January 30, 2022 Sunday Morning, Healing Workshop
The Non-Duality of the Elements, Heart Sutra, Flight of the Garuda
Barbara: When we think of healing, we think of something that’s linear. There’s something that’s damaged. It could be something in the body. It could be a relationship. It could be the emotions we have within ourselves. But we think of something that’s distorted, and we want to get it from here to there, where it’s not distorted.
There is this linear part of it. We learn as humans in a linear way. But we also need to open ourselves to the present undistorted.
We’ve been talking about this. There are so many beautiful teachings on non-duality, and I’m going to read a few of them to you, just small pieces of them. But still, these are just words. The experience is what we need.
It’s snowing lightly here— big white flakes coming down but not coming down hard, just floating down. I was standing on my deck before we started here, face up, feeling snowdrops touching my face, catching them on my tongue. Just so beautiful. And Aaron said, “The ocean is coming down on you.” Yes. The ocean evaporates and moves into the clouds and comes down as snow.
Standing out there, just envisioning huge waves breaking, and this whole beautiful process where the waves truly are the clouds, truly are the snow. And then I can go in and take a drink of water, and the ocean is me. The snow lands on the mountains and glaciers form. It melts, and it pours into the rivers and the lakes. And I drink that water. That water is me. My body is, I don’t know what percent but a large percent water.
I feel the density of my hand. It’s solid. Well, it’s January so I’m not going to be gardening, but in the spring, I go out and put these hands in the earth. And I think of my hands in the earth, but my hands are the earth. The earth element is here in my hands, there in the soil. Earth.
We breathe. Are you breathing in the air that’s right here, or are you breathing in the air from a hundred miles, a thousand miles away? Breathing it out. And we’re all sharing this air element, coming in and going out, coming in and going out.
Fire. The energy that I have within me and the sun up there. I am not different from the sun. The sun may be a much huger, intense ball of fire energy, but we are each fire energy.
I desire that this energy be in balance. You can learn so much about non-duality by reflecting on the elements.
A long time ago, maybe 25 years ago, I sat up on a high rock ledge on the island of Santorini in Greece. The island is shaped like a half-moon crescent. Across from the crescent where I was sitting you can also see a piece of what was Santorini. In the center is what used to be the mountaintop. It was a volcano that exploded, leaving this basin between this crescent and that crescent.
I sat on this rock ledge, probably a lot of hardened volcanic lava under me, looking out at the water at dawn. The water was still and reflecting everything. The sun was coming up behind the piece of the island that was on the other side, that thin crescent a few miles away. Sun rising. And there was a good breeze that came up.
Just sitting there meditating for many hours. Sitting on the earth, feeling the air, the wind. Feeling the fire—seeing the sun come up and then eventually feeling its heat, to the point that I had to put on a hat and something protective. Gazing at the water.
I was seeing them each as separate. Aaron asked me to see where they all come together. At first, I couldn’t do it, so he asked me to see it within my own body.
He asked me first, because the water was so pervasive, to feel fluidity as the water element in my body. Not just the blood but energy, the fluidity of the energy moving in my body. He asked me to find it in the breath, in the wind, the fluidity of the breath in my body. The earth energy, very easy to find: this solid body sitting on this solid rock. The fire energy—the heat, not just body heat but the energy, the love, to feel that.
It was easy to feel each of these. And he asked, which one is most pervasive? At that point the earth energy, this body just sitting, was very pervasive. He said, within this solid body, find the water, find the air, find the fire. Are they in balance? If not, what is out of balance there?
I could feel that the earth energy was heavy. He invited me, “Breathe in air. Allow the air to infiltrate the heaviness, to blow apart the heaviness a bit. What keeps you heavy?”
And as I reflected on that, I could see the whole way I functioned was to be heavy. Maybe that’s something to do with my weight. I’m still functioning as heavy, but a lot lighter in other ways. Maybe not in body mass yet, but in other ways lighter. But in those days, 25 years ago, my energy was heavy.
