Softening Resistance; Working with Primary and Predominant Objects; Dependent Origination: Watching Mental Formation; Dissolution of the Separate Self

October 3, 2021 Sunday Morning, Oakwood Retreat

Softening Resistance; Working with Primary and Predominant Objects; Dependent Origination: Watching Mental Formation; Dissolution of the Separate Self

Barbara: Silence is such a precious tool. Just to give ourselves time to settle in, that’s probably the most important for this morning. Aaron will give instructions. But watch for the noise in your heads. It doesn’t have to be human noise. The noise of the lawnmower, the noise of the trees swaying back and forth in the wind, visual noise, and how easily you get pulled into it with the whole idea, “That has to stop so I can be silent,” rather than, “It’s just passing by. It doesn’t have to catch me.” The whole world is passing us by, grabbing us, yelling at us, soothing us, shaking us. How do we respond to that?

I said I was working with the pain I’m having in my teeth. When I eat hot and cold food it hurts. I don’t have to eat hot and cold food. But when I move a lot, especially when I bend over, it hurts. So, I was trying to exercise yesterday and it brought up pain. Then the pain brought up anger. Unfair! I want to be able to do my exercises. And Aaron said, “Well, do you have to do an exercise that brings your head down? Why not do an exercise where you’re sitting up?”

So I experimented doing exercises—I have two of them (demonstrating). Then he had me put it here, hold it out like that and lift my legs, and that forced the core muscles to tighten. Hold my legs out in front of me, sitting. Move this back and forth. Feel what’s happening in my abs. But there was no pain.

So, I got what he was saying. Instead of fighting against what’s painful, do what we can with what’s not painful. And that seemed to be a valuable thing to pass on to you, because so many people believe, “I’m not getting it. I’m not doing the meditation right. I’m not allowing painful memories or thoughts or whatever to arise, so I must be doing it wrong.”

Sometimes our practice will be painful, but it doesn’t have to be painful. I think the balance is not trying to grasp at anything, not trying to avoid anything.

And then, watching how we do grasp, how we do avoid, with a simple note, “Ah, grasping. Ah, pushing away, resisting.” What is the direct experience of grasping or resistance?

So, for me it’s important, especially in daily life but equally on retreat, to watch this.

For me, a frequent primary object is luminosity. And I have a strong experience of light radiating everywhere. It’s not constant but it’s frequent enough that if I lose it, I ask, “Where did it go? Where is it?” Stop, breathe, and the luminosity comes back.

Sometimes, if I’m not really focused, nada is a stronger object, or spaciousness, or even coming back to the breath. And then I see grasping or resistance. Those are the two predominant objects that I keep working with through the day. Just mindfully aware of that tension, resistance; grasping, trying to pull it to me.

I’ve been watching the past 24 hours how with resistance I clench my jaw. No surprise. Ahh, resistance, soften, soften. And as soon as I soon as I soften my jaw a lot of the resistance goes away.

Some of you know my history with spiders. I was in the other room. Hal’s caregivers had gone home so I was pretty much alone there, Hal in bed. And there was a spider. Big guy crawling along. “Spider, spider. Resistance.” Aaron said, “What’s happening with your jaw?” Just a gentle reminder. Ahh… And it was interesting that with this, the spider and I are separate. With this, when the jaw is soft, the belly is soft, the body is soft; it’s receptive. And I was able to look at the spider and say, “Hey, little guy, you’re trapped,” and then take a plastic container and a lid and catch him in the container and put him outside. And to relate to him as a sentient being who would be suffering if he was trapped—he was actually in the bathtub—who could be trapped if he was in the bathtub.

Our bodies are such clear teachers, so I want to suggest to you. It may not be in your jaw; for me, that’s where it is. It might be in your chest or in the belly. Where are you holding that resistance? Can you see it and just note, “resistance”? Or “grasping”; it might be grasping.

Now, I can’t eat anything icy cold. I opened the freezer to pull out a dinner last night after Aaron’s talk, and right there next to my vegetable chicken bowl dinner was a big container of chocolate ice cream. Ooo! I want that! Ooo! For me, the grasping doesn’t come into the jaw, it comes into the belly. But the whole energy field constricts.

