Introduction
Welcome to tonight’s guided meditation. I’ll be talking during the sit, guiding, leading your meditation, and, as usual, you don’t have to follow along if you don’t want to. Do your own sit, but I’ll be leading a guided meditation, you can follow along if you wish. It will be an hour, and then I’ll talk a bit, and then we’ll take questions. But if you’re not used to sitting on the floor for an hour, it’s probably going to hurt, so you might want to quickly, instead, get in a chair. If you’re not used to it, there’s a wiggle room tonight, if you really do want to sit on the floor, but you can’t sit still, go in there instead of here, and sit on the floor, or in a chair. The social contract is you’re going to remain pretty still.
Let’s begin by doing some movement sitting down. Just rotate your hands in some way. You don’t have to do it the way I’m doing it, just do however you want, but let your wrists be loose. Then let your elbows be loose and rotate them somehow, and let it be fun and feel good. Then do your shoulders, but do it however you want. We’re not exercising, we’re just kind of freeing ourselves a little bit here, so it’s not necessarily about stretching or working out, it’s just, what does your body feel like doing that would feel good with your arms and shoulders. Then you can do your entire back a little bit–get that whole spine moving in a way that feels really nice, and unconstricted, and open, and free, and relaxed, and smooth, and friendly. You’re just inviting your body to show up to the party a little bit.
Then, as usual, we kind of slow down, and let go. Just let the arms become super super super relaxed, but let your trunk, your spine continue to rotate a little bit and continue to rotate a little bit, until eventually, you can’t tell if it’s rotating or not. Then just let that be that way right where, if it is moving, it’s moving so small, maybe it’s just still.
Meditation
Then, resting there in this, “am I moving or not moving” place, just ask yourself the question, what’s it like to be me right now? Then, simply look, feel, note, notice, what it’s like to be right now? The thoughts, and the emotions, and the body sensations, and kind of the weather around you, and just let that be that way. Whatever it is, just allow yourself to let go of the continuous need for it to be different, and instead, what if just for a while, you just let it be that way, however it is.
The way I normally recommend doing this is you sit up nice and straight and have your eyes open. You don’t have to have them open, but it’s recommended that you have them open. They don’t have to be staring straight ahead–you can just kind of softly gaze at the floor in front of you, but you can look forward, too.
Then, step outside the clunky, rusty, squeaky, heavy industrial machinery of your mind, and instead, just be in the space of awareness itself. You’re not trying to stop thinking, or suppress thinking, or deny thinking, or control thinking. You’re letting the thinker think if it wants to, but you’re not engaging with that at all. You’re just pressing in the clutch, and just stepping right outside the whole thing, into just simple presence, into just feeling your body, being in the room, hearing the sounds, seeing the sights, feeling your feelings. But not engaging in any chains of thought of any kind. You’re just letting them do their thing, but you’re not engaging. If you find yourself engaging, just step outside again.
Sometimes, it can be that kind of thing, where every time I drive by that bar, I find myself in the bar, drinking, before I even know what I’m doing. It can be like, oh, I just got a little too close to the thoughts, now I’m in there thinking. But, you just step back outside, out into the wide open space of simple presence. Feeling your body, seeing the room, hearing the sounds, in the simplest possible way. There’s no strategy at all. Let’s do that together for a little while.
If you really can’t stop grabbing onto it, then, while still simply resting in this open, simple, wide open presence, then, you can very, very, very, very, lightly, with just a tiny bit of attention, stay with the rising and falling of the breath. A very small amount of attention on that–like 97% of attention just being wide awake in simple presence, and then just a little bit on the rising and falling of the breath.
If you’re sleepy at all, sit up straight, open your eyes. Otherwise, there’s not much to do–just be present.
Good. Now, the question is, what’s it like when you step outside your mind for a moment? Just do it, just drop out of any thinking. Again, we’re not suppressing, denying, controlling, stopping, thought in any way: We’re just not engaging. What’s it like when you do that? Just notice there are body sensations, there are emotions, there are the sights and sounds of the world around you. It’s very simple, it’s really bright, it’s really clear, it’s really present, it’s very embodied. If you start thinking about it, just disengage from that. That’s the game–you don’t need to do anything special with your eyes or anything like that. They don’t need to fixate. This is easy, this is simple, you just disengage from thinking, engage with being.
