April 14, 2021 Wednesday Morning, Emerald Isle Retreat
Step by Step Practice
(taken out of context in the group discussion, and in response to discussion on the experiences of dissolution and of no-self)
Aaron: My blessings and love to you. I am Aaron. Thanks to each of you who have spoken.
I think with bringing together of vipassana, especially strong mindfulness, and pure awareness, there is much less a danger of getting stuck someplace. We emphasize balance, taking the next step.
Let’s use an example of a log over a deep canyon, running one wall to the other. We don’t put a beginner out on the log, don’t lift them up, put them six feet out and say to them, “Walk across.”
We practice finding balance with a log six inches off the ground, helping people to truly know the balanced state and trust the balanced state for themselves.
We practice pure awareness, helping people to experience what it’s like to look down at that deep, deep canyon; helping people to experience what it is like on the other side.
Step by step, experiencing that which blocks the knowing of balance and that which blocks trust in innate balance.
These are all the karmic questions, all the emotional issues.
(Aaron is pasting sticky notes on his face as he talks)
There is no need to resolve every emotional issue from this and every past life. Rather, we’re helping you to see that these issues have just been sticky notes.
This essence that I am can float across on the log. The ego self probably can’t.
Having been floated across on the log, the next time you need to do it, there’s a little more sense of confidence and in expressing the essence of yourself, not getting caught up in the stories of the personality self.
I know for Barbara, John, and I, as teachers we do not encourage people to move into deeper experiences of dissolution until we feel they’re ready, and we give a lot of preparatory guidance.
If you encourage and invite deep vipassana experience, at some level you are ready for it. But mostly, if you come into your practice with the direct intention to move forward in the most stable and helpful way, for the highest good of oneself and all beings and harm to none – “I choose to move forward in this way, to learn step by step, not just ‘Whoosh!’ Just step by step, that which I am able to hold stably at this time, in this way.” –this intention will carry you through.
I would also like to say about your teacher (addressing a student who had expressed concern for having seen someone get caught), from what I know of him, he was not using vipassana. His path was different, and it led more into that “whoosh!” And he did not have some of the basic tools that vipassana gives for watching ungroundedness, watching any energetic fluctuations in the self, and coming back, addressing them, holding space for them until they dissolve, before moving on. He had different tools. I cannot share how those tools work. It was not my path.
I’m not criticizing his path, only there are many different paths, and I personally feel this is both a safe and clear path.
Just that.
Thank you.