These are things we can watch in mindfulness within formal sitting and out of the formal sitting.

Aaron had asked me to give some introduction, and he’s going to go on with the instructions. Aaron, have I shared what you wanted me to share? He says yes—about the spider; about the ice cream; about how you perceive it in your body. So, Aaron’s going to pick it up from here.

Aaron: My blessings and love to you. I am Aaron. Thank you for being with me this way. Let’s return to some of John’s instruction from yesterday about primary and predominant object.

You have different primary objects; that’s fine. Your practice is never to hold, to attach to any one thing but to flow.

Choiceless awareness. When nothing else is predominant, be with the primary object. When something becomes predominant in your experience, move to it. It really is as simple as that.

I picture an ice skater. Two blades. She pushes off one blade and the other glides forward. Strong push, and long glide. But the glide comes to an end and it’s a little harder to balance. The other foot comes forward and pushes off—glide. And then the other foot pushes off. Glide, push, glide. Many of you have ice skated at one time or another and you know the feeling in your body of that balance. You just move along, gliding, and, as the glide tapers off, pushing again.

I see the strong comparison, as the primary object is supporting your attention because something has come up. In the case of the skating, unbalanced. You shift into the predominant object. What has come up? A physical sensation, a thought, a feeling, feeling pleasant, unpleasant, or an emotion. What has arisen? There are only so many things that can arise. If it’s a physical sensation, there could be ten thousand different possible sensations—hearing, seeing, touching. But they are still physical.

Hearing. Seeing. Smelling. Touching. Body sensation— throbbing, itching, heat, cold. Or a mental sensation. John talked about nama and rupa—rupa -materiality – of the body; nama- mentality- of the mind.

Nama, thinking. Again, only so many places where the thought can be—planning, remembering, imagining, fantasizing.

The important thing that I want you to focus on today is to watch when you drop the primary object. Not to scold yourself and say, “Oh, I need the primary object.” Just to note, let’s call it switching, like a train that’s been riding on the track and it comes through a junction. It goes this way, or it goes that way, or it goes that way. Think of it as train switch junction. The attention is now moved into some physical sensation—body discomfort, or maybe now a mental object—imagining, remembering; or perhaps an emotional object, which is also mind but it can be more mind and body. Maybe it’s an emotional object like sadness, gladness, fear, love.

We simply watch that this has arisen. Whatever arises— most of you have been through the chain of dependent origination with Barbara, John, and me many times, but it’s good to remind you of it.

There is contact. The sense organ or mind touching the object, contact. In contact, just contact. Barbara’s eyes seeing the spider, just contact, seeing. Consciousness of what is seen. Ah, seeing a spider. It’s still just seeing a spider. For that instant it’s neutral. Contact, consciousness, feeling of pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral, and perception.

Consciousness and perception are not the same thing. Perception draws on old memories to perceive and see what this is; to identify it. Consciousness is simply with it the object. It’s just a life form, just that.

Perception and feeling. One does not necessarily precede the other; it can be either way, but they really come together. And it’s not important to say which came first, only, “Perception, spider, feeling unpleasant.”

“Perception, ice cream.” Feeling first pleasant and then a separate step, “Oh no, I can’t eat ice cream.” So somebody had gone to the store and bought a carton of ice cream. One of the caregivers or somebody had put this carton of chocolate ice cream in there. Actually, a caregiver baked Hal an apple pie the other day, and I guess she brought the ice cream. “Oh, apple pie and ice cream!” Wanting, wanting. Grasping.

One is still free until one gets drawn in as a self. The one who is perceiving with consciousness, with contact, this is empty of self. It’s simply the way a life form functions, the mammal. It will contact an object. It will perceive. There does not have to be any story. Contact, consciousness, feeling, and perception.

Mental formation. This is the one I want you to watch. Not to fix. You are a mammal; there will be mental formations. Because this is where you get caught. We call this the active moment, the moment where it switches from just present with whatever has arisen into contraction. Jaw clenching, belly clenching, throat clenching, back—wherever you hold that tension. And the stories arise.

