Loving Awareness: Always Available, Already Here

In stepping back from experience, we find there's a baseline stillness available at any time. Upon closer examination, we discover that this stillness is not empty or void but rather is filled with a love that is not conditioned on any state of mind or external experience, either good or bad. This talk and guided meditations help open this door for us.

Note: The talk was recorded live and may contain some background noise.

Transcript

So coming into the body with a sense of ease, Beginning at the top of the head and feeling into your brow, Softening across the brow, Feel it smooth out, Moving down to the area around your eyes, Relaxing the small muscles around the eyes where we often hold a lot of tension, Moving down the face to around the mouth and feeling into the jaw, Sensing whether the teeth are clenched and just releasing the jaw now and feel how that affects the rest of the body and moving down to your neck and to your shoulders, Seeing if you can drop your shoulders a little bit from around your ears and just sensing how that can release so much tension from the day, Feeling down then from the shoulders to the chest and to the belly and down through the arms, Conscious of the hands resting, Aware of all the sensations there, That warmth, The energy, The tingling in the hands and enjoy feeling the aliveness of the hands, Aliveness that helps to wake up the rest of the body and feeling down into the abdomen, To the belly and pausing to sense whether there's any tightness there, Any guardedness and breathing into the abdomen, Just letting each breath massage and soften the belly and next moving down to feel your hips and the weight of your body as it rests in the chair, You might sense into the points of contact between the body and the chair, Just the force of gravity as it holds you in the chair, A sense of groundedness, Of stability and then with the chair down to the floor and sensing down from the floor to the earth below us, Allow the awareness now to move gently down your legs, Arriving at your feet, Feeling into the ball of the foot and then out to your toes, The weight of your feet resting on the floor, The sense of your socks and your shoes. You can take a moment to allow the awareness to sweep gently through the body, The entire body a few times, Feeling the space inside the body as open and clear and if there are any areas of obvious tension in the body that remain, Just allow that tension to relax, To release. Meditation is a state of ease, Not going to sleep but just aware of the body, Awake, Present, At rest, You don't need to try to do anything, To meditate, Just be present, Awake, Here to everything that's happening in the body, In the sounds, Thoughts will come and questions about what we're doing, If we're doing it right. You can just ask that thinker, That questioner, The one who is trying to manage the experience to just step back and thank it for its service but just gently directing it to rest for a moment. Rest all of those different parts, The manager, The helper, The questioner, Just allowing them a moment to step back and just rest. You can imagine standing at night outside in front of your name that's spelled out in bright lights and slowly the lights begin to dim and your name starts to disappear, Slowly, Slowly disappearing until it's not seen at all. And standing there sensing into the awareness of what's still there, That simple, Gentle awareness without the strong sense of me, This awareness that's always been there. Or standing outside in the bright sunshine and holding a piece of paper with your name written on it and lighting the edge of the paper and watching it as it starts to burn and as it does your name starts to disappear letter by letter until nothing is left. In its absence feel what remains, This simple fact of awareness just doing its thing with no help from us, Freedom without the me. Feel into that experience, What's still here, Unburdened by this sense of me. And ask who or what would you be right now if you didn't have a name? There's still body sensations, There's still sounds, Just without a name. Or finally imagine a cup of water and you're slowly lowering it into a calm ocean and let the water in the cup mix with the ocean's water so ocean water is flowing in and out of the cup. And imagine you are the awareness in that cup, All around this vast awareness. Just let the awareness wash freely in and out of your awareness, Releasing any lingering sense of owning the body or this experience and feel that there's a continuity between what's inside and what's outside. Awareness inside, Outside, Same thing. Senses, Sensations being known by this pervasive awareness extending all directions. Just check for the tone of this openness, The release from the self. Check for some tenderness or open acceptance that's just naturally kind. This natural sense of brightness without needing to look for it or strive for anything. This settled space in which just life flows. And sense you can trust this thing, This openness, This freedom. You don't need to do anything, You just experience it. So we'll just rest here for a few minutes just sensing the aliveness and awareness as one connection with everything, Everyone, Naturally, Effortlessly. So we'll just rest together. Awake flow. We'll conclude in a moment, But before we do, You can just see if you can relax just a little bit more into this experience of this awake, Loving flow, Open hearted, Safe. To conclude, We'll just first take a few full deep breaths together. Just allowing the breath to fill the body, Every cell of the body