October 27, 2014 Monday Evening, Geneva Retreat
On Intention, Contraction, and Clear Comprehension
Aaron: Good evening. My blessings and love to you all. You are all here out of an intention. What are some of the intentions that brought you here? To play by Lake Michigan? To watch the sunsets over the lake? What else? To ground. No other intentions?
Q: To unfold a new view and way of approaching aging.
Aaron: Thank you. Others? I’m not just talking about these two days but the whole week.
Q: I just came out of a 6-month lawsuit, which was tremendously stressful, and what I need is to be very quiet and just allow (inaudible) to deal with the stress.
Q: How to relate to my physical body.
Q: To be with sangha.
Aaron: Thank you; so, a variety of intentions have brought you here. But none of you came because you were greedy and wanted to acquire some kind of wealth. Maybe to acquire wisdom, to acquire love, but it didn’t come from a place of greed. If it did, it’s not going to work. “If I go to this retreat, maybe it’s going to fix what’s broken in me, and finally my heart will open. I have to go to this. I have to get that love.” It’s not going to work, is it? “I aspire to be more loving, to live my life with more wisdom, and perhaps the retreat will help me recognize the already inherent love and wisdom within me. So I choose to go.” Very different, yes.
In your lives, often you make your choices based in fear. You all are mature enough spiritually to understand that those choices need to be grounded in love or it’s going to backfire. So the real question is, acknowledging that both love and fear are present, what prevents you from choosing love? What leads you to getting caught in moving from a place of fear?
Intention is very important. It’s important to know what your highest intentions are. And sometimes there seems to be a conflict. To be safe, not to be vulnerable, not to be hurt. These are reasonable intentions. To love. To be connected to the world and other people, that’s a lovely intention. Is there a conflict? To be safe, not to be vulnerable, to be connected?
When you see what seems to be a conflict, then it’s time to investigate it. Can I really attain that which I seek if I continue to hold myself separate and armored? What holds this old armoring, these old stories, in place? We have armoring of the body, armoring of the mind, and armoring of the spirit.
Armoring of the body. How does it look? Somebody who holds themselves this way (demonstrating). Do you know people who, when they talk to you, instead of being open, they’re always closed up, arms crossed in the front? Body language. What do you think it does to a body to be held in this way for decades?
Now this is extreme, but what happens to the small areas of the body? For example, how many of you experience occasional neck and shoulder pain? Let’s use this old tool. Many of you have done this with me. I’m going to shout. You’re probably going to react. You don’t know when I’m going to shout. You know it’s just a shout coming from me, Aaron, and that I’ve warned you about it. You know basically it’s safe. And yet your body is going to move into an habitual pattern in reaction to that shout. Just this startledness from a loud (shout!)
Any of you with some neck and shoulder pain go like that (demonstrating)? How about people who have chronic tension in the belly, did you hold it in here? In the jaw? Where do you hold it?
So this patterning is going to affect the way the body ages, because there are chronic patterns of holding in the body, some of them karmic from many lifetimes, from a wound of some sort. Some of them are just conditioned by, perhaps your mother always went (motions contracting) when something angered her, and you observed it and learned from her. However it came to you, just because you have that response in your body doesn’t mean you have to perpetuate it. The response at this point is simply reaction, a kneejerk. However, it is based on conditions. yu have the opportunity to observe these old holdings of the body and to make a choice: I choose to release this out of love and for the highest good of all beings. Not, this is bad; I’ll get rid of it; I choose to release it.
You have similar patterns in the mind. If I walk up to you and look at you in an angry way, how many of you suspect you would pull back and say, “What did I do wrong?” Put your hands up, how many would feel that? A lot of you. Are there a few of you who would say, “Gee, I wonder why Aaron is angry?” Anybody with that? A few, wonderful. That would be a wholesome response. But most of you carry old layers of shame and guilt, fear, and feelings of unworthiness, and other chronic armoring. Those emotions and mental formations affect the body. If you feel that kind of shame a lot of the time, and the mind is constantly giving off stories, “I must be bad. Did I do anything wrong? Is anybody looking angrily at me?”, how do you think that’s going to affect your body? There’s going to be a response in the body.
