Welcome,
My name is Elliot Dasher.
I am a physician and meditation teacher and I'm happy to be sharing with you this brief but important time today.
I would like to begin by saying a few words about meditation and spiritual development.
There are three aspects of inner development.
Study,
Reflection,
And practice.
Study is accomplished by reading or listening to teachings and gathering information.
This is followed by personal reflection of what has been studied and finally we engage in practice to realize directly what we have been exploring through study and reflection.
Today our topic is freedom.
What follows is a teaching meditation.
The aim is to gain insight and understanding through these three components,
Study,
Reflection,
And practice.
The entire process is a meditation.
So you may now prepare yourself for meditation.
Relax in a comfortable position,
Keeping your eyes opened or closed as you wish.
First,
Listen in a meditative manner to the teachings on freedom.
Listening with an open heart and full attention.
In this manner,
This teaching will provide content related to our topic freedom as well as train attention,
Mindfulness,
Meditative listening,
And concentration.
We will follow this brief teaching with the related practice.
There are three different kinds of freedom.
It's possible to work towards economic,
Political,
Or social freedom.
These are all out of forms of freedom.
Both authentic freedom,
The kind of freedom that is spacious,
Authentic,
Serene,
That flows with ease and serenity,
And is permanent and unchanging,
Cannot be earned or given.
This type of freedom is our inner birthright,
The freedom to be.
We only need to remove the obstacles and there it is,
Always present here and now.
Authentic boundless freedom is an experience that is difficult to describe in words.
Perhaps you can recall cherished moments of total freedom,
Moments we have all experienced.
The poet T.
S.
Eliot offers us the simple image of children playing in the apple tree,
Carefree,
At ease,
And not subject to the rumination and influences of the overactive mind.
He calls this freedom a condition of complete simplicity,
One that is beyond the contractions of the usual overactive mind.
We all know that feeling of child's play.
We all know the carefree feeling of ease and flow,
And there are moments always as adults that we lose our day-to-day self,
Our usual preoccupations,
And re-experience our self as truly alive,
Free,
And able to just be.
We can lose our ordinary self in dance,
Art,
Music,
Beauty,
Intimacy,
Meditation,
Compassion,
And other moments when the usual mind,
The thinking mind,
Is briefly suspended,
The clouds part,
And we feel whole and in flow.
Our natural freedom and openness is directly experienced with a vividness,
Naturalness,
And ease.
To be free,
At ease,
Open,
And spacious is our true nature.
To be carefree is our true nature.
Ah,
But how are we to live this cherished rare moment?
How are we to be free in each moment of our life?
Here again,
Let's return to the poet.
He offers us a simple yet profound formula.
As mentioned previously,
He describes boundless freedom as a condition of complete simplicity,
Costing not less than everything.
And what is the everything we must give up?
What we must give up is the belief that we are our thoughts,
Feelings,
And habit patterns which constitute our usual ego,
Ordinary self.
We must let go or at least diminish our attachment to a sense of self that has been mentally constructed over a lifetime,
Collection of past experiences,
Identities,
Beliefs,
Judgments,
Reaction patterns,
Perceptions,
And so on.
This collection of fragments of life that we call our ordinary self and deeply believe in is no more than a mental story.
Just another story.
It is the story of our ordinary life.
This day-to-day ordinary self built up over many years obscures our true nature,
Our true self,
And the center of our being.
Much like clouds obscure the Sun,
The everything we must give up is the unshakable belief that this ordinary sense of I,
Of who we are,
This false belief obscures our authentic self and the true freedom that is only available in our authentic self.
Let me explain how and I would like to approach this with you in meditation.
It's a simple thing I'll ask of you.
Join me in the present moment.
During the short practice join me at the course of everything and by everything again I mean past and future thoughts.
Yes it's that simple.
During this practice we drop all thoughts,
Feelings,
Memories,
Or planning related to past and future.
We suspend our ordinary mind and come into presence,
Presence into now.
