Limiting Beliefs; Anything You Do Not Love Will Become a Lesson

March 21, 2017 Tuesday Evening, Human Class

Limiting Beliefs; Anything You Do Not Love Will Become a Lesson

Barbara: We’re going to start with a short guided meditation, and we’re going to move it into motion, not just sitting but actually moving around a bit. For now, the one who is sitting, you are a nirmanakaya expression, the form body. There’s a physical body, there’s a mind, and perhaps they’re all wiggling around a bit. Be this kind of dancing around nirmanakaya, feeling itself swing, and dancing. Maybe a wild animal, like a deer, or a rabbit. Breathing in and breathing out. Settling, settling.

Still skittering around a bit, but look over your shoulder and see that there’s a bridge there. You can just barely see the other end of the bridge, but there’s light there at the other end. You can’t see much of what’s there, just some radiance at the far end. But here as you wander around on the earth, you keep seeing this open and inviting end of a bridge.

Put a foot on it. Pull it off, unsure about that. Put it on the bridge again. Keep looking at the far end. There’s something about that far end that’s just so inviting. Even though you can’t see it clearly, it feels so beautiful. And then your nervous energy gets the better of you. Jump off the bridge and go running around on the ground at this end again. Run in circles for a bit, come back. Again, planting a foot, and then a second foot on this end of the bridge.

Looking over your shoulder, looking to decide, is this safe? Can I give myself to this bridge? Breathing in and releasing any resistance or doubt. Breathing in and opening to the radiance that you see in the distance. Feel it drawing you in with promise, with hope, with love. Feel your energy settling down, until you finally become willing to put both feet on the bridge. Or if you’re a four-legged creature, the front feet, and then, slowly, the back feet. Trusting the bridge.

Begin to walk slowly toward the radiance at the far end. I’m going to be quiet for about 5 minutes and let you explore with this. You may get part way across that bridge, drawn by that radiance, and then turn around and run back onto the nirmanakaya. Or you may keep moving toward the light.

What allows you to move further? What pulls you back? Don’t be too cerebral about that, just stay in the open heart. No, “I should go this way, or that way.” Just allowing yourself to move as the heart invites.

Quiet for a few minutes now…

(pause)

So we move across the bridge, moving deeper and deeper into the direct experience of the dharmakaya. As we move to the far end of the sambhogakaya bridge, we begin to feel the energy, see the light pouring off the dharmakaya on the far shore. Thousands of wild roses there, (and we) catch the scent. It draws us in; it beckons us. Our mind and body quiet down.

Open your heart and allow yourself to be invited in, feeling the higher energy as you move to the far end of this bridge. Still on the bridge, but now you can see everything at this far end. Waterfalls glistening, the smell of the roses, and a deep stillness and joy. Allow yourself to move closer in. We’re going to move from sitting, now, into a bit of an exercise, an experiential exercise, and then come back and sit for another 10 minutes or so.

(tape paused)

Barbara: Aaron (inaudible) this exercise, we’ll see how it goes.

Keep yourself quiet in that meditative space. I am the dharmakaya on the far side of the bridge. I would like 3 volunteer sambhogakayas; come on up here. Okay, so D, S, and J (holding hands). J, turn around, and S is going to hold your waist, the waist of your pants or something. Okay, now (counting to 6), two nirmanakaya streams, holding hands, each stream taking one of J’s hands. Streams of 4 people holding on, the rest of you… so everybody is standing up here. Take a hand, everybody holding onto a hand. Is everybody holding a hand? Okay, now we’re all going to dance around a bit, move…

Get these lines moving, move around…

Can you feel the energy and motion? Now gradually the dharmakaya is going to move into holding its place of stillness. Of course the dharmakaya is both fluid and still. I want you at the far end of the line to see how long it takes the energy of stillness to reach you…

Breathing; not long at all… The furthest end of the line, feel yourself connected, right here, to me… Then let’s start moving again. Feel the motion…

I’m not going to tell you when I become still. Let it filter down…

No matter where you are, in the far nirmanakaya experience, on the sambhogakaya bridge, or right here, the first person at the edge of the dharmakaya, you can feel that stillness and energy. What is the experience of that essence? We talked about this last class, that first breath of I Am, that first expression of the Divine; how does it feel?

