remembered what Aaron and A-M have been saying about talking with nature, and I asked if it was okay, got a sense of yes, reached for the bee, and the fear came up that I might be bitten but I just accepted that if I was bitten I would just be with the experience.
So I touched it and the body bended to my pressure, but the bee just kept licking the little honey that was on the cup as if nothing was there. This was all happening in an uncontracted state. And when a little contraction would come up like, “Oh, I might hurt the bee,” it was within that uncontracted state and then it would go. Now that you’re describing it, I’m thinking that’s access concentration. Is that it?
Barbara: Like any other state of consciousness, access concentration can be very strong and stable or it can be more shallow. As soon as the story comes, “I could be stung,” you’re no longer in access concentration. There can be strong mindfulness but there’s still this small bit of self, self-centeredness, ego, from whom the story is coming up. As soon as we’re back to the Powerpoint display that shifts from, “Me, I could be stung,” to awareness of the thought having arisen and passing away, just the flow of conditioned thoughts and there’s no longer any contraction around it, then we’re back to access concentration.
In order to stabilize access concentration we use mindfulness. So mindfulness becomes the tool and the doorway. Then there’s no longer anybody to be mindful, there’s just mindfulness happening. It shifts from, let’s call it mindfulness to presence, pure presence. So I’m thinking of mindfulness here as me being mindful and presence from a place of no self.
Thank you… I enjoy hearing you touched it.
Q: I even got some honey off the cup and it stood on my fingers and ate off of it and didn’t sting me.
Barbara: That’s very beautiful… others? Some of you who are more familiar with the experience of access concentration, how has it felt to you?
Q: I can give it a shot. So I’m concentrating on the <breath> as a mundane object and mind is becoming still, more quiet, not moving toward or away from an object. I’m able to watch it. Mindfulness becomes stronger and so the hindrances start to go (inaudible). As that happens I start to notice supramundane objects– nada, rarely luminosity, most of the time space.
And as those supramundane objects become more uppermost in the mind, predominant, instead of mundane objects like the breath or thought or emotion, that’s the point where access concentration, I guess that would be the experience of access concentration for me. And then if I’m able to continue I move into pure awareness where…
Barbara: So you’re <shifting> from access concentration into pure awareness…
Q: … into, I’m able to take supramundane objects as the primary objects.
Barbara: Such as nada or luminosity.
Q: Or space.
Barbara: Or space. And that shifts you from access concentration into awareness?
Q: Correct.
Barbara: Let me sit with that for a minute… I understand what you are saying. There’s one piece of it missing for me. And I’m not doubting that you make the shift, I’m just saying that I think there’s one step that maybe is not fully in consciousness.
With access concentration the mind is focused in, so if there’s a big field of waves, for example, you’re only seeing that wave and the next wave and the next wave. You don’t see the trees blowing in the wind, you don’t see the sailboat racing back and forth, you don’t see the whitecaps over there hitting the rocks, there’s just this. Mind is very focused in, with access concentration. There’s an experience of simply arising out of conditions and passing away and that there’s no self, no observer. It’s just, it comes and it goes. There’s no contraction about it because it doesn’t belong to me, it’s simply the arising and cessation of conditions.
If at that point there’s a shift from the various kinds of objects that are arising and passing away, no thoughts, often no body sensations, but still awareness, seeing, hearing– when I say no thoughts, there could be a thought but not an opinionated thought. But there could be a thought such as an observation of warm or cold or wet. So the mind is capable of giving rise to that kind of a thought, but there’s no contraction around the thought.
If at that point what becomes predominant is nada or luminosity, and one focuses into that little patch of it, one can’t open into awareness. There’s got to be at some point the decision to shift from (sound effect — small focus) to pan out, to pick up the big picture. That may be happening unconsciously in that shift, but pure awareness holds the big picture where access concentration holds the small frame.
There’s no contraction in access concentration but it is not seeing the flow of conditions the way pure awareness does. I don’t know how that resonates with your own experience.
Q: I’m thinking it through so I’m not sure either, but I still can say something. Take the breath, if I’m concentrated very deeply on the breath. And I’m moving into what I thought before was access concentration. If I see space, that small little part of the breath, I see space, that small little part of the breath becomes empty. So big and small don’t necessarily apply anymore because the bigness is empty and the smallness is empty.
Barbara: Does it then pan out, so that you’re not just seeing this phase of the breath, that phase of the breath, but the whole conditioned flow of breath as empty, and as part of the conditioned flow of everything?
Q: I don’t need to have a strong concentration on one particular object, no.
Barbara: So this is more pure awareness when there’s no strong concentration on any one object.
Q: Yea, unless that object is emptiness or something that is easy to see everywhere, in every object.