Do not expect,
Hope,
Strive,
Or in any way seek this special freedom.
Just follow the instructions and they will take us as far as we can go in words.
You may well experience a glimpse of the freedom that is you,
The total freedom we are speaking of.
We can now begin the actual practice.
I would like you to come into the present moment with me as this is one of the ways of going beyond the ordinary self.
Begin by sharpening your awareness of the senses and mind,
Focusing on present moment experiences.
Suspend your ordinary self and thinking mind allowing for a deep awareness to open which is the gateway to your natural self.
The awareness we cultivate is open,
Spacious,
And impartial.
It has no history from which we generate a commentary.
Keep your eyes open or closed.
Let's focus on the senses.
Bring your full attention to the one by one.
Let's begin with your ordinary sense bringing your attention to any sounds.
Do not label them,
Do not comment on them,
Do not react to them,
Do not give them any interest.
Just nakedly observe any sounds that may appear without any mental commentary.
Rest in observing these auditory sensations freely without any thoughts or any opinions about them.
If you might want this bring it back.
This is naked awareness of pure sensation,
Ordinary sensation.
It is actually what is without being changed through mental experience.
Practice this for a few moments.
Now shift your visual sense.
If your eyes are closed,
Open them for this part of the practice.
Bring your attention to visual appearances.
Do not label them,
Do not comment on them,
Do not react to them,
Do not give them any interest.
Just observe the visual experience nakedly without any supervision beyond what is there.
Rest in observing your visual sensations.
This can be called choiceless visual awareness as we experience a visual experience without any mental superimposition just as it comes into our retina and touches our mind.
Rest a few moments in naked visual awareness.
You can now close your eyes and bring your attention to any smells or any tastes or any tactile sensations.
This may be quite subtle.
Do not label them,
Do not comment on them,
Do not react to them,
Do not give them any interest or attention.
Just observe your sense of smell and taste nakedly with any mental commentary.
Rest in observing smell,
Taste,
And tactile stimulation.
If you might want to bring it back.
This can be called experiencing sensations,
All of your sensations,
Without the superimposition of mental commentary.
Again,
Experience what is,
Has is,
Now.
Let's now shift and bring your attention and awareness to your mind.
Be aware of any mental activity that may arise,
Thoughts,
Feelings,
And mental images.
Do not label them,
Do not comment on them,
Do not react to them,
Do not give them any interest or attention.
Just observe these mental movements without any thoughts or commentary.
Let them come and go.
Resting effortlessly in awareness,
You will notice that everything comes and goes.
Nothing persists unless you engage it.
Just remain as it is,
A natural neutral observer of all of what may arise and experiences,
Sensations,
Or related mental activity.
Keeping yourself always in as the observer in the awareness.
Now allow your awareness to be open in space.
In this large field of awareness,
Any mental experience can arise.
Sensations,
Thoughts,
Feelings,
Do not hitch yourself,
Doing it again,
Do not hitch your awareness to these appearances.
Remain in an open awareness that stays in the now.
Feel the sense of your natural present self as all else comes and goes.
When you've gone beyond the ordinary mind to your natural presence,
Natural awareness,
And authentic self,
You will experience a freedom from the known,
A freedom from the future,
A freedom to just be as you are now in the moment.
Rest in the spacious freedom that is free from the change of your past or the projections into the future.
This is your birthright,
Your natural self.
Rest in it that is last and most profound freedom,
Freedom from the known,
Freedom from the past.
Remain in this natural awareness,
This natural stillness,
This natural spaciousness,
And feel that sense of freedom,
That sense of openness,
Not being bound to beliefs,
Ideas,
Past,
Future,
Just being present here,
Now,
In the moment.
It is now time to conclude this guidance,
But that does not mean you have to lose your freedom.
Rest and marinate in this sense of authentic freedom,
And when you already return to your normal activities,
Take your natural freedom with you by staying in the now of the present moment.
