We tend to think of spirituality as just another thing on the to-do list,
Like exercise or doing the laundry.
And this can be helpful if it gets you to make meditation part of your routine.
But when you're actually meditating,
You're not just working on some aspects of your being,
Like your muscles or your mind.
You're getting to the root of the matter.
When you clear away all the content of your life,
What's left?
Who are you really,
Behind all the stuff going on in your life,
Which really means behind all the stuff going on in your mind?
We'll explore this through the Torah portion,
Parshat Chai Sarah,
In this episode of the Torah of Awakening Jewish Meditation podcast.
I'm your host,
Rabbi Brian Yosef Schachter-Brooks.
Enjoy.
So there's a story that in the late 1700s,
When Reb Shnur Zalman was incarcerated in a Russian prison,
A guard noticed the great presence of the rabbi and went to ask him a question.
You are a holy man.
There's a question that has been bothering me about the scriptures.
When Adam was in the Garden of Eden and he ate from the forbidden fruit,
It says that God asked him where he was.
How is it possible that God didn't already know where he was?
Reb Shnur Zalman answered,
It's like this.
At every moment and at every time,
God is asking you,
Where are you?
Right now you are 27 years old.
Are you fulfilling the purpose of your life?
When he heard this,
The guard almost fell over because the rabbi had said his actual age and there was no way he could have known.
At that moment,
A deep knowing awakened within the guard and the course of his life began to change.
Once I saw a video of some children being shown an old rotary telephone from the 1970s.
What is it,
They wondered,
When they were told it was a phone and how it worked,
How you physically dial the numbers by putting your finger in the hole and cranking the wheel around.
They said,
Wait,
You mean all this phone does is call people?
For many of us,
It's hard to imagine a time when our calendar,
Internet,
Email,
And a million other functions weren't instantly available on our phones.
Convenient?
Yes.
But whenever I take out my phone,
I notice a slight pain in my stomach because I don't want all those functions to distract me from the reason I took out the phone in the first place.
And this is the shadow side of the smartphone.
With all its reminders and notifications,
It actually tends to make us forget what we were doing.
In the Haftarah for Parshat Chaye Sarah,
King David is old and lying on his deathbed.
Meanwhile,
His son,
Adonai Yahu,
Has taken power against King David's will,
Throwing a big party and inviting all of his supporters,
While excluding those close to David.
So,
The prophet Nathan and King David's wife,
Batsheva,
Go to King David's bedchamber to inform him about what's going on.
The king rouses himself and swears that Adonai Yahu will not be successful,
And that his son Solomon will succeed him instead.
Yechi ha-melech shlomo.
Long live King Solomon.
Every intention that arises within the mind and heart arises within a particular kind of situation.
As time goes on,
Situations change.
In fact,
Time and change are not two separate things.
And in Hebrew,
They are actually the same word.
Like King David's desire for Solomon to succeed him in kingship,
The moments of our original intentions can become old and dim,
While new moments and new desires arise.
Like the thousands of apps,
Reminders,
Alerts,
And emails,
We sometimes find ourselves thinking,
Wait,
What was I doing?
But stand back for a moment.
Stand back from all the different intentions and priorities of life.
Before you had relationships,
Before you had even values,
Before you had goals,
Can you go all the way back before any of that and ask,
What was I doing?
Why did I come into this life in the first place?
Before you wanted anything,
Before you had an opinion,
There was consciousness.
This miracle of perception somehow awakened within your body-mind and began meeting the world as it appeared.
The world,
Sometimes nurturing,
Sometimes beautiful,
Sometimes loving,
Sometimes painful,
Sometimes horrific.
But whatever the form the world happens to take in any given moment,
Behind it all is this simple awareness,
The awakening of reality to itself.
Or,
We might say,
The awakening of God in the world.
And this awakening is happening right now as the presence that you are.
And on this deepest level,
Awareness comes into existence simply to be aware.
And behind all the complexity of life is this simple truth,
You are aware,
Which is to say you are awareness.
Know yourself as this presence behind your thinking,
Behind your words,
Behind your actions,
And you become like the air we breathe,
Ever-present,
Completely surrounding us from without and also nourishing us from within,
Yet essentially beyond all the drama of our existence,
Intimate and transcendent in one.
That's why when we become aware of our breathing,
When we become aware of the ever-present nourishment which is our breathing in and out,
We can also begin to notice this deepest dimension of who we are,
The noticing itself,
Our ever-present consciousness within which all experience arises.
