Streamed live on Jan 2, 2025
Meditation
Hey you guys. Welcome to this guided meditation. As usual, let’s do a little short movement thing. I’ll do it from my chair. You can do it from your meditation cushion, but just begin by breathing upward like this. Really expanding your lungs and chest, stretching your arms up, stretching your neck, back. You can take a couple breaths here. Make it work for you, of course. Have it suit your body. Then slowly bring your arms down, breathing out and then over one way, opening your side ribs. Taking a deep deep deep breath. Breathing, taking a couple breaths here—making it work for you—and then back up. Breathing in the center position for a moment, and then taking another deep breath and opening up the other way. Really stretching open those side ribs—feels so good—and then coming back to center.
Okay, and then, again, if it works for you, let’s do a twist one way. Hold it for a little while, and then twist the other way. Hold it for a little while. Okay. Then you can just move back and forth like this a little bit, to feel some looseness, some openness. Rotate your arms and wrists, taking some nice deep breaths. Then slowly bring that to a close.
What we’ll do is sit in our meditation posture. I’m in a chair when I’m doing this at home, so we just sit up in the chair, nice and straight, try not to slump back in a chair. In fact, the best is if you lock the chair in the upright position, then sit forward on it enough that my feet are flat on the ground, and my back is actually not being supported by the chair. I’m sitting up. But if you’re on your cushion, then same thing. You’re just getting your back nice and upright, having your chin down just a little—bit not way down—but just a tiny bit, like five degrees, so that the back of your neck opens very slightly. The very top of your head feels like it’s being lifted up towards the ceiling in a pleasant way, and then your shoulders really relax, really relax, really relax, and you have your hands on your knees. If you want to do mudras, you put them on your knees like this, down, with your palms on your thighs. Or, using the same mudra, you can turn them over, with the backs of your hands flat on your thighs. Don’t hold them up like in the mindfulness photographs online. No one meditates like that. Either flat down or flat up, or you can rest them in your lap like this—that Zen mudra. Any of those are fine.
Now, whatever feels good for you, okay. As usual, you can do most of these meditations either open-eyed or closed-eyed. For doing nondual meditations like we’re doing on this channel, traditionally we would do them eyes open, because eventually with nondual meditation you’re doing it as you’re walking around, and you want to practice for that from the very beginning. So you tend to keep your eyes open while you’re meditating, but you don’t have to, especially if it makes it really a lot harder. Also, there’s kind of an in-between one, where you have your eyes technically open, but you’re looking straight down at the floor or the carpet, or something uninteresting like that, so light is coming in, but you’re not really looking at anything. So that’s kind of the in-between one.
Okay, we’re going to begin tonight with the bodhisattva of great compassion, Chenrezig. Avalokiteshvara, he who hears the cries of the world. Although, in East Asia, he switches gender and becomes a she, and is Quan Yin. Sometimes called the Virgin Mary of Buddhism, which is not at all what a bodhisattva is. But, in any case, I’ve heard Quan Yin described that way. We’re going to do the om mani padme hum mantra, which is, of course, the mantra of Avalokiteshvara, the mantra of Chenrezig. Normally, it’s really fun when I do it in the room at the Alembic where we have a group of people, and we’re all doing it together. There’s no break in the sound, because when I take a breath, other people continue chanting. But here, with just me and you, each of us in our rooms, or wherever we’re at, we’re going to do the om mani padme hum mantra together. So I’m just gonna start doing it, and I recommend for the mantra chanting, you do that with your eyes closed, and just feel that sense of love and compassion, and concentrate on your third eye.
In general, before we start, we just open up, we drop into our best approximation of awake awareness. Just noticing the openness and space and freedom of awareness that’s always there when we’re not caught up in the mind. It’s always there. That’s our natural state. That’s our basic nature, just spaciousness, and consciousness. Total freedom and total awakeness, and it’s only the layers and veils and confusion and muck of the thinking mind that gets in the way of that. But, of course, it can’t really get in the way in the long run, because even that, all that thinking mind, is made of nothing other than this awake spaciousness. But, either way, we drop into that for just a moment. Notice that spacious awakeness, and then we begin to chant. So let’s do that together.
[chanting]
Very good. Now, feeling the energy of chanting, that mantra radiating out through all of space, all of time, all of the universe. Finding no boundary, finding no impediment, finding only compassion, kindness, love, caring, joy. Spreading that to all sentient beings everywhere in the entire universe. May everyone everywhere be happy. May everyone everywhere be filled with love. May everyone everywhere be healthy and strong. May everyone everywhere have enough to eat and a life of peace. Just feel that radiating out, radiating out the energy of the mantra, just radiating out in all directions, and also radiating back into you, because you’re the recipient of that from everyone else also. Just feel that. Remaining in your natural state, remaining as just wide open, wide awakeness, remaining completely outside the thinking mind.