We’re going to try this once more, 3 different people being the bridge, and the rest of you trading places in your line. Let me have 3 people who are going to be the bridge… The rest of you out there, moving, form your chains. I’m the dharmakaya and the three here are the sambhogakaya, and then all of the rest of you, the nirmanakaya. Life moving, getting caught up, flowing, sweeping. (A three-legged table is knocked over?) Again, I’m not going to tell you…

Okay, into that disruption: where is the dharmakaya? Can you feel your energy fluttering a bit? Crash! (a vase of lowers was knocked over) Right there, where is the dharmakaya? Where is the still center? Flowers spilled on the floor, water spilled, where is the dharmakaya there?

(pause to clean up)

Perfect spill! Even as it falls, even as there’s water, follow the water on the floor and the spilled flowers back into the still heart. If your energy is shaky from whatever sound or motion happened, come back into the still heart. Breathing, open, spacious. Some of you, as I see, standing there holding the space, leading us back into the dharmakaya. Everything is perfect.

Aaron is saying there are no problems, only situations that ask your loving attention. Follow this disruption right back into the dharmakaya. It’s a perfect example. Holding the space, opening…

Where are you? Are you off there in the nirmanakaya, leaping around? Are you on the bridge? Can you see the still shore, that other shore, still, radiant? Come home to it…

(exercise)

Coming gradually into stillness, into the heart of light and love. The mind and body may still carry reverberations of busyness and energy. Just let it be and it will still. Coming back into the light, into love.

Thank you. Now you may take your chairs again, pull them back out, closing the circle a bit, as it was…

And we’re going to sit again for another 10 minutes. Feel if your energy is shaky and high, or wherever your energy is. Take a step onto the bridge, and another step. Coming home, coming home… Becoming still… Don’t try to become still. That’s just more movement. But when you are a ready, simply set foot on the bridge and feel yourself moving closer and closer to that radiance and stillness of the far shore. At what point do you begin to smell the roses? Feel the body energy settling, quieting, the mind quiet. Perhaps a sense of joy and of ease. Just resting there. It may be that you step completely off the bridge into the dharmakaya, or it may be that you’ll still be on the end of the bridge, or even in the middle. Wherever you are is fine. I’m going to be quiet for about 10 minutes.

(pause)

Aaron: My blessings and love to you all. I am Aaron. Thank you for playing this game with me. I had fun imagining it and describing it to Barbara this afternoon. As you were doing the exercise, I had a thought. How many of you know the song, Somewhere Over the Rainbow? I was thinking about that song, watching what was happening for many of you. I think it’s a perfect theme song for this. Can we sing it? I know the words but I cannot carry the tune.

Somewhere over the rainbow

Way up high

There’s a land that I heard of

Once in a lullaby.

Somewhere over the rainbow

Skies are blue

And the dreams that you dare to dream

Really do come true.

(group continues to sing in background)

It’s a perfect description of the dharmakaya.

Somewhere over the rainbow

Bluebirds fly

Birds fly over the rainbow

Why oh why can’t I?

If happy little bluebirds fly beyond the rainbow

Why oh why can’t I?

And the only reason why you can’t fly over the rainbow is because you believe you can’t. When you know you can, of course you can! Which leads me to the second part of the class.

Back to our core of working with human and the defilements, with your guidance and support, with your vipassana practice, there’s a quote that has come to me numerous times. I don’t know its origin, but, “Anything you do not love will become a lesson.” I’ll say that again. “Anything you do not love will become a lesson.”

For a lot of you, this “what we do not love” is within the self. Not loving your bodies, your minds, your emotions. Feeling unworthy. Feeling afraid. And turning on yourself. “If only I was smarter, more beautiful, kinder, richer.”

You spoke about the experiences on the bridge. Everywhere on the bridge is on the bridge. You did not come into the incarnation to stay in ultimate reality. If that was your plan, why would you have chosen to incarnate? And yet you also did not come to lose track of ultimate reality, but to hold them together. Thus, to stay mindful of the fact that you are on the bridge. For even when you come off on the nirmanakaya shore, the bridge has its posts down into that shore, so the nirmanakaya is connected to the sambhogakaya, cannot lose that connection. And the sambhogakaya is connected to the Dharmakaya.

Our ongoing practice, then, is to learn, as we started within the book Human: how do we live this life with love, with kindness, with presence? How do we be the fullest and most loving human we can be without denial of the human?