The story is not the object. The story is a new object. The old object, seeing the spider, is no longer predominant. Fear is predominant. Perhaps loathing is predominant, a feeling of separation. Whatever it is, this is the object, and you do not have to move further into the story of saying, “Oh, it’s only a spider; I shouldn’t be afraid.” Or, “It’s a spider; I should save it and get it outside. I should be good and kind to the spider.” There are still stories.

Just noting, seeing, seeing a spider, feeling of unpleasant. Or maybe for some of you it’s pleasant. “Oh, what kind of spider is it? Look how interesting it is.” Being drawn into it. Feeling of pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral.

And then, if there is a mental formation, follow it. If you just see, “Ah, spider,” neutral—contact, consciousness, feeling neutral—then you come back to your primary object. There’s nothing else there, just seeing the spider. There is no energy to carry it further.

Perhaps you take a container and lift the spider out, but there’s nobody doing it. There’s no self saying, “I’m scared but I’ll do it,” or, “Oh, a spider! I really want to kill it!”

There’s just nobody lifting nothing and escorting it outside and coming back, and there’s no ripple of disturbance in your energy field, in your body, in your practice. There’s no story.

Contact, consciousness, feeling and perception. Mental formation. And where mental formation arises, that’s a cue that there’s some energetic something there.

This is not a puzzle for you to untangle. Simply pause at that point in your practice, noting tension, tension, agitation, discomfort. This is a very profound, powerful predominant object that has been handed to you to practice with.

Ahh… just opening, present with “I want the ice cream!” or “I don’t want the spider!”

Attraction, liking, is not grasping. Disliking is not aversion. Unpleasant is not yet aversion. Pleasant is not yet grasping.

If you can catch this phase, watching when like or pleasant becomes grasping, when dislike or unpleasant becomes aversion, just watch that shift and take that predominant object. “Ah, here is aversion. Breathing in, I am aware of the aversion. Breathing out, I hold space for the aversion.” You’re not trying to get rid of aversion, just to be present with it.

As the whole energy of the aversion begins to dissipate, you don’t hold onto the experience of aversion. It has dissipated. Return to your primary object.

I’m going to use a slightly different example. Perhaps you’re sitting outside on your deck and meditating andy a wasp starts to fly around your head. You hear it buzzing. You feel it land on you. Contact, either the ear, the organ of sound, of hearing, picks up the sound “buzzing” or the skin contact picks up “touch”. It’s a gentle touch; it’s not stinging you. There’s nothing unpleasant about that touch. It’s just about the story, “It might sting me!” There’s nothing unpleasant about the sound; it’s a very quiet buzz. I don’t know if a wasp buzzes; a bee buzzes, so let’s use a bee.

What is unpleasant here? Only fear, “It might sting me.” Projection into the future.

In what way are you inviting the sting as something you’re inviting to teach you—to teach you what? To be afraid of the bee? Not to be afraid of the bee? I don’t want to get too complex, here. I only want you to see the bee is just a bee, and all the rest are stories built up of old conditioning.

The important thing is not unraveling the stories, not asking, “When was I last stung by a bee?”, not going into those memories, just knowing “contracting, fear.” Breathing in I am aware of the contraction. The bee is gone; he’s flown away. He’s only with you in your head. He’s over there a hundred yards, buzzing around some flowers. He’s gone. Why are you holding onto the bee?

A memory comes up, an unpleasant memory, somebody who spoke abusively to you, perhaps, and in that moment he’s the bee buzzing and touching you. Remembering, remembering, unpleasant, unpleasant.

Breathing in, I am aware of the contraction. Right there we go to the uncontracted, right there with the contraction. You don’t have to fix this person or this old memory. You choose to find that spaciousness within the heart, within the body, that can simply see this as a memory and make the decision, “I’m not going to carry this person any further. I’m done with him. I put him down. I’m done. I’m not going to carry this unpleasant experience any further.”

But it must be done very carefully, without aversion being the predominant force that puts it down. This is an important point. Kindness to yourself and to the other puts it down, because as you put it down you break the stream of karma with that experience. “I’m done with it.”

It must be done honestly. If you’re not done with it, you can’t say, “I’m done with it,” because that’s just enacting the aversion. Rather, “Ahh, I would like to be done with it but I’m not. So, I will spend some time just holding this person and this memory in my heart. Not trying to fix anything, just present with it, holding it in my heart.”

