Grace And Mercy, The Natural State

Bring your attention to the stillness within the openness, that's the reality ...And you begin to see there's an aliveness, a juicyness, a brightness, an alertness. ......the stability is constant but even that keeps dropping and evolving because it's eternal. How could it not?

Transcript

Find your place of deep rest and in the body it's right at the tailbone and below and below and below and below and beyond and below.

And at the same time spontaneously there's an opening and an expanding horizontally.

And though the first kind of experience of this rootedness and then this expanded space,

You know,

The Tibetans call it the immeasurable space,

I just I love that description.

And it can seem kind of empty,

Right?

It's a little bit of an overlay of the mind that's still intact.

And that little bit of an overlay just sees it kind of,

You know,

It's,

You know,

Yeah,

It's spacious but,

You know,

There's nothing here.

It's not interesting to the mind at all,

You know,

It's like nothing to keep myself occupied with.

But if there's a kind of an entering into it,

You know,

It's not like that static a little bit standing back and kind of looking at it,

A little bit from the mind and a little bit from the totality of who you are,

You know,

They get all,

They're all kind of intertwined for quite a while actually.

And then you begin to see,

You kind of dive in,

You bring your attention into this space that's very stabilized,

It's very still,

The stillness within the openness,

The stillness within the openness,

The stillness within the openness.

That's the reality.

And you dive in,

You know,

A bit into it and you begin to see that actually there's an aliveness,

Kind of a juiciness,

A kind of a brightness,

An alertness.

It's not just this dead empty quality.

Many stay in that transcendent kind of dead quality for most of their spiritual life.

But what we're speaking of here is it's rich,

It's full,

It's dynamic,

And whatever it's called out to express,

It does.

So it can be called out and it can be fierce,

It can be called out and it will be loving and we can call out and it can just be alive and in awe and it's just all of that all at once.

And it depends on what the moment calls forth.

You can't decide ahead of time or it isn't always the same experience every time.

The stability is constant but even it keeps dropping and dissolving and because it's eternal,

Right?

It's infinite.

How could it not?

But it's always still that you can bring your attention and rest in.

It's the only constancy there is actually.

So this richness and this kind of aliveness and this alertness,

The more you kind of enter into it rather than kind of stand back a little bit and,

You know,

Observe it.

It's that you close the gap.

You are it.

You become it.

That isness,

Suchness.

And then just sense the qualities,

You know,

It's alert,

It's alive,

It's interested,

It's vital,

It's engaged,

It's the creatrix.

The creatrix is that that is constantly creating itself in these myriad of forms.

So it's not this kind of,

You know,

Dull,

Nothing there,

Empty that most of us interpreted this immeasurable space as.

And just like,

Oh,

You have this clear,

Vast ocean of aliveness and you just drop in like,

Oh,

Like a colored,

A little bit of a colored dye.

And you just drop that in and you drop in kindness.

And it just kind of permeates.

It permeates your body,

It permeates your cells,

It permeates all around you,

It permeates above,

Below,

Behind you.

And there's just a sense of kindness,

You know,

What actually is that?

The Dalai Lama,

My religion is kindness.

And you get to then experience that in this totality of space that's within the body and all around equally.

And then you drop perhaps another,

You know,

Like a color,

This dye,

And it begins to permeate this vast space.

And it is merciful,

It's mercy.

That no matter what has ever happened or been remembered,

Happened to you,

Happened to your family,

To your culture,

What if the experience could be imbued with this mercy,

The grace of mercy?

That no matter what has been experienced to you or yourself,

It's all the same thing.

It can be freed and dissolved and permeated and touched and healed by this grace of mercy.

And then this little game is what if you just would then bring up an image and the image holds something that,

You know,

You just can't quite let go of,

You can't quite forgive,

You can't quite someone else or yourself or perhaps even there's a lack of understanding,

You know,

If I knew how to be with this,

I would be,

But I just,

I can't,

I just can't see it.

I can't see away.

And then in this merciful grace,

This graceful,

Loving,

Vital,

Engaged power,

This is the Shakti.

This is the activity.

This is the fire.

But it's imbued with,

Again,

Love and all of its attributes.

Grace,

Wisdom,

Kindness and mercy.

And invite that image into that.

And that's important.

It isn't like you go out and try to solve something by opening to what you are and then you invite this to come back into itself.

To be imbued,

To be fully permeated and to be sort of surrounded and totally illuminated.

And ask a question,

You know,

If that's helpful.

What is this?

What keeps coming up in this life that I just can't quite see through?

It's so familiar.

And it's across my life.

It's my health.

It affects my money.

It affects my body.

It affects my relationships.

It affects everything in my life.

It totally permeates my entire life.

This place of,

It's like it's been concretized.

It's solidified in some ways.

It's contracted.

And if you can,

Perhaps,

If you can just ask,

I'm willing.

I'm totally,

Absolutely willing.

