Welcome to tonight’s guided meditation with me, Michael Taft. If you’ve never been here before, what we’re going to do is to sit for an hour. We’re going to sit without moving–you’re welcome to lie down for an hour. If you don’t feel prepared to do that, we have this other room available, where you can watch the video, and move when you need to. But, otherwise, the idea is that we are going to be real still. Often we do a little stretching first, but tonight, we’re just going to dive in.
Meditation
Let’s begin simply by asking yourself the question, what’s it like to be me right now? Just tuning into the thoughts and feelings, body sensations, just the general weather system of your being. There’s no judgment here–whatever it’s like to be you right now, and whatever weather systems are passing through your being, that’s exactly the way it should be. Everything is completely ok, just the way it is. Let’s just notice that for a moment.
Now, just tune into the sense of openness, a sense of ease and spaciousness. And, from this very wide open sense of spaciousness, just notice the sense of the breath rising and falling. We’re not really concentrating on the breath, it’s more like the wind of the breath is simply noticed in the sky of the mind, without any tightness or focus, just wide open, easy, relaxed. And into this openness, and spaciousness, and boundlessness it’s very easy for awareness to just notice, the wind of the breath rising and falling, and rising and falling. And, as we are doing that, I want you to allow any tension, any tightness, any constriction, and constrictedness to drain away from the muscles of your face and head, your forehead relaxing, your cheeks relaxing, your eyes, eye muscles, eyelids releasing and letting go, your mouth muscles, your lips, relaxing and opening. Almost to the point where you can feel them swelling slightly from the extra blood flow, your jaw releasing.
Continuing to just sit like an open sky, boundless, easy openness, in which the wind of the breath is rising and falling, without any effort. Just notice that any sense of contractedness or tension drains away from your throat, your neck, your shoulders, and is replaced with a sense of ease and softness and gentleness. So that now the whole face and head, your shoulders, throat, and neck, feel a sense of release, in the sense of settledness. Almost in a way, mirroring that openness of the mind. Then just let your arms and hands become as limp as wet noodles. All that tension that we tend to hold in our wrists and hands and fingers from trackpads and keyboards and so on, just let that drain away.
Recognize that we are not going to use those hands to do any work right now, so our arms and hands can actually, finally, not be ready to act, but rather, completely be at ease. Completely at rest. You might even feel some added tingling of blood flow in your hands and fingers, as all the muscles of your arms and hands relax and open. As you notice the muscles of the face and head, throat and neck, and shoulders, arms and hands, all releasing, opening, softening, becoming gentle and at ease. It becomes easy to just drop now into a much deeper sense of peace and spaciousness. A kind of boundless open presence, in which the wind of the breath is simply rising and falling without any effort at all.
Good. Now, just notice any sense of tightness or contraction or tension in your upper chest or back, draining away, releasing, flowing out of you. The whole upper part of the torso simply opening and releasing. Becoming soft and unarmored, unguarded, and restful. This gives plenty of room for your heart to feel warm and open, the heart feels soft and kind. And that soft sense of glowing ease and kindness in the heart allows the diaphragm to release and relax and let go a little bit. The muscles of the belly and viscera, and in the back and kidney region, all just simply become peaceful and open, restful and at ease, as the tension drains away.
There’s so much more room in the spacious openness of the mind for the wind of the breath to rise and fall, utterly at ease, utterly playful, encountering no resistance. Notice how, as you encounter more relaxation and ease, through more and more of the body, a kind of sloughing of layers and layers, and years and years of tension and tightness and constriction, the whole system begins to open up even more. And the whole being begins to drop, just drop now into a much deeper, more authentic place of bright, clear, wakefulness and ease. A place where the mind is both incredibly open and relaxed, resting, and yet, vividly, brightly awake, perfectly clear, with the wind of the breath simply rising and falling without effort. From here, the muscles of the hips, pelvic region and legs, lower legs, feet and toes become just as limp as wet rags, completely at rest. Completely at ease. You might even feel a tingle in the soles of your feet as the blood flow increases there.