You may begin to see with more clarity what you did that upset this person. How this person reacted—push, push, push, push, back and forth. It may have been subtle, but still each was reactive.

A possibility at this point is to back out of the vipassana for a few minutes and do some forgiveness meditation. Speaking to the other person, “However I have hurt you, I invite your forgiveness. Please forgive me,” if you know how you hurt the other person, through words or from punching them in the nose, “However I have hurt you, please forgive me. How ever you have hurt me, I forgive you. Through what you said or did, I forgive you.”

Begin to feel the coming together of the two of you, the direct experience of the heart opening, seeing your pain and the other’s pain as one pain, releasing.

When it all feels released, then come back to your primary object. Or when much of it feels released, not all of it. But when there’s nothing else that seems to ask for your attention, then come back to your primary object.

You sit for a few moments and the memory of this person comes back. Hearing the mean words, what you interpreted as mean and angry words, coming toward you from this person. Contraction. Aversion. Move back to this predominant object. You’re gliding from one to the other, now with the predominant object because it’s holding your attention.

If you say, “I guess I didn’t forgive well enough; I should go back to that,” you’re trying to fix it. Just stop and, with compassion, hold yourself in your heart. Feeling pain because that’s what’s predominant now. The other person is not so predominant so much as the pain you felt you had with the other person. Feeling helplessness, feeling anger. What is it that’s coming to you and wants your attention? Feeling sadness, helplessness. What is the direct experience of that?

And often when you ask that question you begin to see the way you tried to avoid that direct experience of grief, of helplessness, of fear.

This brings us back to that sacred darkness practice. From the place of love, can you hold this?

I don’t see a small crystal on my desk, but take your crystal. Feel the love in it, feel the support in it, and bring it to your heart. Feel the entities’ love, your guides’ love, the Mother’s love, my love. You can ask, “Aaron, help me. Mother, help me. My guide, help me, because this darkness is so dark, I’m terrified to go into it.”

Often here you find a leading into a deep place of healing, the place that you have worked so hard to avoid— a place of shame, of feeling unworthy or not able, small, different, unlovable— and it’s so painful to touch those places. But you’ve worked so hard to come to the place where it’s open in front of you, inviting itself to be healed.

At this point, we still have a somebody doing this. There’s this bit of yes, me, I’m working with this or that kind of object. You do not then go back to your breath or a primary object but stay with whatever has presented itself. I called it sadness, or grief, or fear, or shame, or anger, but it could be a mix of all of those, a whole cauldron, this stew of negative emotion. You don’t have to pin it down, just feeling discomfort. “I don’t want to see this, it’s too frightening. I don’t want to see this.”

It can be helpful here to ask yourself, what is my highest intention here? Is it to go on protecting myself in the ancient ways, and thus prolonging the karma and the old patterns? Or is it to invite myself to open and release those old patterns that have held me into this separate self? Am I ready to let go of this separate self?

If you keep practicing in this way, each time there is some letting go and coming back to the primary object, resting in spaciousness, perhaps, in the high energy and vibration, resting in luminosity, resting with nada as the primary object or just with the breath but nothing else happening, just there with the breath, gradually all the layers, the thousand layers of self begin to dissolve.

What remains? Who remains? Is there anybody there? What is this construct that you are so identified with that you cannot see beyond all the outer shell and discover the reality of your being, empty of a separate self? Connected, part of everything. Love, light, high energy—ahhh…..

The primary object may be too constricting, at that point. We move into a phase—and I’m not saying that this is going to happen each time you sit, but with loving attention you may experience this during the retreat—everything that you’ve thought of as self dissolves, and what remains? And there’s a sudden understanding, deep insight into what you truly are when you stop being so self-identified with any of the aggregates. What are you? Who are you?

When I say you are love and you are light, those are just words. It needs to be experienced directly and then you will know.

As I look around the room, with the exception of a very few of you whom I do not know, all of you have had this experience at some time, this deep insight into your pure being. It’s wonderful, ecstatic, and terrifying because this is the pure you, free of any armor.

And the old fear comes back. Armoring, the mammal needing to armor itself, needing to protect itself.