And paradoxically,
It is through the awakening of this transcendence beyond the world that we can awaken our potential for blessing within the world,
Because the openness of this transcendence allows benevolence to flow.
How would the world be different if everyone practiced this transcendent benevolence,
If everyone practiced meditation?
In our tradition,
King David is the symbol of Mashiach,
The awakening of all humanity out of the dream of separation.
This dream is so powerful it creates all the suffering we inflict on ourselves and others.
His rightful heir is Solomon,
The symbol of wisdom.
We come into this world to awaken as that wisdom,
To embody consciousness in form,
And thereby bring healing to the world.
We humans have become so lost in form,
So caught within its web,
The rogue Sun has taken over and usurped the throne.
But any moment,
And that moment means this moment,
Is the potential to remember,
To rouse King David from his slumber and remember why we are here.
This midah of remembering and focusing,
Of piercing through the noise to the essence,
Is represented by the letter Zion.
The letter Zion begins the word zecher,
Memory,
And zikaron,
Remembrance.
The meaning of Zion is weapon,
And particularly the sword,
Cutting through distractions and falsehoods.
This is the practice of meditation,
Remembering moment to moment,
To cut through the seductiveness of thought,
The virtual reality of the mind,
And focus on being the awareness of what is present.
Let's begin.
The Kavanah,
The affirmation for Zion,
I am remembering,
I am focused,
I am freedom.
Let's chant on long out-breath,
And our chant for Zion,
Baruch Hamakom,
Blessed is the place.
God described as the place or as the space,
The space of reality within which the universe is unfolding.
Baruch Hu,
Blessed is the one.
Ki goel chazak ata,
For you are the mighty liberator,
The mighty redeemer,
Freer of the bound.
Baruch Hu,
Blessed is the one.
Chazak ata,
Bringing attention to your body,
Letting yourself be in a comfortable position,
Conducive to stillness,
And also conducive to alertness.
Bringing your right hand to your heart,
Bringing forth this attitude of loving benevolence,
Offering of attention,
Offering of presence to the fullness of what is present now,
To the way that the divine steps up to us in this moment.
L'cha,
Deep breath in,
And bringing left hand to your belly,
Feeling awareness flowing down,
Filling your belly with consciousness,
And flowing down from your belly,
Down through your legs,
Feet,
And toes.
Becoming aware of the support beneath you,
Extending attention down into the earth.
Awareness rising up,
Chest,
Shoulders,
And neck,
Arms,
And hands,
And fingers.
Bringing your attention more deeply into the flow of breathing,
Letting your breathing become a little more slow.
Awareness rising up,
Face,
Facial muscles,
Brain and nervous system,
Bringing a little smile to your lips.
Being that loving presence in the temple of the body,
Na'ase,
Deep breath in,
Right hand to lightly touch your forehead,
As awareness opens to the space around you.
Aware of the room,
The sounds vibrating in the air,
The close sounds and the far sounds.
Recognizing that the outer world as well as the inner world of thoughts and feelings are really one world,
The world of experience,
The world of what is arising in consciousness.
And this consciousness is not something you have,
But something you are.
Vast and spacious and free,
Without boundary,
Without boundary,
Without border.
And affirming,
V'nishma,
Deep breath in.
Kissing your fingers,
Relaxing your hands,
Rabona shalom.
Bless our practice today,
Help us to meditate deeply and powerfully,
To do the activity of openness,
The activity of alertness,
The activity of awareness.
Giving the thinking mind a place to rest,
A place to take a little vacation from the generation of ego and all of its agendas,
And simply resonate with the words,
Atyahu,
Atyahu.
Bringing some movement into your body,
Taking a nice stretch.
May this quality of the letter Zayin of remembering our underlying practice,
Our spiritual intention,
That we can bring to whatever activity we're involved with,
To whatever moment we find ourselves in.
Knowing ourselves as that presence and piercing through the distractions,
Piercing through the seductiveness of the virtual reality of the mind.
Oh say shalom bimromav,
Hu ya'aseh,
Shalom aleinu.
Ve'al ko Yisrael,
Ve'al ko Yoshvei Tevel,
V'imru,
Amen.
Shalom,
I hope you've enjoyed this Torah of Awakening.
I'm Rabbi Brian Yosef Schachter-Brooks.
Until next time,
All blessings.