Notice now that your whole body has reached a deeper state of rest and ease, and this begins to feed back onto the mind. The core of the mind begins to just melt and open. The core of the mind is like a muscle releasing, just falling open into that boundless space of awareness. The beautiful sky of the mind, bright and clear, and utterly relaxed. Now, with each rising in-breath, the sky of the mind is aware of the rising wind of the breath. But on each out-breath, the wind just dissolves into the sky. Each out-breath, the entire mind just dissolves into the openness, into the space, into the bright, clear, wide-awake space. So, let’s do that together here.
Good, now, if the mind is constricting around anything, tending to stick on a thought or sensation or emotion or sound or sight, just allow awareness to notice that that itself is empty. Whatever the mind is constricting around is, itself, just more space, more sky, more openness. Not in any way different than the wide open mind that notices it. Already wide open, already spacious, and just self-releases. So, if you are tending to come back to planning, or a particular sensation, notice that that sensation itself is empty, is open, spacious, like trying to hang onto the wind. It is just empty. It allows the mind to just relax back into being vast, boundless space of wide awake awareness. If it contracts again, look deeply into whatever it is contracting around. Notice that it is just made of more wakefulness, more sky, more boundless open peacefulness. It just dissolves into the sky. So, if you are resting and open and peaceful, just do that. If things are arising that you are constricting around, just notice their emptiness. Each time you notice that, it will return awareness to its already existing vastness, ease, openness, playfulness, warmth. Wide awake, wide open.
Noticing that anything the mind begins to constrict around just returns to open space, instantly dissolving back into boundless awareness. Notice even that the sense of anybody doing the meditation cannot be held onto. It is itself just boundless sky.
Good. Now, allow a question to arise, and the question is, what am I avoiding? What am I avoiding right now? If something arises, a thought, emotion, or a memory, just let that be there. Don’t engage with it, but don’t push it away, either. It might be something unpleasant, or it could be something pleasant. Just allow this thing you were previously avoiding to just arise in this tremendous space, which has more than enough room to be unbothered by this arising. Perfectly warm and welcoming to this arising. Maybe some reactivity is also coming up. That’s ok, just let that be there, don’t get involved with it, but allow it to dance in the sky of awareness.
Notice that, however pleasant or unpleasant, difficult or easeful, this is, that the boundless sky of awareness is not bothered by it in any way. Not harmed, not ruffled, but, rather, welcomes it. Notice, even more deeply, that this thing we’ve been avoiding is actually not in any way separate from the space of awareness. It’s just as awake, just as open, just as bright and clear, and has been since beginningless time.
Now, feel free to let go of that, and return to simply resting as boundless awakeness. Utterly at rest, utterly free and playful, spontaneous, natural. Avoiding nothing, welcoming everything.
Good. Now, notice that this boundless, timeless wakefulness is warm-hearted, and kind. And, into the sky of this wakefulness, picture a full moon rising. A lovely pearlescent moon disc rising in the deep, deep blue of wakefulness. And this full moon is glowing with the light of kindness, with the light of friendliness, joy, welcoming all beings, shedding a sense of sovereignty, nobility, authenticity, kindness, friendship, compassion and love, on all beings everywhere, including yourself. Feel that sense of joy and kindness growing much stronger, radiating out from this moon, this beautiful moon.
Then, on an in-breath, the moon comes right into our heart, becomes our own heart, shining in the sky of the mind. Radiating peace in all directions, love and joy in all directions, to all beings in all universes. The disc of the moon starts to grow smaller and smaller, but as it grows smaller, it becomes stronger and stronger, the light becomes brighter and brighter. And the power of love and joy and warmth and kindness and caring radiating from that light becomes even more beautiful, more touching, even more gentle. Until the disc of the moon becomes just a point of white light, infinitely bright, and endlessly compassionate. Then it vanishes into the boundless awakeness and compassion that have been here since beginningless time.
Lokah Samastah Sukhino Bhavantu
Good. Let’s end the meditation there. Feel free to move and stretch. Scratch whatever you’ve been dying to scratch. Any questions or reports about practice this evening? Anything you want to discuss?