Coming back to the quote. “Anything you do not love will become a lesson.” I think the place where you most frequently lose contact with the Dharmakaya is when you shut down with negative thought about yourself. I am not lovable. I am not smart enough. I am not capable. I am unworthy. As soon as you do that, you’ve got your back to the bridge and you’re running the opposite direction. You can no longer see or feel the light. When you can no longer experience the light, you cannot learn the lessons that you came to learn. We need to know when we are running away from the bridge and why.

Let’s work, each of you, with a limiting belief. Each of you has your own Top Ten Hit Parade. If you can’t find one immediately, just use unworthiness. “I am unworthy.” Because for most of you that is at least part of the limiting beliefs. But if you have a different one, “I am not lovable or loved. I am not kind enough. I am not smart enough. I am too impatient. I cannot form loving relationship. I cannot earn the money I wish to earn in the world.”— what are the beliefs?

I am not reading the talk, but I went through this with Barbara today for several hours and took notes, or she took notes. So I’m using her notes as part of my direction, here.

Reflect on the belief. How does it feel to consider this? How does it feel in the body, in the mind? Probably uncomfortable.

You do not love this belief, and yet you hold onto it. Why?

“Anything you do not love will become a lesson.” What does it mean not to love this belief? What does it mean to hold onto it?

Now I’m going to ask you to be quiet for about 5 minutes, going within with the question: what does this belief protect me from? Or, if I did not have this belief, what might be asked of me? Don’t try to figure it out with the brain, but let the heart speak. Just 2 or 3 minutes. I’ll be quiet.

(tape paused)

What does this belief protect me from? If I was not attached to this belief, what might I experience? Both questions probably bring discomfort. How do we bring presence to the discomfort? Here are your vipassana practice, your metta, your compassion practice. Breathing in, I am aware of the tension, sadness, contraction, wanting to get away. Breathing out, I hold space for the discomfort, willing to see what is there.

You will find it more possible to look from upon the bridge. That which is grounded in fear is often the nirmanakaya side of the bridge, running in mad circles. So come up on the bridge. Settle into the stillness and light. What does this belief protect me from? If I did not have this belief, what might be asked of me?

Again, let us have a few minutes holding space for any discomfort and its movements in the mind and body.

(tape paused)

Let’s move a little further, coming out of the meditation/reflection with that question. I want to introduce my friend Joe. When he was a boy, Joe’s uncle drowned. It was a hot day on the beach, but there was a riptide and people said, “No, don’t swim.” Joe’s uncle wanted to swim, so he jumped in the water, he was pulled away and drowned.

His family were devastated, and Joe was constantly told as a boy, “See what happens when you don’t think of others? See what happens when you act impulsively? See what happens when you believe you can do anything?” So Joe grew up with this idea.

Now when Joe has the opportunity to swim, he says, “No, I can’t swim.” Joe of course is a figurative being, but in another way he’s all of you. What is it you can’t do? “I can’t. I can’t.” Joe does not love swimming. “Anything you do not love will become a lesson.” It’s not about the swimming, it’s about the “I can’t.” What can you not do? What myth do you hold about yourself? Why?

I want to make it clear the myth is not bad, although of course it’s uncomfortable. But perhaps you have gotten so far off the bridge that you’ve become lost in the forest on the other side, and lost track of the bridge. Now the mind is spinning with the idea, “I should be able to do this and that. If I can’t do it, I’m bad. I should make hundreds of thousands of dollars. I should have people loving me constantly. I should have power. I should have”— whatever it is you think you should have. “But I am not good enough, not smart enough, not capable enough.”

For Joe, I think we can see that part of his reluctance to acknowledge, “I can learn how to swim,” is a fear for himself, “I could drown.” But part of it is a fear, “If I try and I fail, I will hurt other people, so I will not try.” For whatever reasons, he continues to hold onto the myth. He has an intention to do no harm, but because of the power of the myth working through him, he is doing harm by withholding his energy, his power, his light, from other people. What if he can swim? What if he can do almost anything, can fly over the rainbow? He is afraid to try.

What if you are not unworthy and have never been unworthy? What if you are not weak in the body or if the mind is not as clear as you think it should be? What if you are not as generous as you “should be”, or as patient? Why have you built a self-image that you are that? You are clipping the bird’s wings. Then he cannot fly over the rainbow. Why are you holding onto that myth?