radiating outward to all beings. And in closing, You can take your right hand, Place it at the bottom left side of your rib cage and then take your left hand and place it at the bottom of that hand on your rib cage and just give yourself a full body hug. Just feel the warmth, The presence that's there, Tender, Spacious and releasing. What's the baseline feeling of life? Or what's the hum in the background of all experience? In an immediate sense, I think nearly everybody would say, Well, It's a sense of the organizer or the worrier or the list of things to do-er that's inside, Thinking about what's happening, What's next and so forth. The experience of meditation is stepping back just for a moment from those different parts and their opinions and their worries and their things to do, To ask that question of, Well, What else is here when you do that? Or that sort of vibration of the universe, The thrum of the universe. So meditation practice is in some ways just learning how to make that movement from what's immediate right there to getting a sense of the background. And I think, At least for me, It's also a process over the years of practice of feeling like, I got there. Yeah, I did it. I'm there. And then you get knocked off balance and you feel like, Oh, That wasn't it. Got to try again. Or some disappointment, You know. But then after that, A sort of expansion to feeling like, Oh, It's actually bigger than that even. It's bigger. And then feeling like, Ah. And then maybe again, Another disappointment. And cycles of this on and on. So tonight I'd like to sort of trace two directions of this exploration or this movement, Trying to find, Locate, Understand, Come to know, Rest in this vibration. And the first is what's often called the wisdom dimension of practice or the dawning revelation. Just even from the first time you sit and you focus on your breath, That there is something else there to be found. Right? And as a part of that, That this, What's to be found is outside of this very small sense of me or this strong sense of self-identity. And this is true, I think, Across lots of different meditative traditions. Certainly for the Buddha, One of the three characteristics of experience was anatta, In Pali, Which sometimes is translated as no self. There's a title from a great book by Adam Thupten called No Self, No Problem, Which you almost don't have to read the book. You get it right away. But it's a great book also. Or Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche said that realizing the empty nature of self is like falling out of an airplane without a parachute. But the good news being that there's no ground underneath to fall onto. And I think in some ways, You can feel this notion of no self is sort of an affront to us, Because all of us are somebody, You know, With our history and our experience and our family and maybe some credentials come along with all of that, Our likes, Our dislikes, Our hobbies, You know, All of that, What is life. And I think there can be this resistance to this notion of like, No self, I'm not sure I want that, You know, That doesn't sound appealing. And I remember reading in a book for the first time, Somebody saying that, You know, This feeling of emptiness or no self, You don't have to give up your personality. And it was such a relief. It's like, Oh, Good, I was concerned. I might have to give that up as well. But there's another translation of anatta which is not no self, But it's not self, Not self. And maybe that is more helpful in the sense that you're not saying that there is no sense of either being a you, But the sense of, Well, What else is there outside of that very strong sense of me or mine? And I think, You know, So much of meditative practice, I think that many of us have done, Perhaps over years of mindfulness of the breath and of the body and of sounds and of emotions and thoughts, Which by itself, Of course, Has enormous benefit, Just by itself has enormous benefit. There are hundreds of studies to say this, That it has this immediate positive effect for illness of many types and addiction and anxiety and longevity and so forth. So that's just the pure experience of mindfulness. But all of those things also are a realization that experience itself comes and goes. I mean, All of these things are momentary. You can't grasp a breath. You can't grasp a sensation in the body and so forth and go directly to this wisdom about, Well, What's really real? So if all of that is just passing phenomena, Then this strong sense of self might be a little overblown. So the content of consciousness, Which we just so much associate with this being me, Is just these passing experiences. A few years ago, I went to my 40th high school reunion. It was the first time I'd been back to high school since I graduated. I was a little worried about what was going to happen. So I saw all these people, It was a small school, So you kind of knew everybody. I saw everybody. The good news was I talked to all the people who wouldn't talk to me back then and we had a great time. So that was the good news. But people, Of course, Naturally would come up to you and ask, Sort of like, Well, What are you up to? Or like, Basically, Who are you? Okay, 40 years, Like, Okay, So who are you? And it was a little difficult to explain. Because I'd gone to work with homeless people in New York for a few years. So I'd say, After college, I went to work with homeless people. Oh, That's really interesting. Oh, That's great. Yeah. And then after that, I entered this religious order. Oh, Really? Oh, No kidding. Yeah. And then after that, I went to Latin America for