Barbara: You and I can talk more about this. I understand, I think I understand what you are saying but I would like more clarity. I’d like to get more feedback from others in the group.
Q: I think I have a similar experience. So if I’m watching supramundane objects, an object, then I notice a foreground and a background to that. That for instance nada has 2 parts to it. And I let go and drop into the background. That is pure awareness. At that point it opens to the (inaudible). For me any supramundane object has a foreground and a background that I can fall into, the pure awareness.
Barbara: That’s a perfect way of phrasing it. This is what I’m talking about with access concentration holding the foreground, the small frame, and awareness holding the big frame. But they have a different texture to them also. Awareness is awareness and access concentration is access concentration. Thank you. Any others?
Q: I’m finding resistance to all these labels and concepts. This is access concentration, this is pure awareness… I’m feeling resistance to all that.
Barbara: Okay. You can let it go. I think for some people it may be helpful to help them have some way of articulating and better understanding their experiences. Where I’m going with this is as we understand the experiences, we can better find that sambhogakaya bridge, that place where the dharmakaya is bleeding out into the everyday world and we can be in both places at once, and how we can use the experiences of pure awareness and access concentration as tools to help us understand how to be in both places at once. But it’s fine to let go of the labels. This is not going to interest or be useful to everybody.
Q: This may be very simplistic but I think it’s the way I look at it. With vipassana there is a looking at objects. With access concentration there are fewer objects because the mind is calmer and the objects do not pull me into stories. And with pure awareness there are no objects or very few objects. Is that too simple?
Barbara: No, that’s perfect. That’s very helpful. Thank you.
Group: Would you say that again?
Q: When we do vipassana we’re trying to note objects. And as the mind calms down, it seems to me that that slows down to where there are fewer objects. And the objects are not sticky, they don’t… you just say, there goes an object, there goes another object, you’re not being pulled into a story. It’s a flow. And then pure awareness is more calm. For me it’s just more and more calm.
Q: Like a process? So the second one, as the mind calms, that’s access concentration?
Q: Yes, because you’re focused on just the object going by, and that process calms my mind down to where there are fewer objects and less sticky objects.
Group: Thank you… then what’s pure awareness?
Q: There are few objects. I think that’s a different further stage of calm mind.
Barbara: With pure awareness we move completely out of the field of subject and object. If there’s no subject there’s no object, there’s just being, and presence.
Aaron is saying, I’m paraphrasing him, that the important thing here is to recognize that these are all places that consciousness or pure awareness can go. Let him speak in the first person, but I don’t think he’s going to incorporate, we’ll see…
Aaron: I am Aaron. When there’s strong access concentration, there’s no contraction around objects but there’s still a sense of objectness. Even from a place of dissolution of self there is awareness that something seems to arise and pass away. But gradually it begins to have the seamlessness that you experience watching waves. There’s no way of saying where one wave starts and ends and the next wave begins, they blend into each other. Thus also the flow of objects in access concentration.
The training that we get in vipassana is first to watch objects, as P has noted, but then we increasingly ask the practitioner to watch the space between the objects, to rest in that space between the objects. If attention is fine focused, there will be an experience of the arising object and then the space, like the fingers and the space beyond. Seeing it all arises out of conditions, it all passes away and there’s no contraction around any of it. Increasingly less and less of a self of any sort.
As spaciousness becomes predominant, and this is I think what D was talking about, eventually the objects simply have no more interest. They fade into the background and the spaciousness becomes predominant. The spaciousness cannot be contained in the space so it opens up. Then mind opens up into pure awareness, into the vastness of being, pure being. No limits, no boundaries, no subject and object.
Each of you will need to investigate for yourself at what point the experience is stable enough that you can bring it back stably into the world. We were attempting this the last 2 days when you were working with your work projects, asking you to rest in awareness as much as you could. We talked about view, meditation, and action. Rigpa is strong. It’s stable in meditation and now you’re taking it out into the world. And still the muscles ache from chopping wood.
How do you bring compassion to the human being into this human who doesn’t exist because there’s no subject and object? How do you hold the balance? In terms of service to the world, how do you hold the balance? You can never use rigpa as an escape, you must remain somewhat in touch with the world, not as an object that’s separate from the self but simply as an expansion of the self so that there is a continuity of compassion.
Thank you.
Q: Does anybody do walking vipassana?
Barbara: Walking practice is a wonderful way to practice this. Walking practice can be a very powerful <way> to access concentration.
The other place I wanted to go here, and as I said my notes have disappeared, I had quoted something J said about the aggregates and coming out of awareness, and seeing the reformation of the aggregates. I thought that would be an interesting area to discuss for a bit… I have it on my computer. Perhaps if we want to discuss we can talk about it tomorrow morning…
It’s 5 o’clock so I think this would be a good place to stop, give you all a chance to have a break before dinner.