Notice how really, really, wide open things are. If you’re engaged with machinery of thought, you’re way stuck down inside your mind, but, when you disengage and just come into being, it’s really broad, it’s really open, it’s really relaxed, and free. What’s it like when you step outside thought? It’s bright, it’s clear, there are feelings, there’s a body, it’s open, it’s fresh, it’s timeless, it’s boundaryless. So, for yourself, without any words, and without engaging the thinking at all, just notice what it’s like. Just notice–we’re not thinking about it–we’re just noticing. If somebody said, do you see the bird in the tree over there? You don’t think about it, you just look.
What’s it like when you step outside thinking and just exist?
If you’re tired, sit up straight, straight, straight, and open your eyes, so you stay awake.
This is not nap time.
Good. Now, just come back to this open, simple, presence, following the up and down flow of normal breathing with just a tiny part of your awareness. The rest is just being present, naturally. If you’re not involved with thinking, there’s a lot of awareness left over–it’s a ton of extra to just come into simple presence, spacious, wakeful, bright, fresh, clear, presence. Following that breath wave up and down, really letting that be part of the experience. Not engaging with thought.
Good. Now, see if you can notice the energy around that breath wave, the very subtle, or maybe, not so subtle, but subtle, flavor of buzzy, tingly, vibratory experience that goes up and down the body with each breath. You might also feel it in your hands and feet, maybe in your face, but it’s also going up and down with the breath wave. There’s a sense of vibratory energy. Instead of following the breath wave, follow that energy wave up and down. Remaining wide open, remaining bright and clear in the present moment, very, simply present. Disengage with thought.
On the in-breath, a very normal in-breath, not changing your breath at all, feel the energy gathering in the belly, maybe a little bit below the navel. Breathing in, you feel like a ball of energy in the belly below the navel. On the out-breath, the whole spine lights up. That feels like energy in the spine and also kind of goes out the top of the head, and just expands into space.
So now, instead of stepping outside the machinery of thought, with each out-breath, let
the machinery of thought just flow out the top of your head, and just dissolve into space. It’s not even possible to engage with, because it’s just completely dissolved into vibratory energy in space.
Some of you may notice that the energy can get a little bit intense doing that. It doesn’t need to be intense, so let it be relaxed and open, but very vibratory. With each out-breath, the mind just dissolves into space.
Notice how the boundaries of the body become very indeterminate. The body seems to be boundaryless. If there’s any sense of the boundaries of the body, then, just, on the next out-breath, together with the rest of the mind, just let those go up and out, dissolving until the body is just wide open–a field of energy but without a particular discernible boundary.
If you’re having a lot of mental pictures of the body–my head over here, and my arms over there, and so on–just let those mental pictures go up and out with the breath, up above the head, dissolving into space, so the body is vibrating energy, wide awake, wide open, vibrating energy, without any limiting visual images.
Notice how the entire body feels not like a machine, not like some kind of plumbing and pulleys and levers and stuff, but it feels like a field of vibrating energy, with no boundaries at all. Very wide awake, very alive, smooth and flowing, fully inhabiting it in open, simple presence.
Notice, as you’re sitting here, you might be maintaining the sense of a personality, the kind of person I am, my likes and dislikes, where I come from, the way I dress, the way I look. If you’re holding any of that at all, that’s just a subtler kind of thought. Just let that, with each out-breath, flow as energy out the top of the head and just disperse into space–just dissolve entirely into space. So, we’re left with an unfixed, freely flowing, energetic, boundaryless, experience. Very free, very open.
If there are any thoughts of time, any thoughts of the past or present or even thoughts about the now, we breathe them out on the out-breath into space, allowing them to dissolve completely and deliver us right into the timeless present, where we have zero thoughts about time. We notice that time is just another construction–it’s a thing we’re making with our minds. When we stop making it, we’re right in eternity, right now, wide open, wide awake, relaxed, present, timelessness, boundarylessness, pleasant, flowing, energy. Remaining disengaged with thought, feel that energy filling the belly, and then just pouring upwards with the out-breath, and expanding out into boundaryless space.
Good. Now, with your eyes open, notice that, with all this boundlessness–and, we’re noticing here, not making something up, or imagining anything–just notice that there’s no separation at all between the sense of inside and the sense of outside. The wide open awareness in which body sensations and thoughts and feelings are occurring is this exact same wide open awareness in which the images of the room and sounds of the world around you are arising. It’s one seamless field of knowing without any boundary in it at all. That your deepest, most intimate, secret feelings are just as near to you as the images of the room around you, or the sounds of the world outside. All are equally intimate, equally close, equally wide awake, wide open, vivid experience, with no separation at all.