And from here, we just switch into noticing our thinking mind. We’re not engaging with the thoughts at all, we’re just noticing what I call the thought activity, the bubbling up of a thought. And we just notice it. Now, for some people, this is the usual sound type thinking, mental talk—blah blah blah—for others, it’s mental pictures bubbling up and then fading away. For some it’s a mixture of both mental talk and mental images bubbling up and fading away, but of course we’re not paying attention to any of that content at all. We’re just noticing that it’s bubbling up and then fading away, and then bubbling up and then fading away again.
Okay. Now, for some of us, when we really are noticing thought activity, we’re not really encountering it so much as words and pictures—although that’s there, it’s not that it’s not there—but some of us feel the thought activity as almost like a current or of a bubbling up of body sensation or something like that. We say the energy of thought, and it’s not something I’m trying to get you to notice, I’m just aware that some people experience it that way. I certainly experience it that way often, and so, whether it’s a flow of images, or a flow of mental talk, or both, or a flow of energy, like a flow of body sensation, or bubbles coming up, whatever it feels like, or is experienced like for you, just be the awake space in which that thought bubbles up. And remember, to be the awake space, is not something you have to try to do. It’s there automatically for you, it’s just that you don’t get involved in the thinking— that’s all it requires. When you’re not involved in the thinking, then you’re present in space.
Okay, now, if this is too hard. If thought is so sticky, even after the mantra. If thought is so sticky that you just can’t detach from it enough to follow it in this way, then just follow the breath. But we’re still doing it, we’re still following it from awake space, as boundless, timeless, awakeness.
So, from boundless, timeless, awakeness, just be aware of thought activity. We might say the bubbling and churning and flow of thought itself, without getting engaged in it at all. We’re not trying to stop the flow of thought, we’re not trying to change the flow of thought, we’re not trying to interrupt it, or somehow make it go away, or divert it, or anything like that. You’re just letting it be exactly the way it normally is, but you’re watching it, and by watching, I mean, however it’s coming up for you, you’re just aware of it. So you’re resting as awake space, which, again, remember, is something that just happens when you’re not involved in thought. Letting the thoughts bubble up and pass, and bubble up and pass. It’s just like the expression of the moment, this fountain, this, burbling, gurgling, fountain of thought. So I’ll be quiet now for a while, and we’ll just do this together.
Let’s keep going with that, remembering it’s pretty easy to get caught up in thought, because we tend to do that all day long. So don’t give yourself a hard time about it. Just anytime you notice that you’re back inside the machinery of thought, you’re back grinding on it, just let it go, let it go, and come back to just resting as awake space. Just resting as awake space. And you may have to do that over and over and over—and that’s completely fine. Remember that we’re not trying to somehow witness the thought or be separate from the thought. The thought is arising within awake space, and so we’re just aware of it. Just aware of it, observing its flow but not getting involved in the content at all. Let’s continue. We’re going to do this for a while, so just keep going.
Okay. Very good. Now we’ll go a little deeper with this. Instead of simply observing the thought activity, being with it, I want you to notice in particular its flow-like nature. It’s flux nature. The fact that it keeps moving and changing, and moving and changing. The fact that it’s never still. It doesn’t sit there. It just burbles and gurgles and flows along, and is utterly, utterly, transient. It arises and passes, and arises and passes, and arises and passes. So we’re looking for this particular impermanent quality in the thoughts now. Don’t narrow down. Stay in your nature is awake space, but just notice a little more particularly—just with a little more attention on the thought—just notice its continuous changing nature. Let’s tune into that again for a few minutes together.
Okay, good. Now to take this a little deeper, begin to notice where the thoughts are coming from. So we’ve been watching them arise and then pass, and arise and then pass, now let’s look specifically, where do they arise from? From where did they arise? Hint: it won’t be any particular location. Even if sometimes it seems like there’s a location, then other thoughts will arise in other parts. So just try to look into where thoughts come from. Where do they come from? This flow of thought activity—whence does it arise? Let’s look.
Remember that we’re doing this phenomenologically. It’s not an idea—well, they come from my brain—not like that at all. You’re trying to notice in your experience where you experience them as arising from.
Hint: it’s not that we’re going to find a location. The thoughts don’t really come from any particular location. But when you look, or sense into, or feel into, or notice, where they’re coming from, what do you notice? Where are they coming from? That starts to get pretty interesting.