Bring in joy. Reflect on joy. Feel the fire in joy, the lightness in joy. And so, we worked that way, day after day, for I guess the five days that Hal and I were on that island.
Every morning I spent four or five hours out there, getting up pre-dawn and sitting through the dawn. I finally began to understand the balancing of the elements, not just the balance so that the earth, air, water, fire and ether energy are balanced in me, but to see within each element the need for balance. To find the fire in the water element by sitting there, looking out at the water, watching the sun rise. And the sea began to glow, and the little wavelets picked up sparks of fire. The sun shining on them. Really seeing the fire energy in it. And the wind because the wind was stirring up the water. The energy itself. I really began to see that in the sea in front of me.
Then looking at it within myself. What is the sea in myself? What are the tides within me, rising and falling, rising and falling? Can I really find each of the elements within the various tides within me intermingled? One may be larger here, one there. The question is, are the elements in balance?
So, when we look at the elements, we’re not just looking at the air element, we’re looking at the air element participating in all the other elements. The fire element participating. What is this earth element if there’s no fire element?
What if there’s too much fire element in the earth element? (shout) Ah! Where does it come down to just balanced, earth element with balanced fire and the rest?
In the beginning I found I had to choose just two and see if those two were in balance. That doesn’t mean 50-50, it means whatever the appropriate balance.
Then I found I could bring in a third and start to see what in that moment was, for me, the balance of elements.
Finally, I began to understand what Aaron meant when he said the elements are non-dual. They co-create with themselves. You cannot separate them. He said you’re separating it into earth, air, fire, water, ether, but they are non-dual. They’re always participating with each other, and at a certain point really becoming each other.
It took me some time; not even on that trip. I think the time where I finally fully realized it was sitting on a beach at Emerald Isle. Watching the waves come in. Sitting on the sand. Those early morning sittings, the sun rising and the waves breaking. Sitting close to the water, so a wave would come running up the beach, maybe just touch my toes, and go back. And another wave.
Where do the earth element and water element each end when the wave comes up on the sand and sinks into the sand? Is the sand then earth element, or water element? And of course it’s both, and warming to the sun!
And the wave coming up, there’s wind pushing the waves. Can you distinguish one from the other?
Our bodies and the elements within our bodies and our minds are a wonderful place to learn about non-duality of the elements and all else.
Beginning to understand the elements in the body, you can then begin to look at the other dualities that you create. Not the elements but all the dualities that we create.
Am I kind? Am I unkind? Am I generous or stingy? Am I patient or impatient? Am I a worthy person or an unworthy person? Am I loved or unloved? Is my body healthy or unhealthy?
Ah, so we live in this realm of dualities. What if we could stop that?
A few of you were in Venture Fourth where we spent a lot of time going over these seeming opposites. Pride and humility. Moving into an “Oh, I’m special,” pride, and then saying, “No, I should be humble.” Or, “I am humble, but feeling unworthy!” But what are these two seeming opposites? When there is pride, where is humility? When there is humility to an excess, where is pride? And what is the balance between them? Do we choose to be proud, or humble, or balanced in a place where we can accept that yes, I’m human and I have flaws, and I’m also beautiful, and rest in that place where it comes together?
So, with each of these attributes it’s wonderful to look. Am I patient or impatient? And sometimes of course we’re each both. Where is the place where it comes into balance?
As long as we’re caught in “I’m this” or “I’m that” and fail to see that “this” and “that” are stories, both arising from conditions, and that sometimes I lean more to this and sometimes more to that; to see how I’m being influenced constantly by the conditions and caught up in them, and begin to cease to believe that the conditions rule or identifynme. The conditions arise. I don’t have to get caught up in the flow of conditions.
At this point we form the ability to look at the preconceived notions we have about ourselves. “I am this. I am that. I am this because of these conditions. No, I’m that because of these conditions. I have to fix this or that.” Ah, it’s just all flow. Everything arising from conditions.
I want to read you a few things, here. This is the Heart Sutra…
Maha Prajnaparamita Hridaya Sutra (Heart Sutra)
The Bodhisattva of Great Compassion
from the deep practice of Prajnaparamita
perceived the emptiness of all five skandhas
and delivered all beings from their suffering.