a while. Really? Wow, That's terrific. Yep. And then I came back and I went to law school. And by this time, The person is completely confused. And I'm having a little bit of fun, Too, With it. But it was the sense of, Like, Who are you? The question was, Like, Who are you? And I think we often want to put a label on that. Like, I'm a lawyer. Or like, I'm a this or that. Or I'm a dad. And all of that is true. But then that sense of identity of, Well, Behind all those experiences, What's the unchanging thing? Right? So the wisdom, The truth about who we are, When you can calm the mind, Is the sense of, There is in some way where you thought there was a very solid me, There's actually kind of sort of a little bit of feeling of emptiness, Which is what some of those meditations were going for, Where we started. And Joseph Goldstein said that there's a sort of gravitational field around the self that sort of pulls things all into it, To be the sense of me and mine. And at the same time, When you're exposed to the Dharma, Then it sets up a separate gravitational force that drags you towards the sense of emptiness, Or instead of a self-center. Thich Nhat Hanh said, You are not your body. You can honor the body and love it and care for it. But you are not limited by the body. You are life without boundaries. You are the eternal play of consciousness itself. Look at the sky filled with stars. Since before time, Say, I am then. I have always been. I am free. You can try this exercise. You don't need to close the eyes, Or you can if you like. You can just take a minute and look inside and see if you can find this thing that's called me. Where is it? Or what is it like? Can you find something that is this me or mine? And not finding is the finding. The experience of emptiness is something the Buddha talked a lot about. He said, Nothing whatsoever is clung to as I or mine. Whoever has heard this has heard all the teachings. Whoever practiced this has practiced all the teachings. Whoever has realized this has realized all the teachings. What is left most fundamentally without this self is a simple fact of awareness. And you can miss it because it's so obvious. We know it in every waking moment, Even without meditating or doing anything. So unhooking from the mind, Stepping back, And then resting for a moment in the simple fact of awareness, When you cannot find a me or a mine. The second part of this movement, Just as important, Is that awareness itself is not empty in the sense that it's blank or sterile or barren. It can be described, And I'm going to use a very tricky word here, Can be described as love. And I'm cautious with this word because there's so many associations. But even better is you could say unconditional love, But not in the sense that you have to feel like you have to love everyone and everything, But in the sense that awareness is not conditioned. It does not ask any questions about experience. It just accepts everything that happens as openly as anything else. In fact, Maybe better than unconditional love is basically unconditioned. You could just say unconditioned. It's the fact that you are aware, That there's no resistance, No conditions. What does this look like in the world? There was a woman named Dorothy Day who was born in 1897, And she spent her early life in San Francisco with her family, And she was there during the earthquake of 1906, Which destroyed a large part of San Francisco. And many, Many inhabitants of the city came streaming out, Out of the city, Homeless from the burning city. And as a young person, She was only eight years old, She remembered this vividly in her autobiography. She talks about it because she recalls the day before, Everyone was going about their life, Everyone in their own isolated life. But as soon as this occurred, And everyone saw the people streaming out of the city knowing what had happened, Everyone suddenly started giving everything away, Started giving away all their possessions to these people who were streaming out of the city, Destitute, Giving up every last piece of clothing they had to these people, Gathering in each other's kitchens and cooking all day, All night, To feed people who were just passing by. So she wrote, While the crisis lasted, People loved each other, She said. Makes one think of how people could care for each other, Unjudgingly, Unconditionally, With love. So let's try this brief exercise together. You can do this one with the eyes open or closed. This is one we've done before. But just find a relaxed, Comfortable way to sit and take a couple deep cleansing breaths and ask this simple question, What's here now when there's no problem to solve? Our mind is solving problems for us all day long, But when we pause for a moment we can notice that what's here right now when there's no problem to solve? Nothing to do for this moment. There's natural ease. And check for the tone of the experience. Is it a complete lack of anything or is there a certain positive current or a glow? Perhaps love is too big a word, But can you feel some tenderness or openness or sweetness? So this, Whatever word we're going to give to this, This tenderness or this openness or sweetness is not a secondary quality of awareness that needs to be added to an awareness that's otherwise empty or blank. It's a natural radiance, The Buddha used the word radiance, Of awareness itself. The Indian sage Yogananda, Who came to the U. S. In the 60s, Had a lot of followers, Said that life is like a movie and to understand life you need to turn around and see the projector from where it's coming and when you do that you find everything has