Resting Out of Control

A guided meditation, on the nature of 'resting out of control,' from a Silent Retreat in Jampa Ling Tibetan Buddhist Centre in Ireland. Recorded live.

Transcript

I hope you got to enjoy some of the freshness outside this morning.

Lovely down in the woodlands.

So the first morning of a silent retreat there tends to be a kind of sea change and things start to deepen as we rest back from our kind of normal activity.

So the meditation we done last night was the I Am meditation and it's a very effective and simple meditation.

If it resonates with you,

You can stay with it all weekend if it suits you.

I want to share with you a different type of meditation this morning called the resting meditation.

It's a variation of the resting meditation and the difference between the I Am with the breath and this resting meditation is very simple.

It's less object based because the breath is still an object.

And maybe I'll explain a little bit what I mean by object.

We could say an object is anything that's witnessed,

Anything we can hear,

See,

Feel,

Touch,

Taste,

Label as an object.

And the nature of objects is that they move,

They're temporal.

That means they're time based.

They're always in flux.

They come,

They go.

So we can say a tree is an object in a sense that it starts as an acorn and grows to a tree and eventually folds.

So it goes through the cycles of birth and death,

Coming and going.

And it's very easy to recognise in that an object is always in a state of movement.

Some movements faster than others,

Some slower.

Mountains are moving very slowly.

Bodies move at a different pace.

So it's recognising this quality of movement and temporality.

So last night we focused on the breath,

The dynamic quality of the breath,

Its fluctuation.

And we linked it to the feeling and thought,

I Am,

Our own presence.

So this meditation we're about to do is a slight bit different.

We're not trying to focus attention on any given object,

Such as the breath.

So I'll invite you all to close your eyes and I'll gently guide you through it at first.

And I'll let the guidance drop away then and we'll sit in silence.

At the end of the meditation you'll hear a small chime.

It's just a signal at the end of it.

You can continue sitting if you so choose.

So we always bring it back experientially in this moment.

Never rushed,

Never hurried.

In this moment there's sounds in the environment.

There's coughs,

There's creaks and cheers.

There's the sound of my voice.

All objects,

They modulate.

They come and go.

And the nature of objects is we're not limited to anything we can witness.

And this witnessing presence is conscious of objects.

You know you're not limited to them because you're the seer of them.

I hear the bird song outside.

I'm no unlimited to this bird song because I'm here to hear it coming and going.

I do not resist it.

I do not chase it.

It moves through me.

You can also feel the weight of your body on the seat.

You can feel this.

You can feel temperature fluctuations in hot and cold.

Again I'm not limited to these things,

These objects.

They're temporal.

Their nature is they come and go.

Thoughts may arise.

They're not much different than bird song.

Modulations.

They come,

They go.

No need to push them away.

No need to attach to them.

Time-based.

Moving.

A strong emotion may come or go in the body.

Again objects.

I'm not limited to these because I see them coming and going.

They only become problematic if I attach to some thought to say they should not be there.

That's like trying to say that bird should not be there.

But it is there.

It's the actuality of this moment.

There's no need to be in conflict with this moment and what is arising in this moment.

You're not separate from this moment.

This moment is.

The nature of this witnessing presence is very transparent.

Very nebulous.

You could say we're resting back into our own openness.

We're giving our attention a break.

We're not trying to focus on any one thing by pushing or pulling.

We do not want anything from this moment.

We do not deny this moment.

If at any time you feel pulled by strong emotions or thoughts,

Simply come back to your breath.

It's a doorway.

What I would say about this witnessing presence,

You could say it's the felt sense of beingness.

The feeling that I am in this moment.

There's a great beauty to not being in control,

To not fall for the judgment system of why is that car passing?

The dog shouldn't be barking.

They are.

A bigger question,

A more fruitful question to ask is what is the nature of this witnessing presence?

Does it move?

Is it an object?

I seem to be here to witness the coming and going of all objects.

Has this witnessing presence changed throughout my life?

Is it the same presence when the body was five years old,

Fifteen years old,

And so on?

Is this witnessing presence dependent on thoughts or emotions?

Or is it prior?

Is it more fundamental?

And really,

When we ask such questions,

You could call it self-inquiry.

We're inquiring into our own nature,

What it is to be.

And when we ask such simple questions,

It's a deep contemplation more than looking for a verbal answer from the mind.

Because as we have seen,

We can witness thoughts,

And if we can witness thoughts,

We're not limited to them or prior to them.

So thoughts cannot answer the question,

Who am I?

But yet we ask this question as a means of orientation,

Instead of looking to the objects of the world or the mind.

We rest as we are in our own nature.

This is where we get comfortable with facing the unknown.

Facing your own stillness.

How much of this world is spontaneous?

My heart beats,

My lungs breathe,

Blood flows around my body,

Digestion happens,

Thoughts come and go,

Sometimes tears,

Sometimes laughter,

Sometimes indigestion.

Spontaneous movements.

Am I in control of any of it?

If I don't believe a thought that says I am the doer,

I am this body-mind.

When this is firmly believe,

This is the crux of separation.

I'm a limited body-mind in time and space.

We go from the oceanic openness to a type of imagined solidity.

We get enamoured by the objects of the world.

We try to claim some of theirs,

Take possession.

But for this time as we rest back,

It's a kind of vacation from objectivisation,

From accumulation and identification.

This I am-ness,

Or the knowing feeling that I am,

This witnessing presence,

It has the power of attention.

Attention can go to things,

To objects,

And it has the power to believe.

Believe something to be true.

It has the power to identify.

This ability gets conditioned and solidified and forms our habit patterns and belief systems who we think we are and feel we are.

But this I am-ness,

This witnessing presence,

Can also let go of the objects of the world,

Rest back,

Can put down the toys.

In a way it starts to become interested in its own source.

It stops looking for self-confirmation outside itself.

We stop feeding the idea of lack,

That we need to accumulate something,

Some object,

To make us happy.

It starts to question the belief that happiness can be gained.

This belief says that there is not happiness now.

There is an inherent joy in our own being.

So you can notice what moves in any moment without giving yourself to it.

Sounds,

Feelings,

Sensations.

Does this witnessing presence move?

Do you move?

Is it possible you are not limited to what you are?

What you think you are?

At any point you may realise that in fact there are no objects.

There is just this one life moving in utter stillness.

You are not separate from this life.

You are this life.

You do not have a life.

You are life.

Everything sings with the presence I am.

It's the announcement of the absolute,

The primary expression in time and space.

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Reviews

Lucid guidance. Very helpful 🙏

Excellent! Note there are ending bells. Thank you!🙏

Lovely meditation A bit more talk than I’d prefer, at the beginning. A decent amount of doctrine that I found distracting. But also some really clear and beautiful direction, and a long period of quiet in order to apply it all, at the end

Thank you for this experience.

Very nice practice. A short talk followed by a guided portion and finishing with silence.

This is an awesome experience. Thank you...

Really beautiful. It was tough staying still for so long since I'm a beginner but it was so worth it!

Loved this. First half guided, second half silent. Brilliant. Thank you 🙏

Exactly what I needed. A purposeful message and loving support to integrate into one's being. Namaste 🙏

What a gift. Thank you so much 🙏🏼

Meditative pace. A favourite

Love the pacing as well as the balance between guided portion of the meditation and the silent portion. Perfection

Thank you Will. Found the initial talk helpful and enjoyed having enough time to meditate on it. Liked the occasional background noise as it made me feel part f the group.