Let’s watch the other end of it. So, we were watching them arise and pass, and then we were looking at where they arose from. Now, let’s notice where they pass to. Where do they go when they’re done, and the thoughts vanish? Into what do they vanish? Let’s watch the vanishing of each thought, or listen, or feel into, or notice, the vanishing of thought. Again, we’re never getting involved in the content, we’re just—blah blah blah blah blah blah—the end of each stream of thought, watch where it goes. Don’t intentionally make thought just so you have something to watch. If nothing’s happening, just sit there as space, then when the thought arises, watch where it goes. There can be a tendency here to try to kind of watch it closely, and you start to tighten up, so remember to stay relaxed, stay wide open. Just observe in a casual way.
Okay, good. Now, I want you to, with the arising of each thought, look into—again, experientially, not as a concept, not as an idea, but experientially—into who or what is thinking the thought? Find the source of the thought. Who is thinking it? So, as each thought arises—here comes this activity—just go look back at who is thinking it. And the answer is not an idea, like me, or my brain. You’re looking, you’re experiencing, what is the source of the thought.
Okay, good. Now, you may have noticed that the place, or the space the thoughts are coming from is the same as the place, or the space, that they’re going to when they’re done. And that same thing is what’s thinking the thoughts. It’s the awake space itself, not as a thinker, but as the source of the thinker, because the awake space is the source of everything.
So, now, whatever that space is—that awake space underneath or around or inside—whatever word you want to use—instead of looking at thought now, let go of thought entirely, and just rest as awake space itself. Now, it may continue to generate thoughts, and things may continue to happen, of course, but we just rest as the awake space itself, which requires no doing of any kind. As soon as there’s doing, then you’re in thought, so drop out of all doing, and just rest as awake space itself, which is your natural state. There’s nothing you need to do, just anytime you start to get involved in anything, just let go, come back.
If it’s, for whatever reason, too challenging, go back to just working with the thoughts. Like seeing from where they arise, or noticing where they go to. But, in general, we just do this as the next step. We just let go of paying attention to thoughts entirely again, not even the activity of thought, and we just rest as the wakefulness itself, wide awake, and yet not doing anything at all. Not even meditating, just sitting as our own natural awakeness, our own, already existing clarity, and wide open consciousness.
Resting as awake space, recognizing that the stillness of awake space, and the movement of thought, are never separate. They always arise together, as does the stillness of awake space, and the movement of emotion, and the stillness of awake space, and all the movement of the world, all of the activities of our mind and body, and even of the world around us, the other people, the cars, airplanes, birds, wolverines—especially wolverines—in the tiger satellites, moons, stars, suns, all co-arising with awake space. Never separate, all inside us, inside awakeness, inside being. A kind of reflection, a kind of show, but an exuberant, beautiful, meaningful, show, that is always playing out on the screen, so to speak, of awakeness itself. Which is what we really are—even though it’s not a thing. So with that let’s bring the meditation to a close.
Dharma Talk
Very nice to sit with you tonight. The sun set here while we were doing that, so now it really is tonight. Thank you for meditating with me. Just feel how we are not our thoughts. That doesn’t mean thoughts are bad, or wrong. Thoughts are what arise in the awakeness. They’re just as natural, just as beautiful, just as fresh and clear and clean as anything else. Emotions, too. Whatever emotions—difficult emotions, beautiful emotions, anything emotional, just arises as the natural, beautiful, pristine, expression of awake space itself. Within space, permeated by space, not separate from space, ever.
Again, we’re talking about awake space. The being that we imagine ourselves to be—the being of thought and feeling and body sensations—is composed of nothing other than awakeness. It’s composed of nothing other than the source of being, the groundless ground of being, burgeoning forth with an exuberant display. But if we had to point at what we are, so to speak, it’s that awake space, much more than the sock puppet being, much more than the appearance being that’s reflected in the mirror.
And yet, our minds are always drawn back, over and over again, to the reflections in the mirror, because we’re just all caught up in that. But when we meditate, like we did tonight, we notice—it’s almost just like a half-silvered mirror we start to see through and remember that what we are is what’s beneath the mirror, so to speak. A terrible metaphor, but it’s the one I’ve got: What’s beneath the mirror, that open awakeness, the space itself, the boundless, timeless, centerless, being itself. So there’s nothing we need to do to be that. We already are that. It’s only the ruminations of the mind that make us feel like we must do this, we must do that, we have to solve this, and heal that, and get over this, and do that, before we can rest as awake awareness itself. But actually, we always are awakeness. We always have been awake awareness we always will be awake awareness. So just let go, and rest as awakeness itself.
Okay, next week I’ll be coming to you live from the Alembic, so I’ll see you then. In the meantime, much love, lots of peace, harmony, joy, beauty. And really feel that awakeness. I’ll see you soon.
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