Here’s a continuation. Joe always wanted a loving relationship but never found it. The women to whom he’s attracted, he finds out they’re married, or they have a terrible disease and are dying, or they’re about to move to another continent. And he says, “Why does this happen to me? It’s not fair. Other people have loving relationships. What’s wrong with me? Something must be wrong with me.” But can you see how it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy? The question is not what’s wrong with me but why am I cutting myself out of the relationships I seek, or the success in my life I seek, or the joy I seek, or the good health I seek? What am I afraid of?

I do not wish to give the idea that, for example if you are in poor health or are alone and wish a relationship, that you are causing it, that you are bad in some way. Of course not. There are many parts to this that lead you into your life situations. But all of you have so much power of free will choice if you remove the veil from your eyes and begin to see. But this takes enormous courage. Yet this is why you came into the incarnation: to know yourself in your radiance and infiniteness. To know your power. To know your power to love and be loved. To know your power of compassion, of wisdom.

You started in the dharmakaya, and then with birth you flew over the bridge— whoosh! Back into the nirmanakaya— ouch! Crash! What happened? I was home. I was in such a lit-up place, and now I’m in this patch of thorns. I don’t want to be here, but I can’t get out. I’m stuck.

Why are you stuck? It really is all in the mind. And we come back to the question: everything you cannot love comes as a lesson. If you cannot love yourself, what is the lesson? If you cannot love others, or cannot allow yourself to feel loved by others, what is the lesson? I think the core lesson is that many of you still have the belief that you were tossed out of the Garden of Eden, and therefore something is wrong with you. And only when you’ve finally scoured that wrongness off yourself can you come home.

But this is not the way it is at all. Out of your own free will choice you left the Garden of Eden, you left the Dharmakaya, you left Paradise, because you were committed to inviting the lessons, so instead of staying small, you would manifest your immensity and radiance. So that you could give off more light in the universe, be of greater service in the universe. Love more. Fly higher over the rainbow.

You had the courage to come into the incarnation, every one of you. I know that because you’re here, and you had free will. Nobody forced you into the incarnation. You had free will. You might be saying, “Why would I have done that?” Well, because you were committed to learning to love more fully, to bring more love and light into the universe.

But now you say it’s too hard. It is hard; I know it’s hard. I’ve had countless lifetimes, and they have been hard. But you can soar over the rainbow. You can come home. You can begin to know who and what you are, and this is truly why you incarnated in the first place and started this whole progression of incarnations. You are ready to do the work that’s needed or you would not be here in this class. I know it takes courage.

So now I’m going to go back to the statement: bring to mind some limiting belief you hold about yourself. It doesn’t have to be the biggest one, but bring it to mind. What does this belief protect me from? What did Joe’s belief that he could not have a relationship protect him from? What do you think?

Q: Protected from the pain of loving.

Aaron: Yes. That pretty well sums it up. Protects him from the fear of rejection. From the pain of the times as a child when he did not feel loved. Protects him from taking risks.

Q: Protects from the fear of failure.

Aaron: What else?

Q: It forces him to take responsibility and then act. Once you accept responsibility you have to act. And when you act, there is the capability of abusing your power. But fear that keeps you locked in, and keeps you from fulfilling your destiny which can affect others in a positive way…. Today I’m letting go of that. I’m doing my job.

Aaron: Can you all feel how the further you run off into the nirmanakaya world, running in circles trying to find a mundane world solution, the further you go from the solution? But if you just let yourself step onto the bridge and see the light, allow yourself to be received by the light, to flow into the light, you begin to feel there is an answer. This can resolve itself. I do not have to carry this belief. I choose the light, and not the darkness. I choose the stillness and presence and not the frenetic mind swirling around, trying to fix everything.

Q: It allows you to fulfill your soul’s purpose.

Q: I think it protects one from humbly knowing their divinity, and having compassion for being human. And you have to be willing to forgive yourself, because you are going to screw up.

Aaron: You must forgive yourself, but to begin with you must have compassion for yourself, and love, cherishing of yourself that you had the courage to come into the incarnation in the first place, remembering at some level, “This is going to be hard.” So we don’t start with forgiveness, that follows, but we start with compassion.