O Sariputra, form is no other than emptiness,
emptiness no other than form.
Form is emptiness, emptiness form.
The same is true of feeling, thought, impulse and consciousness.
O Sariputra, all dharmas are empty.
They are not born nor annihilated.
They are not defiled nor immaculate.
They do not increase nor decrease.
So in emptiness no form, no feeling, no thought, no impulse, no consciousness.
No eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, mind;
no form, sound, smell, taste, touch or objects of mind.
No realm of sight; no realm of consciousness.
No ignorance nor extinction of ignorance,
no old age and death, nor extinction of them.
No suffering, no cause of suffering, no path to lead out of suffering;
no knowledge, no attainment, no realization
for there is nothing to attain.
The Bodhisattva holds on to nothing but Prajnaparmamita.
Therefore his mind is clear of any delusive hindrance.
Without hindrance, there is no fear.
Away from all perverted views he reaches final Nirvana.
All Buddhas of past, present and future
through faith in Prajnaparamita
attain to the highest perfect enlightenment.
Know then the Prajnaparamita is the great dharani,
the radiant, peerless mantram, the utmost supreme mantram,
which is capable of allaying all pain.
This is true beyond all doubt.
Proclaim now the highest wisdom, the Prajnaparamita:
Gate, Gate / Paragate / Parasamgate Bodhi, Svaha!
I love that sutra. Let’s unpack it a bit.
What does it mean that there is no suffering, that there’s no this or that?
On the relative plane these exist. There is the body, there is pain, there is confusion. These may arise and be apparent but they have no ultimate reality.
My deafness has a relative reality. I could hear, then the nerves died. Then I could no longer hear. Relative reality.
If I think to myself, “I’m deaf. I can’t take anything in I’m deaf,” because the ears are the primary place where we take in information, or the eyes and ears, they kind of obviously touch information sent, but the kind of thing we convey verbally—well, am I deaf? You tell me. Some of you tell me I hear better than anybody you know, and I think that may be true. I don’t hear through my ears, I hear through my heart. I’m not deaf, I simply have ears that don’t work.
It took me many years to get this, to stop walking around saying, “Oh, I’m deaf, but maybe someday, if I do the right things, I’ll be able to hear.” It took me a long time to learn, yes, I hear. I hear very clearly. My heart hears; my heart knows. And it doesn’t matter whether it comes in through my ears or through whatever means. I hear.
We look at the whole idea of awakening on a Buddhist path. That could mean right now I’m asleep, but maybe, if I do all the right practices, someday I’ll wake up. That’s a linear path.
(clap) Are you awake, right now, (clap) in this moment? What happens when I clap my hands? Is there an instant of full presence? (clap) Can you feel that? Just a moment of full presence.
Well, if that awakeness was not already there, how could you be awake?
This takes us back to— I’m gaining some new vocabulary about it—the imaginal cells, which have always been there, which know the completeness of my body and the completeness and integration, the non-duality of everything.
What if I can imagine myself awake? What would it be like to meditate and then open your eyes, saying, “I’m awake!”? Maybe it only lasts for a second—you’re awake.
Body pain. I’ll be 80 on my next birthday—I’m an old lady! —No, I’m not, I’m a young woman! I’m a young woman in a 79 year old body. I choose to be the young woman. I’m going to get out there and dance! Eventually the body may wear down. My mom lived a very healthy life to 98, and she loved to dance and be active. I’m gonna follow her but I’m going to get past her—I’m going to live to 102! Let’s see if I can do it. And I’m going to live happy and full of life and full of health, because the capacity is in my body. Maybe 103—who knows? If I only get to 101, that’s okay, too.
But I’m going to be full of life because I am already full of life. Those seeds are already within me, as well as those seeds of darkness and depression and despair.