And that creates a kind of a collaboration with the human,

The person.

It says,

Okay,

We're all in this together.

No longer fighting the ego and the personal structure,

But the personal structure is,

I'm willing.

I don't know what it is.

I'm willing to be confused and to be sort of guided,

But I'm willing.

Or just that simple yes.

Yes.

Yes.

I love.

I love.

I love.

And then that image can be surrounded and imbued and sort of gathered into itself and touched and listened to.

And if it has a voice,

Ask for that voice to speak.

And perhaps there's a word,

You know,

Just one word that can define the whole story.

Because sometimes the whole story can,

We can get lost or identified into the story because it's so familiar.

But the one word kind of bypasses that,

Becomes very precise without a story.

And if you've already done this,

You might have beginner's mind and see what's revealed.

And if it doesn't come up immediately,

Great,

It will.

As you so ask,

So shall you receive.

It's a done deal.

In the question,

The answer lies.

Perhaps there's this place,

Because the theme today is a little bit of mercy and grace,

That you just can't quite forgive yourself.

And often we can't come forward and eat from the table of bounty and love,

Because something deep inside of says that we aren't able to.

We aren't,

You know,

We're bad.

We're rejected.

You know,

We can't,

We're not worthy to eat from the table of abundance and support and love.

So bring that one up.

Mostly we don't tell ourselves that it's too painful.

Or sometimes,

You know,

It's the simple voice of a parent.

And,

You know,

They were under that voice from their parents or their karmic tendencies,

Who knows.

And it never even belonged to you.

It was just some kind of an inheritance,

Some kind of an absorption that you just took on.

And though it was your worst nightmare,

It caused you the greatest pain ever,

That you've ever experienced.

When you're under stress or,

You know,

You're confused or you feel attacked,

You'll come out with the same criticism or judgment or behaviors,

As you absorbed from your parent,

And you don't even know it.

It's too painful to see.

So whatever it is,

You know,

It's welcome here.

It's welcome here.

There's nothing that cannot be brought forward to be free,

To be permeated,

To be resolved,

Dissolved,

Liberated.

Nothing.

That's why the confession can be very powerful.

You just speak it out so it can be freed and dissolved.

If nothing is happening,

Then just simply,

To the best of your ability,

Experience.

And this is an experiential exercise.

Experience the fullness and the richness and the aliveness and the kindness and the loving extension of itself,

Of this great vast space that you are both surrounded and fully penetrated as.

The body is completely full.

If you look at what the reality is,

There are no boundaries.

The body is just this really thin kind of vibrational boundary that is completely impermeable,

Totally interconnected to all things.

That's why at a certain point when different appearances come in and they contain anger or fear or anxiety,

So much of the time they have nothing to do with this body or this person.

It's just some wave that's moving collectively through,

And the body is the receptive instrument,

And so it perceives anxiety or anger or whatever,

And there's no identification.

It's just like a wavelet that passes through.

It's like you go outside and you feel the sun,

Or you go outside and you feel the rain,

Or you go outside and you feel the cold.

It means nothing.

It's just cold or it's sunny or it's raining.

It has no inherent meaning.

So you kind of get accustomed to that because the more open you become,

The more you abide as this vast consciousness,

The more you become a sort of a transformer,

If you want to call it that,

Of anything that comes through.

It just passes through.

And when there's no separate identity or attachment or whatever,

That's all it's doing.

It's just passing through.

So whatever.

But it's a great opportunity to set down what you've been carrying as yourself,

And let it be completely free.

Not rearranged to be better,

But free.

So I encourage you to just kind of tweak that a little bit throughout the day.

When you sit,

When you're walking,

When you're,

You know,

Quiet moment,

Sitting in the sun,

Whatever.

Just see if you can't bring this up a little bit,

But not from a personal mind trying to figure out a conditioned part of the mind,

But from this open,

Alive,

Awake,

Dynamic space,

The great space that holds and contains and imbues and moves and dissolves and bursts continuously.

And then just drop it in.

Call it forth.

And often it'll be layered.

There'll be something and,

You know,

It kind of feels resonant,

And then something else comes up,

And it's a little bit more resonant,

And then you hit the seed.

Ba-boom.

There it is.

That's been driving this whole separate life.

And it's not true.

It's past.

But it's welcoming it to the light of liberation.

All of it comes up into the light of liberation.

It's the natural movement of life.

And then again,

In this sense of this sort of vastness,

This vast,

Vast,

Vast,

Unfathomable,

Vast and awake space that's so imbued and interwoven with the dark,

Still ground.

We tend to put the ground below and the light up,

And we bring all sorts of different sort of ways,

And that's the way to become intimate with it.

But at a certain point,

All of that collapses,

And the light and the dark and the up and the down and the body and the beyond the body,

It's just all one thing.

All of those kind of gaps collapse.

They all just collapse.