Spiritually, perhaps the spiritual unworthiness is the deepest-held because you are what I call old souls, that is, wise beings with a deep intention to live this life with love. And because you are human and negative emotion still arises in you there’s a sense of shame, of wrongness, an old belief in wrongness. You see that divine light as radiant and you see yourself as shadow in front of that brilliant light. The belief is often: I must cleanse this shadow, not just rinse it gently and release it, but use a scouring pad, scrub it away. And of course, that only makes you bleed. It doesn’t heal anything.
So here we come to look at the old notions we have taken on about ourselves as not radiant, not divine. And this is where the Mother comes in this week. Opening her heart in connection to you and inviting you to bring your heart and her heart together, not just for a half an hour at the close of a retreat or an hour on a Sunday morning, but day after day. To challenge you to stay there with her, with your heart truly open to the possibility you are also that. You are divine, you are beautiful. And perhaps it’s time to release.
The body is the heaviest. It picks up these reactions and it releases them slowly. We start the release with the spirit, and then the mental body. So as you connect with the Mother and the heart opens, you then begin to reflect on some of the old patterns and to look into the body and see, where and how am I holding these old patterns within my body?
I am not suggesting that every illness is caused by some mental aberration. Some of the illnesses are karmic and also may be based in genetics and with environmental causes. . Barbara did not think, “I’m unworthy to hear things so I’m going to shut my ears. I’ll become deaf.” Barbara had a tendency when there was tension to tense her shoulders, her neck, and that probably constricted the blood vessels in the neck area, because it was not just a tension from this but from many lifetimes, so that during childbirth when there was a lot of pain and tension and constriction, it caused the blood vessels to close. There was no oxygen supplied to the nerves, and the nerves died. She became deaf.
It’s important not to say she caused the deafness. Lifetimes of old patterning participated in the cause of the deafness. The particular genetic structure of this body is a participant, and old karma, the old karma that she’s looked at. Those of you who have readCosmic Healing have picked up some of her thoughts on this, the part of her that did not really want to hear the cries of pain of the world because she felt so helpless to attend to that pain. So that part karmically chose to back off from the cries of herself and the world.
However, the loss of the hearing became a catalyst to open her heart, to ask herself, “What is it I’m afraid to hear? I choose to hear. I choose to hear the immensity of sorrows of the world and know that I am capable of holding space for all those sorrows.” Through decades of opening her heart in that way, she now has the pattern… (to someone- Push-) … The old pattern was this. Now push again. Now she has the pattern of dancing with the push, responsive but free of tension. She doesn’t contract in here in the shoulders anymore. So the karma is healed. The body is releasing its old patterns.
At this point now, all these years into it, if the, how can I phrase this? If the neural connections can be formed, she will not destroy them immediately again by tensing. She won’t react and close herself to the world pushing at her. If we had done this 20 years ago and there was any possibility of restoring the neural network, it would have closed off immediately again because she was still contracting. I’m exaggerating, but I think you understand. I want you to take it into your own patterns. Where are the places of holding?
We’ll talk more tomorrow about what happened with your letting-go practice. Did some of you practice leading each other blindfolded and being led? Was it fun?(yes) Did you learn something?(yes)How does it feel to let go, was it good?(yes)And yet you can still see that if somebody grabbed your hand and said, “Come!” the first impulse might be to back off. Letting go comes gradually. It’s something that you learn. It’s safe to open. It’s safe to allow myself to be vulnerable. It’s safe to let go.
For each of you it’s a slightly different learning, but overall it’s the same. Either all the cells of the body are contracted and the mind is contracted, or everything is open and spacious. Why is this important, other than for your health?