But if you practice in a way that notes the return of fear, the return of a sense of armor, just armoring, withdrawing, contracting. Ah, that’s the predominant object. Be with it. Watch how it comes and how it goes again. Comes… and goes…

Who is the one who is experiencing it? What is this separate self? Do I need to perpetuate that illusion?

The separate self is a useful tool of the incarnation. Here is the Buddha’s story of the other shore, and after you paddle your raft across, touch on the other shore, you don’t pick it up and carry it on your back in case you need it again. You set it down.

So for those who have this kind of experience, I want you to watch yourself picking up that raft of self again and again.

Instead, when you reach the other shore, just be there. It may be only for a minute, maybe for hours. It is safe. You will not annihilate yourself because the true self is not annihilated. What is released is all the images of who you thought you were. Feel how light you become, how open your heart becomes, how much joy there is and connection with everything. In that state, open your eyes and simply sit with pure awareness, knowing your connection with everything. Ahh…

In a further sitting you might come back to that place. Coming back to the place where everything else releases and there is just presence and love.

You can take it a step further, then, with a simple question: whose presence is this? Is there anybody there?

Watch the subtle attachment to still being a somebody, because as long as you’re trying to be a somebody, it’s limiting. Do you want to continue being a somebody, or do you want to wake up to knowing you’re everybody and everything? Then all the old conditioning has nothing left to stick to. It dissolves; you are free, or at least freer.

So this is what I would like you to practice with today. Let me try to simplify the instructions.

Present with a primary object.

When anything becomes predominant, move attention to it with as much awareness as possible of the stage, as it goes very fast, of contact, consciousness, feeling, and perception.

And, if mental formation has arisen, watching that arising.

See this whole mass of arising as simply arisen from conditions, not from the self. Let it go.

If it goes, there’s nothing more to do with it. Old conditioning will continue to pull it up until that conditioning thins and dissolves. There’s nothing to fix; there’s nothing to do.

But if what has arisen persists and becomes stronger then bring attention to it, simply knowing it as contraction, contraction. Coming into the spaciousness. You don’t have to name it as fear or anger, just contraction.

And where are you feeling it in the body? You might look at the body, at the chakras, throat, heart, solar plexus, spleen, base, and also the crown and third eye, but more likely in the lower chakras. Where am I holding it? Soft hands over that area of holding. Not trying to figure out where it came from or why, just ahh… As it resolves, come back to your primary object. If it comes again, do it again.

If it keeps coming, then bring your attention to it. What is this anger? What is this fear? I am willing to hold space for it. I am willing to look at it clearly and see it as it is.

Watch the tension not wanting to be with it. Again, that path of sacred darkness. Those of you who were in Dharma Path last spring, I gave an exercise wherein from that sambhogakaya bridge you found a little gate on the railing and a harness you could strap yourself into, a button that said Up and Down. So, you stepped out, the arms swung out, and you were over a huge chasm deeper than you could see.

You lowered yourself down, down, the light up above, and it’s getting very dark. Stop. You don’t have to go to the bottom. How deep are you able to go in this moment? Just to be there with fear, with dread, with discomfort, with pain, with anger, with helplessness, with shame, and really know it for what it is.

It’s very natural to want to avoid that darkness, but it’s important to allow yourself to see it for it is because it’s hollow, it has no substance. It’s just made up of eons and eons of old conditioning, that’s all it is.

When you practice in this way, it’s a very easy transition from the predominant object back to the primary object, with no exclusion of the predominant object. Simply, there’s nothing left to untangle except trying to fix it. Trying to fix it. Ah, let it be. Come back to the primary object, knowing that as this object comes back and catches you again, you bring attention to it again. Repeating over and over until eventually it has no emotional power, it’s just the object.

We had a friend once who came to the house, who was terrified of dogs. Had been mauled by a dog as a child. In the house at that point was a big black collie just like Banner. Very gentle. But when she saw him, she screamed. So, Barbara put him outside.

We spent many sessions meditating together, with her watching the terror that came up. Finding the spaciousness. Beginning to see how conditioning shifted her into a place of fear immediately, when she saw a dog. She was trapped in this. She couldn’t take a walk in her neighborhood because there would be people walking dogs on a leash. But she couldn’t keep crossing the street, trying to avoid every dog. She was trapped in her home.