Q: It protects you from being selfish by giving yourself that light.

Aaron: Protects you from your fear that you will be selfish?

Q: Yes. And it protects you from leaving others in the darkness.

Aaron: So the limiting belief protects you because it holds you powerless, in a sense.

Q: It protects you from separating you from people who are in the darkness.

Aaron: So it protects you from other people’s darkness? From your own darkness?

Q: Like Kwan Yin said, “I’ll stay in the world until everyone knows their light.” So she did not separate herself from the people.

Aaron: Everyone knows their light, but if you know your light, then you’re responsible for living that light. And perhaps that’s what’s hard. Fear that you won’t do it perfectly.

Q: It just feels like separation from other people that don’t know the light.

Aaron: I see where you’re going with this. So if you know your light but others don’t, in some way does that makes you “better than”, in your own mind?

Q: Maybe that too, but the main core of it is that, it feels like not knowing others. It feels so different from mundane reality that it’s hard to stay connected to people in mundane reality.

Aaron: Because other people in mundane reality are running around in a dither. But to what benefit to them if you also run around in a dither. This is where the thinking goes askew, because it is, as we saw with the exercise, when Barbara grounded, if Barbara got pulled up from the chair and pulled around the room, everything would have been swirling around forever. But at a certain point she envisioned this core of light and just stopped. Her energy invited others into that space. So essentially you have the choice to get pulled into it with others, or to learn how to come back to that core of light in yourself and trust that it is transmittable to others, and a real service to offer it to others, even if some others don’t seem to appreciate it.

Q: It makes sense intellectually, but there is some (inaudible), like I want to go there with my whole mind, heart, and body, but only my mind is going.

Aaron: I understand. For now, let us move on.

Dan: From my perspective, that separation from people who are in the nirmanakaya, it’s not a separation. If you can move into the Dharmakaya, you actually have more of a connection with those people in the nirmanakaya. It just feels that way in the beginning. It feels like a separation, but from my experience, when you know your essence, you’re able to know the essence of the people in the nirmanakaya who are in a dither also, and you feel closer to them. And you haven’t lost anything, you just lost total identification with your own discursive mind.

Aaron: I’d like us to go on and we’ll come back to group discussion in a few minutes.

Let’s go back to my friend Joe. He wants a relationship. He wants success in his work. He wants peace and joy. And he’s running around, frantic. What will help? Some meditation will help. Knowing that he has the courage, that he was not forced into the incarnation but came to learn, for the highest good of all beings. Really to trust that. Extending more compassion to himself can help. Inviting support from his guides can help. Finding a sangha with whom he can talk about these issues can help. Learning that other people are experiencing the same thing that he’s experiencing, and he’s not bad because he’s having these experiences, but that together, it’s easier to climb up on the bridge and walk toward the light. It’s easier to ask this question: what am I running from? What am I afraid of?

I want you to sit quietly for a few minutes and reflect on the story that has grown huge in your life. Not good enough, not kind enough, unlovable, keep stumbling or getting it wrong, whatever it may be. It doesn’t have to be the biggest story, just one of them. I am unworthy, I believe I am unworthy. A few minutes, maybe 5 minutes to reflect on this, and then I want you to break into groups of 2 and 3 people. Take turns sharing. What is this dominant story for you? And what do you think would help you to release this story? What holds it in place? What you say in these small groups is confidential. The others in the group are not there to fix you but simply to listen. But they may help shift your energy from the “I can’t” into the “Remember. Open. You can. Invite spirit’s support. Remember. Let’s hold hands and walk across the bridge together.” So they are not there to fix you but to support your passage.

A few minutes from one person and then on to the other person in the group, and then we’ll come back together at the end and share some of the highlights and what was learned in these groups. I’m not going to try to choose groups so much as to invite you, as part of your sitting here, to ask, who do I feel drawn to? Whose story might superimpose itself upon mine, and whose release from that story might be connected to mine? So, 2 or 3 people together.

First, a minute or two of silence, just reflecting: what is my story, that has held me caught in limiting beliefs? And also reflecting: I choose to step onto the bridge, to release myself from this story. How do vipassana, awareness of the ability to approach that Dharmakaya essence, opening to guidance, skillful practice with challenging mind and body states, knowing courage, how do these come together to support freedom?

So now move into your pairs and threes…

(recording ends)