We talk about positive and negative polarity. Negative polarity is grounded in fear, and positive polarity is grounded in love and the highest good for all beings. With positive polarity, there is no contraction. I’m not saying, “She’s going to push me off the chair! She’s going to push me out the window! Oh my!” I’m just relaxed. But eventually I kindly put a stop to it. It’s not contraction. The words or movement are not based in fear.
I want you to use this week to watch the patterns that lead to contraction. When I said (shout!) did you feel the contraction? Just now, could you feel it? Okay, let me define this further.
(sound effects) Startle. Contraction. The body of the mammal will contract momentarily. We’re not talking about the contraction, but the contraction around the contraction. Boo!, the startle, and then the, “I shouldn’t have startled again. I shouldn’t have contracted.” That thought brings the secondary contraction, if we could phrase it that way.
So, compassion for the human that will contract when something says Boo! without building a story, “Something is wrong with me because I contract. I am not good enough. I am not loving enough. I am not radiant enough. Something is wrong with me because I hunch my shoulders and therefore get an ache in my neck.” Just pay attention. Note the, “I don’t really choose to have an ache in my neck. I’m going to make a conscious effort to notice the impulse to hunch my shoulders and not need to follow though on that impulse.”
You don’t need to raise your hands on this one, but I would assume there are a few of you at least in the room who now or in the past bite your fingernails. Eventually the fingers can start to bleed. You look at these bleeding fingers and make the decision, “I’m going to attend to this behavior.” You become conscious that it’s doing harm to you, and from a place of love, not chastisement, but love, that mindfulness leads you to, “Oh, no, I don’t choose to do that. I will harm myself.” Gradually you release the pattern.
In the same way, gut, bellyache, constantly walking around with a churning gut. Holding all the tension in your gut. You can choose to release it, and also to look at the stories, because there will always be stories behind that kind of contraction and churning. What asks to be released? What asks to be healed? Truly, what is the healing for which you took birth? It is different for each of you, but for most of you, it connects to living life from a more openhearted and loving place, uncontracted. Learning that you are stable in that non-contraction, that you truly can love, can embrace. And how wonderful it feels to embrace.
Take a minute now and turn to the person next to you and give a hug. See how it feels… (group does this; many smiles)
You can live this way, even in this big, bad, crazy world.
We began with intention. You have to have some idea what your highest intention is. And if the intention is to be safe, that’s fine. But right there with being safe, I know for all of you, or you wouldn’t be here, it’s to learn how to live your life with love. You start to understand that the deepest safety lies in love. There is no safety in hatred and separation, only in vulnerability and connection. It seems a bit contrary to the myth that you’ve held, whereby you armor yourself. But love is the core of it. All the great masters have spoken of this. Love one another. It’s as simple as that. And to trust the heart of love that’s already there and present. You don’t have to create something, only to let the clouds drift away from the sun, or break through the clouds. Be a rocket ship that cuts right through, so that you find a blazing radiance that’s already there.
There’s a beautiful dharma practice of clear comprehension. The first part is clear comprehension of purpose. What is my highest purpose? And here you come to that, to be safe, or not to hurt others; do good, not to do harm. But how about also the intention to love, to be open, to be connected; to live the true radiance that you are?
Then, clear comprehension of suitability. Is what I am doing now or about to do suitable to my highest purpose? Your purpose to live a life of more love and wisdom. Here at a retreat, is this suitable to your highest purpose? Certainly, yes. How about if I said, “Let’s all go to town and get drunk,” is that suitable to your highest purpose? Not really. Not what we came here for. “Maybe when we’re in town and we’re all drunk, we can get into a big fistfight!” No? No takers?