If there’s any sense of struggle, just let that flow upward and outward, and dissolve. If there’s any sense of trying to do it right, or trying to check, am I doing right? Just let that flow upward and outward, and dissolve into space. This is very simple, it’s just presence without boundaries.
Continuing to breathe, and to notice just the energy freely flowing, wide awake, in wide open boundaryless space, with no inside and no outside, and no center. Outside of even time. If you’re trying to do it at all, you’re already doing too much. Just let go into boundaryless, openness, disengaged from thinking, and you’re already there. It’s already wide open, it’s already bright and clear, and wide awake, it’s already outside of concepts.
Notice if there’s any feeling of somebody doing something, anybody meditating. If there’s a sense, I am doing this meditation, just let that flow as energy up and out and dissolve into space. There’s no meditation at all, and if there’s any sense of, I am doing a thing, I am the one doing it, just let that flow upward and outward dissolve into space, so that the whole sense of doing, doing, doing, just dissolves. Instead, there’s simply wide open, wide awake, boundaryless, timeless, presence, that takes no effort, that doesn’t involve anybody doing anything at all, that takes no concentration at all, because this wide awake, wide open, timeless, boundaryless, presence is, itself, tremendously stable. Nobody doing anything at all, simply noticing this presence, being the presence.
Now, letting the energy gather in the belly on the in-breath, feel that energy, then, radiating out in all directions on the out-breath. Radiating out the sense of wide open, wide awake freedom, wakefulness, clarity, joy, kindness, in all directions, to everyone, everywhere–the other people in the room. Then, on the in-breath, feel that same energy of wide openness, wide awakeness, clarity, joy, brilliance, kindness, connection, coming back from all directions. Then, radiating out again, and, in again.
Moving up, feel the energy gathering in the heart on the in-breath from all directions, all beings, in all directions. Then radiating it back out from the heart–all beings in all directions. The bounds of the heart breaking, and opening, and breaking, and opening further–unguarded, unbounded, almost jumping out your throat, love, kindness, compassion, friendliness, connection, belonging, radiating out in all directions to all beings, and coming back into the heart from all directions, from all beings.
The heart opening more and more, maybe even a little painful, but good. Then, the energy moving upward gathers in the third eye, the light of wisdom, the light of clarity, the light of brilliance. Gathering in the third eye with strong energy from all beings in all directions on the in-breath, and then radiating out like a brilliant white light, all beings in all directions, on the out-breath. Tremendous clarity, tremendous, vividness, openness, insight, depth. Then, feel it all up and down the spine–the entire body filling up with energy from all beings in all directions on the in-breath–love, joy, beauty, connection, brilliance, wisdom, clarity, vivacity, liveliness. Then, breathing all that out from the entire spine, in all directions, to all beings on the out-breath. Then, just letting go of all that, and sitting in simple open presence, disengaged entirely from any thinking, and just feeling what it’s like to be, right now. Sitting in fundamentally, absolutely simple, presence. What even is this? Sitting in simple presence, just simply sitting. What even is this? Look, look.
Dharma Talk
In one way, that was an hour of just sitting there, with someone yelling at you to just sit there. In another way, we’re pointing at something else, which is, all the layers and layers and layers of conceptualization that kind of cocoon just simply sitting there, and changing it from an experience of bright, clear, boundaryless, presence, which is really simple, and very direct, and very intimate, into layers of complexity, layers of conceptualization, layers of alienation, separation, aloneness, that are completely self-generated, right? We’re making those with our thinking with and our are subtle concepts, which I’ll call thinking, but most people would call some kind of unconscious priors or something. With a little bit of coaxing, it’s not that hard to start letting go of at least some of that. Even though, in a way, we’re just habitually like a caterpillar.
When I was a kid, my brother was really into bugs–he’s quite a bit older, like eight years older–he’s really into bugs. He eventually became an entomologist, so he really did like bugs. He would go on all these field trips, instead of going on retreats, he went on field trips with butterfly nets and stuff, and came back with all these interesting caterpillars. We had a basement bedroom together, and he had filled it with wire cages with branches in them. He would get the right branch, that he had also collected, and put it in the terrarium and put these caterpillars in there. They would basically just eat and eat and eat off these leaves, and then eventually one day he’d be, like, hey, come check this out–usually after like beating me up or something–but, hey, check this out–and the caterpillar would have started to weave silk around itself. It had found the right spot on the branch, and it just starts closing itself in, and eventually is entirely enclosed.