And though the word to describe it is a kind of a sameness or an equanimity,

You know,

None of those really describe it because it's,

You know,

That kind of flattens it out,

But it's alive and vibrant and awake and creating and dying.

And then just simply like wings that fold something into itself.

And again,

This is just a,

You know,

It's kind of a pointer of how that energy kind of moves.

It draws,

Whether it was a fragment of the separate sense of the person,

It'll draw that back into itself and it dissolves,

Or whether that is,

You know,

Something that's happening on the planet,

You know,

That you want to participate consciously as a transformative agent,

If you will.

And so it's like that vast space.

And then there's something,

Whether it's even in the body,

Perhaps there's a place in the left side or the back hip or the knee or the ankle.

And you just,

You know,

In that vastness,

You just take that into itself and let it be imbued and completely filled and permeated and transmuted.

All the density brought back into itself,

All the density absorbed back into itself.

And so whether it's a specific issue personally or physically or collectively that you wish to be a transformative channel for,

Or whether it's just simply,

It's just the remnants of the separate self,

It just is folded back into itself,

Folded back into itself,

Folded back into itself until there's just this absorption and the separate sense of the me just naturally dies and dissolves back into itself until there's nothing left but this great awake wisdom and love,

The great creatrix,

The Christ,

The living spirit,

The living spirit being the absolute expressing.

And then the human being,

Though it's within this vast space,

It's not controlling the space,

It's quite impossible,

But it's within,

It just doesn't disappear.

But all of the conditioning and the separation and the wounding and the life experiences are dissolved,

That separate sense of me is dissolved back into this.

So much of meditation can just be this,

And though the mind would find that amazingly boring,

The actuality of it is bliss,

The great bliss body,

Love,

Love that arises from silence and is like a fountain and comes back into itself even greater and greater and greater,

Or a dropping and a diving back and back and silent and silent and silent and silent and silent and then it comes back even greater and more full and more vast.

That's meditation.

And whatever arises within it then is dissolved,

It's transmuted,

It's burnt,

And the experience of that is the greatest love possible.

And that is within you.

It can't be found in a lover or a job or an idea of yourself or filling the hungry ghost,

The hungry ghost will never be filled up.

But this,

It's all here,

There's nothing amiss,

Nothing.

And then when you get off of the cushion and you start walking through your life,

This is so prominent and activated and sort of bright and familiar that you can lead the,

Sort of the insanity that sometimes the daily life is,

Because it's awake.

You know,

We kind of try to do that just kind of partially,

A glimmer,

And then go,

Oh,

It gets covered up.

Yeah,

It does.

So the practice is the practice of pure awareness.

Pure awareness.

That's the practice.

And the paradox is more of the,

More this is imbued and familiar and awake within your being,

Within your body,

Within your life,

Then actually the more present kindness just simply happens.

You don't have to cultivate it.

There's a kind of a gratitude just arises from that.

It's the natural arising,

This gratitude and no need really to cultivate it,

To make it happen.

Mercy,

You know,

If you really just look at what that is,

It's just this,

It's compassion,

It's the openness to,

Without collapsing into judgment,

Good,

Bad,

Right,

Wrong.

Attraction or aversion,

It all,

It's before.

This is all playing the separation game,

The duality,

This or that.

Adam and Eve kicked out of the garden by eating the apple of good and bad,

Of knowledge.

And the garden was never gone.

So this can be the purest prayer and the purest sort of way of engaging and serving both this life and the totality.

It's the wolf you feed.

And everything that it's not is consumed and burned within that.

So just in your own way and whatever is happening,

However this is for you,

If you've gone to sleep,

Your mind is bored,

You're,

You know,

Imagining your next PowerPoint presentation,

Then that's fine,

But just come back to something that is stable and still within your body,

It's known,

It will reflect that too.

You know,

We always say that the mind controls the body,

But actually when the body is freed up,

It actually can inform the mind.

That's never really talked about.

And if there's a sense of ease and resting and rootedness and stability,

Then the mind starts to reflect that.

It sees it,

It starts to reflect that.

But if the mind only sees stress and anxiety and what's wrong with it,

Then it's not going to reflect that.

But if the mind only sees stress and anxiety and what's wrong and what doesn't work and control,

Then that's what the mind will reflect and the body then follows.

You know,

It's experiential.

So all the gaps close here,

You know,

There is no behind,

There is no in front,

There is no the side,

There is no end,

There is no out,

It's all one field of open pure awareness,

Open burning love.

And then it draws like a magnet whatever has not been imbued and been freed by this love and grace and mercy.

So just experience that for just a little bit of time that we have in your own way.

And if your mind,

There's nothing here for the mind,

So you might as well just see that and just go,

Okay mind,

I'll think later,

I'll attend to you later,

Right now I'm going to come back and I'm going to rest and I'm going to open up.

And then let everything comes in that wants to come in.

Or play a little game,

Bring something in,

Call something in.

That causes a great suffering.

Let that suffering be freed.

So so so