Clear comprehension of purpose. Clear comprehension of suitability. Is what I’m about to say or do suitable to my highest purpose. Push… (demonstrating shoving back) Is that suitable to my highest purpose? No. Reminding myself, “Ah, she’s pushing me and I’m tensing. Okay, I can roll with it. Now I’m pulling away. Is that suitable to my highest purpose? No, not really.” So I start to engage her. Absorbing the energy and giving it back, is that suitable to my highest purpose? Yes, much more suitable. I’m not pushing or being pushed, I’m just sharing energy. And as long as sometimes she wants to push hard, she can push as hard as she needs to and I’ll return the energy. But I don’t have to get upset about it or take it personally.
Clear comprehension of, it’s entitled, of the domain of meditation. Taking it into meditation and looking deeply at the patterns of mind and body that are so habituated, so reactive, and finding, ah, I don’t have to do it this way. The shout–hmm, shoulder pain. I don’t have to do it this way. The shout–(exhaling) just taking a deep breath, changing the pattern.
And clear comprehension of the dharma, the fourth point, in which we note the simple truth: whatever has the nature to arise has the nature to cease and is not me or mine. I’m responsible to it, but it arose out of conditions and I don’t have to build stories on it. It’s impermanent; it will pass.
Again I’m going to use Barbara’s shoulder as an example. Certain injuries led to the pain in Barbara’s shoulder. Then the doctor sent her to physical therapy. The physical therapist pulled the arm and stretched it for several months, increasing the pain as he said he needed to do so to enlarge the range of motion. This created much worse pain, and finally she stopped the physical therapy. Then looking at the belief, the doctor has said the only thing we can do is shoulder replacement surgery. Barbara says, “No, I don’t believe that. I believe in the body’s capacity to heal.” And then the entity coming along, just saying, “Let it rest. Treat it with kindness. In meditation, touch it with love. Let the body know its potential to heal itself. And just see what happens.”
This is clear comprehension of the dharma. Everything is impermanent including a very sore shoulder. It has the potential to heal, no matter how bad. Yes, bone is hitting bone. The x-ray shows there’s no cartilage. The body can grow cartilage. It’s not usual because most people don’t approach it that way.
The important thing for Barbara is twofold: to know it’s possible and open to that possibility. “I choose that possibility.” But also knowing, if it doesn’t work then the shoulder replacement surgery will need to happen, and it will be perfect. And the new shoulder will work well and be free of pain. Give it love. So it’s not a sense of, “I’m a failure if I can’t heal this.” Just, “I invite the deepest healing possible.” And allow it to manifest in whatever way it can.
So I want you to take this idea to yourselves. Clear comprehension of purpose, of suitability, taking it into meditation and watching the areas of closure and tension, the old stories. And then clear comprehension of the dharma: whatever has the nature to arise has the nature to cease. It’s all impermanent. It’s all in flux. And you are not these bodies. The bodies are one outer expression of you.
A second and harder step: you are not your minds. As you age, there’s going to be perhaps less clear thinking, memory lapses, and so forth. But your mind is not who you are any more than your body is who you are. Who are you beyond the body and the mind? What is the essence of your being? Can you live from that radiance? You can, yes. You can.
So we start with seeing the places of old habitual holding in the body and mind; the old stories that the mind tells and that the body tells. Then know the possibility to move past these stories.
If you wish to shoot an arrow, you take the arrow out of the quiver. You notch the arrow; you draw the bow. You must to aim. Which way am I going to shoot the arrow? You can’t just let it go. Where do you want it to go?
So your assignment for tonight is to reflect on what is my highest intention. What is my deepest purpose beyond all the others? Which way am I shooting this arrow, to love, or to where?
Let’s pause and give you 5 minutes to stretch. Then we’re going to do a guided compassion meditation. Why compassion? Compassion is really the heart of this choosing of purpose. Knowing the innate open heart, the compassionate heart. I’m not asking any of you to make a compassionate heart but to open to the innate compassionate heart so that you can live from it. Many of you are very compassionate to other people, but it’s much harder to be compassionate to yourself. How do you ground that compassion for the self?
So we’ll do a guided practice of compassion and then move directly from that into a silent sitting. So take 10 minutes to stretch now…
(session ends)