It took about 6 months, meeting with her once a week. She came to a point where, first, the dog— his name was Prince— would sit on one side of a sliding glass door and she would sit on the other, and Barbara on the outside would lift his paw—she would say “Paw” and Prince would lift his paw. He would pat it against the glass.

Slowly she began to be able to separate the old conditioning from the reality. And the reality of course was not that every dog was safe, only that here was a dog with whom she did not have to be terrified. She saw how gentle he was. He was very well-trained as a service dog. Finally, with terror, she was willing to take the glass away and allow Barbara to invite him in.

“Sit, Prince. Paw.” He held out his paw. And this was a huge moment for her, to be able to receive his paw and hold it in her hand. Just that contact, and she could feel his gentleness and his kindness. And then begin to stroke his head, begin to let him nuzzle up against her face, which was terrifying because she had been bitten in the face.

The old conditioning recedes gradually. A year later she would call often and say (it was a fenced back yard, as it is now), “Can I come over and play with Prince?” Whenever she was out walking and a fear of a dog came up for her, she would call Barbara and say, “I need some time with Prince.” And she would take him out in the back yard and just walk with him, pat him, sit on the grass, and hug him. Meditate and release the fear, the ancient fear, and go back out and find she was doing better at walking past strange dogs, that the old story dissolved.

So it became a meditation for her just to watch this strong predominant object. Not get tangled in trying to fix it but literally sit with it, with her arm around this loving collie, sitting on the grass. He would nuzzle. He would wash her face. And then she would go out and try other dogs again. Eventually she was no longer afraid of dogs at all. The conditioning had dissipated, the old terrifying experience that brought her into such contracted separate self.

You might like to try something similar with a tree in your yard. Go out and hug a tree. Now, you’ve not been attacked by a tree, but I was! It wasn’t attacking, it just was falling and I was in its path. It did not lead me to hate or fear trees. But lying under that tree, I was not able to merge my energy with it and feel love for it. I felt aggression from it.

Go out and hug a tree. Sit on the ground or stand and just hug the tree. Try just doing vipassana practice for 15 or 20 minutes, if you can stand that long, or sit with one arm around it, feeling the possibility of releasing the separate self and feeling your energy and the tree’s energy become one.

Don’t stop there. The tree’s roots are in the earth. Become the tree and go deep into the earth with the tree’s roots and feel your unity with the earth element, with the ground and the moisture in the ground. Earth, water. Go up the branches of the tree. Feel them moving in the air element and bring in that air element. Feel yourself as totally one with the earth, the water, and the air, and the living force of the tree, the fire element. Stop being you and—don’t lose yourself, combine yourself with the tree. Just try that as a practice one day this week and see how it feels.

What we’re speaking of is the dissolution of the separate self and how that happens through skillful practice, not trying to hold onto anything or get rid of anything. Just loving presence with the deep intention to come to the true essence of being. Not your being—being. To rest in that essence. To start to know who and what you are, because therein is love, and therein is non-separation, awakening. Power—not your power, THE power. Try it.

Thank you, and I love you.

This afternoon the Mother will offer darshan. It is optional. There are a few of you who may not have experienced this. She will reach out her hands, take your hands, look into your eyes, and share her energy and your energy. It is not her giving to you; it’s mutual. You are sharing with each other, much like hugging the tree. Hug the Mother in this way. Feel yourself connected to her. You are not separate from her.

The rest of the time, except your individual darshan, you are meditating. What do you feel? What comes up? Waiting for your turn, is there grasping? After your turn, is there joy? Is there sadness and feeling, “I didn’t get what I hoped for”? What comes up?

So use this afternoon and the darshan practice as an opportunity to explore mindfully, and also just to rest in the loving presence and high energy. I repeat that this is optional. If you would prefer to sit and walk on your own, that’s perfectly fine.

For those who have not experienced her energy, and for those who have, I think you will find her unconditional love is very powerful for healing.

Time to end. The clock says 11:00am. I leave you with love. We’ll talk again soon. I am Aaron.