I always think of that image when I think of conceptualization because that’s what we’re doing with our thinking. We start out with a little bit of thinking, and then just more thinking, and more thinking, and more concepts, and concepts, and concepts, and concepts about concepts–a lot of which are very subtle, and very unconscious, but they’re still there. Eventually, we’re just totally enclosed inside this dream—it’s just a dream, you know, that we’re made out of thinking. In the case of a caterpillar, of course, it’s going to transform into a glorious butterfly, which it really does, and that’s cool. But, for most people, what happens is you just stay inside the cocoon and die. It gets thicker and thicker and you just get more alienated, and gray, and separated, and kind of stuck. Then you just die in there—the clock runs out.
We do have an opportunity. Because we’re making that thing all the time—we have to keep replenishing it, and replenishing it, and replenishing it, we have an opportunity to just not. Just not. Unlike a cocoon, as soon as you drop out of it, you’re out of it, you might only be out of it for a moment, but you drop out of it, and all of a sudden, you’re back, let’s say, metaphorically outside on this beautiful branch in the sun with the leaves. You’re just there instead of inside this cocoon, which is like a virtual reality, it’s got screens in it, and you’re just lost in the dream inside it.
But, it’s really, really, really, super easy to not do that: almost like, just flip off the XBox switch, turn it off and then there—you’re free of that reality, and you’re just back in back in the moment, and the moment, it turns out, is really open, it’s boundless, it’s clear. Ninety-five percent of your problems just disappeared when you turned that thing off. There’s just regular stuff—my ankle kind of hurts, but there’s also a room full of wide awake, fresh, interesting, fun beings, and so on. So, it just takes that one move, which is not a move of doing, it’s a move of letting go of doing, and then you’re here.
Then we did some energy stuff to work with the subtler, more unconscious, deeper conceptualizations, like just the idea that there’s time at all. Time is one of the things that we’re weaving around us. There isn’t any time–it’s just an idea that you’ve been trained into, and you can just tell you can just let it go–not be inside it, right now. Even just that one, just let go of that one for a minute–ah, and things just open right up.
So, it’s very, very, easy in one way, and then it’s very very hard in another, which is, we’re just not in the habit of letting go like that. Everyone around you probably is not in the habit of letting go like that, and all the media never wants you to let go like that, and you get paid at your work for not letting go like that, and so on. There’s just a whole reinforcement of staying inside the cocoon. It’s just a vision of the Matrix, right, you’re just stuck in the tank. I won’t get into the war over what color pill anything is, but you just got out of the tank and then you’re here.
What was great about that original thing is that here was not necessarily paradise, you’re in a horrible submarine, in a homespun shirt, but you’re still here–it’s real, it’s wide awake, it’s wide open. So, I didn’t intend tonight to end up in a Wachowski sisters fantasy, it’s just about coming into simple presence, and just letting go. Recognizing that every single time, just watch it, watch right now, in your own experience. If you follow a train of thought, you’ll be in a little daydream. It’ll be a little tiny daydream, not like a big daydream. A big daydream is interesting–you can’t even see the room around you if you’re in a real daydream, your eyes blank out, and then you’re in the daydream. But, every thought you follow is like a little tiny version of that, and so you just keep yourself plugged into this little virtual reality all the time, and that’s either just a habit that you learned, or, more likely, a strategy to avoid certain other things.
So, if we want to come into life, come into experience, come into freshness, the mind is really boring and repetitive, but reality is actually pretty surprising, and pretty fresh. So coming into–we have to come out of our little mini daydream. It’s like waking from a dream into just simple presence. There are lots and lots and lots of ways to do it, but, in a way, there’s nothing to do, you just stop being quite so entranced. As my friend Eric put it recently, ensorceled you’re a little less ensorceled. That’s what we’re doing, we did it a couple different ways, so if you have any questions about that or stuff coming up that you want to share we’ll bring a microphone over to you and you can say it. Just raise your hand–it’s the literal Talking Stick. I’ll also remind you that it is being live-streamed to the entire world and will be recorded and available to the entire world so, no pressure. Everybody feels real quiet.
Q&A
Questioner 1: I found that when you pointed out the expansiveness and freshness of presence, the act of appreciating that actually brought me back into conceptualization.
Michael: What was the conceptualization?
Questioner 1: Freshness and expansiveness
Michael: You think those are concepts?
Questioner 1: There’s experience of that, but then the instruction to appreciate, which was bringing conceptualization. I was wondering if you could share, if you’re already in it, how do I relate to the words?
