Hello and welcome to this guided session.
This meditation is by Douglas Harding,
A mystic and spiritual teacher.
He's known for his unique approach to awakening through his explorations on the true self known as the headless way.
For these explorations and pointed questions,
Please value your direct experience.
Set aside any intellectual reasoning and logic behind the questions.
If for some reason any exploration or question does not resonate,
Do not struggle with it.
Just keep your awareness on the silence and move to the next exploration.
The pause after each statement is intentional and allows you to stay with the direct experience of your true self.
With eyes closed,
Consider the following.
Going by your own present experience,
Not by memory,
Hearsay or imagination,
How big are you?
What shape are you?
Could you be any size or shape?
Do you have boundaries?
Please check in your own direct experience,
Do you have boundaries?
Is there a place where you stop and the world begins or is there nothing dividing you from the world?
You can probably hear a range of sounds from distant to near ones.
Do you hear any sound right where you are?
Don't sounds come and go in silence where you are?
You experience sensations such as warmth,
Discomfort,
Pleasure,
Breathing and so on.
Do these make you into something at center,
Solid and limited?
Does it make you a thing separate from the world around you?
Is there anything solid and unchanging at your center?
Or do these sensations come and go in aware no-thingness?
Isn't this aware no-thingness like a TV screen in the sense that events happen on the screen but leave the screen itself unaffected and undefined?
Don't sounds and sensations come and go but leave awareness unmarked,
Leave you unmarked.
Whatever has happened in your past,
Are you not the empty and clear capacity for whatever is happening now?
The past does not solidify you at center.
How big is a sensation?
Does it define you or limit you?
Attend to the right foot,
Think of what it looks like.
Isn't the image a memory since you cannot see your foot at this moment?
But what about the actual sensation of your foot?
Your experience of it in the present moment putting aside memory.
What color is that sensation?
What shape?
What size?
How far is it and from where?
Where exactly are the boundaries of the sensation of the foot?
Does it have a clear edge?
Where exactly are its boundaries?
Does it have a clear edge?
Is this sensation of your foot where your being stops?
Generally with the human form we feel like we stop at the foot but right now in your direct experience does the sensation of the foot limit your being?
Does your being stop there?
Are you limited to it?
Somehow imprisoned inside it?
Isn't the sensation of the foot happening in boundless awareness and are you not this awareness the edgeless being in which rather hard to describe rather hard to pin down unchanging sensations is happening?
Are you not this awareness this edgeless being?
Pay attention to mental activity to your thoughts and feelings.
Where are they?
Are they inside something or are they inside awareness?
Are they central to you or are they peripheral?
Are they central to you or are they peripheral?
Do thoughts and feelings leave any trace when they have gone?
Don't they come and go on the screen of awareness just as sounds and sensations come and go leaving no trace?
We identify with our minds believing we are our thoughts and feelings.
Is your mind contained within anything?
Are you contained within anything?
Are you the edgeless awareness contained within anything?
Think of the name of a city.
Did you know what name was going to come before you thought of it?
Where did it come from?
Where did it happen?
Where did it go?
Where did the name come from?
Where did it happen?
Where did it go?
Think of a planet,
A friend,
A country.
Are these thoughts happening inside any kind of container or are they happening in the boundless space of awareness?
I find no origin,
No container,
No destination.
For me they emerge out of nowhere,
Out of my undefinable being without preview,
Without effort and they dissolve back into the nothingness leaving no mark on this nothingness.
Imagine the color blue,
Now the color orange,
Now the shape of a triangle.
How do you do that?
I have no idea how I do it.
These things appear as if by magic.
How creative this nothingness is,
This no mind as some Zen Buddhists call it.
Without effort,
Thoughts and images emerge from nowhere,
Without preview,
Without my knowing.
Be aware of what you are feeling.
Remember how you were feeling earlier in the day or yesterday.
The flow of feeling is changing all the time.
Are your feelings central to you?
Do your feelings leave any marks on awareness?
Do difficult experiences traumatize space?
Not in my experience.
Where are my feelings?
I find no container here.
My mind is as large as the universe.
This is a direct pointing to your spiritual self,
Your true self.
Thanking the master Douglas Harding.
As many times as possible during the day,
Close your eyes and return to your true self.
Your true self will guide your way.
Your true self will bless your life.
Thank you.
Namaste.