Because of that wave accident and other accidents, they tell me I should not be able to walk now, I have so much damage to my spine. Well, I don’t walk well, and I’m still walking with a walker. I’m trying to get past that. I’m trying to get my body strong. But I can either go with what the doctors say—they look at the x-rays and say, “Your spine is so degenerated you can’t possibly be walking.” “Oh, is that so?” Well, not going to take that. That’s not how I’m gonna be. You tell me I can’t be walking, and I’ll show you. It’s just an “I choose not to look at that portion of what I am. I choose to walk.”
I choose to love. Each of our hearts has been broken a hundred times. There’s nobody here whose heart has not been broken. Are we going to live in the shell of that broken heart? Or are we going to live in the heart of love that’s right there with the broken heart? The reason the heart breaks is because it’s so tender because of its capacity to love.
When we get into a workshop like this, some people come feeling, “There’s this problem in my body or my emotions. I choose to heal this.” And that’s beautiful. Do choose to heal it.
But also include the fact that at some level nothing is broken. Allow the possibility to go into that place.
So on Thursday, for example, when we work with spirit, some of you within the inner circle inviting deeper healing, some on the outside of the circle still inviting healing but also supporting the energy in the circle. When you come into that space in the circle or on the outer side, aware of what your intention is—to heal arthritis, or deep anger and feelings of unworthiness, or an illness, cancer or whatever it might be—remember the wholeness that you are.
Instead of a linear path, getting from here to there by fixing something, we can simply say no. At my age now I do have bad arthritis in my shoulders, in my hips, in my knees, in my hands. You can see how distorted my fingers are. I have arthritis.
Every day I spend a few minutes, even several times a day, bringing in light through my body and inviting it into all the joints where there’s arthritis. Not to fix the arthritis but to thank the joints by blessing them with light and love.
I’m not saying, “No arthritis in these joints. Light, get in there and flush out the arthritis.” I’m thanking the joints that have served me for so long. “Light, come in and touch all the joints with your sweetness and your love. Fill my hands, fill my heart. Ahh, really filling me with light. Light, come into all the places of sadness and fill them with light and love. Not to get rid of the sadness but to allow the sadness to deepen into a ground of compassion, not a ground of despair. Filling it with light.” We have this kind of option.
So, think of this workshop as a way of learning how to see the ever-perfect that’s already there in yourself with whatever issues you’re looking at that you’d like to release, and how to come back to the ever-perfect, to know the ever-perfect.
I’m going to give you one more poem, here. This is from Flight of the Garuda, a dzogchen teaching song. A number of you have worked with this poem with us through the years. Some of you have not. It’s a restricted poem in that it cannot be shared with people who have not learned with a teacher—theoretically a Tibetan lama. But the teacher who shared it with me gave me permission to share it with my students. So, you cannot buy this, but I can share it and will be happy to send it out to people who want to work with it. Please do not use it carelessly, and please do not share it with others.
Actually, you can buy a different translation of it. It’s not nearly as good a translation, and they broke the rules and simply said, “Sure, let’s sell this.” So, I can share this translation with you…
If you get this and begin to work with it, it’s broken into songs that are one or two pages. Read a song without mental activity. Don’t try to figure it out; just let your heart receive it. Read it again later in the day, the next day. Read the same song five or six times.
Gradually let your heart, not your mind but your heart, understand what it’s saying. Don’t worry about the Tibetan words and the names. Just drop them off—they don’t matter. You don’t need them. Okay? So let’s screenshare…
Song 1
Emaho! (It’s a word of wonder.)
I, the untroubled and carefree renunciant,
Will now sing this song about the view,
Entitled The Flight of the Garuda.
It enables one to swiftly traverse all the levels and paths. Listen carefully, fortunate children of my heart!In both samsara and nirvana the renown of the enlightened state Is widely heard like thunder throughout the sky.
As this always remains within the minds of beings of the six realms How amazing that one is never separate from it even for an instant!Not knowing that this state is within oneself,
How amazing that one searches for it elsewhere.
Although it is clearly manifest like the radiant disc of the sun, How amazing that so few see it.Having no father and mother, one’s mind is the true Buddha,
How amazing that it knows neither birth nor death!