Michael: It’s an interesting question. I’m doing a guided meditation, I have to do it words. I could sing it, or make sounds, or do armpit farting, or have crystal glasses, but I’m using words. So, that’s some level of conceptualization, but it can be pretty thin, especially as we learn language so early. I’m just pointing out things, not inviting you to think about it, but just pointing. If it was perfectly telepathic or something, I’d just literally point at it, so it’s part of the paradox of communication. What I would say, just to really answer your question is, you let the words dissolve into space also, just wash over and dissolve into space. We’re not grabbing a word. A good word here is, it’s unfixated–we’re not fixating on the words, they just pour over and dissolve, and so it’s held very lightly. In other words, that’s how I would invite you to work with that.
Questioner 1: Thanks
Michael: Yeah, did you feel like it was gripping down on the words or causing you to grab?
Questioner 1: I found that to have those words mean something to me required me to turn on my thinking more than I wanted to because I was trying to stay present; I was kind of choosing between either being, like, I’m not sure what he means, but I feel good–or having to think about what you meant.
Michael: Yeah, probably the first is better. Some deep part of your mind can just interpret the words without you having to. So that’s probably the preferred direction, what you were just doing.
Questioner 1: Okay, yeah, thank you.
Michael: Thank you.
Questioner 2: As we were moving energy around, especially up and down the spine, there’s a spot in my back that sort of moved upwards over time, where energy seems to really collect, like it tends to accumulate there. We got to a point where it felt like that spot had its own radiance, like it feels like there’s a process there that’s accumulating energy.
Michael: Would you say it’s like a stuck spot?
Questioner 2: My best guess is that there’s something characterological and postural there that’s trying to move, but I don’t know for sure. Any suggestions for how to work with that?
Michael: Gently, don’t try to force it, don’t try to control it, but if it wants to gather and radiate, and gather and radiate, that’s massaging the kinks out of it. It’s getting a lot less stuck as it does that, so don’t try too hard. It’s organic, so just let it have its own organic process and time, and be real, real, real, gentle. It will work out.
Questioner 2: Thank you.
Michael: Yeah. You can really trust that it will, especially when you’re on just the
energy level, without directing it too much. It’s got its own intelligence, it starts to do its
thing.
Other folks have other stuff they want to share, or things that they’re dying to
say, advertisements that they want to put out via YouTube–just kidding. Glad we have a microphone here.
Questioner 3: I guess this is sort of a trip report, and then, maybe there’s advice about tactics. When you gave the instruction about the energy and the breath, a couple things happened. One was, I didn’t exactly feel energy that felt like it was really part of the breath. You mentioned the tingling that it’s similar to the tingles in the feet–I get that pretty strongly. I felt some other kind of tingly energy in my abdomen but it’s not really that embodied. It didn’t correlate well to the breath, so I just kind of rolled with that. But it’s not imaginable though, right? We’re actually looking for a sensation here, right?
Michael: You feel it, yeah, you feel it, or you don’t.
Questioner 3: The other funny thing that happened is, as I started doing that as I started really letting go, some part of me felt this tension in my chest, and I was unable to take really deep breaths. It didn’t feel like I was intentionally doing this, and I tried to let it go, and it didn’t let go, so I just sort of had equanimity toward it, but It was kind of annoying me the whole time.
Michael: What was the tension like?
Questioner 3: It was physical, it was like I literally just couldn’t breathe all the way in.
Michael: Did you feel that sense of uplifted-ness as it’s tensing?
Questioner 3: It felt like it was blocking the flow of something. Part of my frustration is that I can’t feel the energy going up and down, and then I can’t actually take proper breaths, anyway.
Michael: Yeah, sometimes it can be the case that if the energy is flowing, it can make the breath get really small. Remember, I said, just do normal breaths for the most part. What will happen is, as the feeling of energy gets really big, the breath will get real small, and it will maybe even feel like it’s sort of [inhales], but it’s part of the central channel flow starting to go. That might just be a little bit of a mild reaction towards that. But I would just say, don’t try to do anything with it just as you were saying–have equanimity, and just kind of relax, even if the breath itself is doing kind of a tightening, just be relaxed with it. It’s its own intelligence, it’s doing what it needs to do. If you get in there and try to mess with it too much, it’s just not that useful, because then you’re getting really in your head, right? So, the more you go out of the thinking process, the more that this will just start to do what it does. It’s kind of like what I was saying to the previous question. Is that helpful at all?
Questioner 3: Yeah, I appreciate it.
Michael: Okay, let’s see how it goes. You’re here most weeks, we’ll keep checking in.
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