its source in boundless love. Or Alice Walker from The Color Purple, One day I was sitting quiet and feeling like a motherless child, Which I was, And it came to me, That feeling of being part of everything, Not separate at all. I know that if I cut a tree my arm would bleed. And I laughed and I cried and I ran all around the house. I knew just what it was. The other dimension of practice, I think, Is that the more you get to know this, You get to see this, You get to glimpse this experience, And also the more you can trust it. You can really trust it as a place where you can return and rest. This combination of awareness itself that's always present, But that always has this unconditional, Boundless quality that nothing can disturb, No experience can disturb. Here's another glimpse or manifestation. This is from the poet Naomi Nye. This is called Gate A4. Wandering around Albuquerque Airport Terminal after learning my flight had been delayed for four hours, I heard an announcement. If anyone in the vicinity of Gate A4 understands any Arabic, Please come to the gate immediately. Well, One pauses these days, But Gate A4 was my own gate. I went there. An older woman in full traditional Palestinian embroidered dress, Just like my grandma wore, Was crumpled to the floor, Wailing. Help, Said the flight agent. Talk to her. What is her problem? We told her the flight was going to be late and she did this. I stooped to put my arm around the woman and spoke haltingly in Arabic. The minute she heard any words she knew, However poorly used, She stopped crying. She thought the flight had been cancelled entirely. She needed to get to El Paso for major medical treatment the next day. I said, No, We're fine. We'll get there just later. Who's picking you up? Let's call him. We called her son. I spoke with him in English. I told him I would stay with his mom until we got on the plane and I'd ride next to her. She talked to him. Then we called her other sons, Just for the fun of it. Then we called my dad, And he and she spoke for a while in Arabic and found, Of course, That they had ten shared friends. Then I thought, Just for the heck of it, Why not I call some of my Palestinian poets I know and let them chat with her. This all took two hours. She was laughing a lot by then, Telling of her life, Patting my knee, Answering questions. She had pulled a sack of homemade mamoul cookies, Little powdered sugar, Crumbly mounds stuffed with dates and nuts from her bag and was offering them to all the women at the gate. To my amazement, Not a single woman declined one. It was like a sacrament. The traveler from Argentina, The mom from California, The lovely woman from Laredo, All were covered with the same powdered sugar, All smiling. There's no better cookie. Then the airline broke out free apple juice from huge coolers and two little girls from our flight ran around serving it, And they were covered with powdered sugar too. And I noticed my new best friend, By now we were holding hands, Had a potted plant poking out of her bag, Some medicinal thing with green furry leaves. Such an old country tradition, Always carry a plant, Always stay rooted to something. And I looked around the gate of the late and weary ones, And I thought, This is the world I want to live in. The shared world. Not a single person in that gate, Once the crying of confusion stopped, Seemed apprehensive about any other person. They took the cookies. They wanted to hug all the other women too. This can still happen anywhere. Not everything is lost. So let's do one more practice together. If you, Again, Just want to find a comfortable, Relaxed way to sit, And with eyes open or closed, Feeling the body in the chair, Noticing the activity of thinking in your head, And unhooking awareness from thought in your head, And letting a bubble of awareness just move down your jaw to feel within your jaw. And then move that bubble of awareness down below your neck, Into your chest. Feel the aliveness and space directly within your body. And pause to feel this direct knowing of awareness. Awareness and aliveness together as awareness, Energy, And rest here, Without going down to sleep, Or up to thought, In this energetic aliveness. And pause to notice this awareness, The same awareness inside and out, Openness of this field of awareness, As it connects to the body. Notice a feeling of open-heartedness from within this space, And pick someone to whom you'd like to send some kindness to this evening. Someone or some group of people. And you can invite and welcome these loving intentions into this space, Whatever is hurting for that person or persons, And just remain at home in your open-hearted awareness. And from that space, Just let your kindness extend out to this person or group. Sense this natural loving-kindness nourishing every cell of the body, Opening outward to wherever you direct it. Now, Directly from your heart center, You can look from these eyes of the heart to see how things look and feel, And allow from there this natural loving-kindness just to radiate outward. Feel your deep intention for the well-being of this person or this group. Naturally move out to them, And with that intention, This ease, And wish for their happiness, For their freedom from harm. And this natural, Interconnected love that just extends in all directions, Everywhere. And just for a moment, You can just rest in this awake, Loving flow, Your open heart, The radiance of awareness, Extending in all directions. And coming gently back in your own time.

Reviews

Wonderful images and feeling of loving awareness and a beautiful story of its practice. Thank you.