No matter how much happiness and sorrow is experienced,
How amazing that it is never impaired or improved even in the slightest!How amazing that without being fabricated,
This mind, which is unborn and primordially pure,
Is spontaneously present from the very beginning! This self awareness is naturally free from the very first, How amazing that it is liberated by just resting —
At ease in whatever happens!
I love this poem. I think there are 30 some songs. Take your time with it. Don’t get caught up in, “I don’t understand this.” Read it; note that right now you don’t get this particular song. Maybe make a note to yourself to go back to it in the second reading and see what comes through. Relax. Just read it.
You might want to be practicing Pure Awareness meditation as you read. In other words, do some Pure Awareness sitting. Read one song. Come back to sitting. Just resting. See what happens.
I read you the other day the lines from Open Secrets— form and emptiness, and the completeness, the Hebrew word ‘schlemut’. Knowing the completeness of the bowl and the emptiness within the bowl. Knowing the completeness of this body and its distortions on the mundane level and its perfection.
This of course ties in to our vipassana practice. Breathing in, breathing out. Noting an ache in my shoulder. Bringing attention to it, sensation, sensation. I don’t try to fix it. I don’t try to stare at it inwardly to see if I can force it to go away. I don’t get swept away in, “Oh, what am I going to do—my shoulders hurt.” Just ahh, sensation. Unpleasant sensation. And then this noting ability in myself may note the arising of aversion.
So there’s an object, sensation in the shoulder, and then a new object, unpleasant sensation, and then another new object, aversion. We can get so tangled up in, “I shouldn’t feel aversion. I’ll go back and focus on my shoulder.”
If aversion becomes predominant, we’re present with aversion. Whatever arises, can we be present with it with spaciousness, with an open heart, with interest in it? Really looking at it: What is this object? What is this ache in my shoulder? And it goes, it’s no longer predominant. What is this aversion? Feeling fear, maybe, in the aversion, or anger. Aversion is anger, really. But maybe it’s more a note of fear—what will happen if I can’t move my shoulders well?
Ah, fear. Breathing in, I am aware of the fear. Breathing out, I bring kindness to the fear. Am I living my life holding myself with compassion and kindness, or am I living my life constantly scolding myself and telling myself, “No, you should be this way. You should be that way,” instead of being just as I am, with my heart truly open to myself?
You know that my husband had a stroke four years ago and he’s been living at home now for almost two years—23 months. We used to have wonderful conversations. For 50 years we loved talking to each other. We felt we would never run out of things to say to each other. We just loved sharing with each other.
Now he can’t talk. He has aphasia. He can answer yes or no. But, for example, we watched a very powerful movie earlier this week about Nelson Mandela, Invictus. Beautiful movie. And I wanted to ask Hal what his response was to the movie. It opened my heart so much. It just blew my mind away, the way this man after 30 years in prison was able to forgive. How do we learn to do that? I wanted to talk to Hal about it. But all I could say to Hal was, “Did you enjoy the movie?” “Yes.” (thumb up) “Did it move you?” “Yes.”
So, there’s a part of me that then knots up. I’m not getting what I want from Hal. This is not fair—I’m angry. Grief. Sadness. Anger. And so I was able to look at Hal and say, “We really want to talk about this movie, both of us.”
Hal: “Yes.” (thumb up)
Barbara: “But you can’t talk to me about it. We’re both feeling frustrated.”
Hal: “Yes.”
Barbara: “I love you.” He gave me a yes.
“I know you love me.” He gave me a bigger yes.
“Can we just hold hands, look in each other’s eyes, and love each other?”
He smiled and gave me a yes.
Communication comes down to this. All the words, all the millions of words that have gone between us for 50 years, maybe it’s just about looking at each other’s eyes, forgiving ourselves and each other for the pain, loving each other for the love.
I’m doing this with Hal. Maybe we can do it with ourselves and with each other and the world.
I have 10 minutes of time left in this talk but nothing left to say. I love you all. I’ll be back later this afternoon… I am loving doing this with you. Thank you.