Q&A
Questioner 1: I have a thing that comes up sometimes when I’m doing compassion practice. There’s this response that is just, like, this is all a bunch of nonsense. I don’t have a question. In a way, I could just say it is resistance, dissolve it into the compassion practice. But, in another way, it feels like I respect my brain for coming up with that story. And, in another way, it’s like, yeah, this is all made up nonsense, but so is everything, so you might as well make up useful nonsense. Particularly today there was a lot of resistance to seeing the compassion.
Michael: Do you have that feeling when you’re watching a movie? This is just made up bullshit, why are we doing this? For the most part, we willingly pay money to go see movies, and engage in fantasy, and we don’t need it to somehow be anything more than that. It changes our thoughts and feelings in a pleasant way, and that’s ok, right? So, in what sense does this need to be less bullshit than that?
Questioner 1: I guess I could also change my thoughts and feelings in a pleasant way by using heroin.
Michael: Sure, give it a shot. See how that goes.
Questioner 1: I don’t think I’m going to do that. I see where you are coming from. Maybe the bigger question is, what is a skillful orientation towards resistance to practice in general?
Michael: In a way it is the same question, but I would guess—I’m just guessing—that for this thing in particular, you are being asked to open up a little bit. For many of us that may feel a little dangerous, or I don’t feel like opening up. You can have compassion for that, but also, just notice, why am I avoiding opening up? I’m not suggesting that we get into a big analysis of that, but just look within it, and see what’s it’s deal, and allow it to show itself to you. There’s some reason that it needs to stay a little closed, and that’s ok, if it needs to stay closed. Great, seriously. I think that, the minute that you look in there, what you’ll find is that it’s basically needing some support to open up. Bringing that open, curious, engaged–Hey, how are you? What’s going on? Is there enough support for it to open up?–because it generally feels better to be relaxed and open rather than closed. That’s what I would suspect, anyway. Doing that will probably, in the long run, be more effective than shooting heroin.
Excellent, other questions or comments?
How did the practice of asking what you’re avoiding go? Did that bring up anything in particular, or were we all not avoiding anything? Just resting as pure vidya.
Questioner 2: I felt like I was coasting in a pretty good space, and then you said to ask yourself the question of what you are avoiding, and I did. It did feel like there was a subtle avoidance happening, so it felt like a good match to go deeper. I appreciated the timing of the question, and the question in itself.
Michael: It’s interesting, how, when we want to go into a relaxed open place, there might be something we are nudging away to make that easier. So once you’ve established that, we can go back and see if we can bring that in, and often it’s kinda surprising. Whatever is in the content of that box of stuff you were avoiding can be really interesting, hopefully not too distressing. Given the relaxation and the open place that we were in by then, I assume you have some resource for some difficult stuff coming up.
Questioner 3: I guess, for me, I have this idea that in meditation I’m supposed to feel better during meditation, supposed to be taking a break, because I’ve been very busy today. So, what I was pushing away was all the business. I had a subtle attachment to the idea that this should be a break from that.
Michael: Did you feel like you got a break from all that, or was it like, oh, now I have to deal with all that business and the break is over? I should go send some emails.
Questioner 3: It was sorta flipped in and out, not consistent. The particular posture I did this week was more conducive to being relaxed, so I was in that mode, then jerking out of. It was a reminder that nothing has really changed, I’m still in the situation that I’m always going to be in.
Michael: It’s a deep and interesting question. What are we meditating for, and does it change anything? Maybe part of the bullshit question is, is it changing anything? But, of course, minimally, it’s changing how we feel in the moment, changing our experience of what’s arising because we are coming at it in a different way. But, on another level, it’s not changing anything at all. Awareness is just awareness, it doesn’t really change. Maybe we are busy and we are contacting that awareness, and it’s just wide open, or we are meditating and contacting that awareness, and it’s wide open, so maybe nothing is changing sometimes.
I feel like it is perfectly reasonable to come in and expect to feel more relaxed and open, but it’s funny. Eventually, your level of relaxed openness will be limited by whatever you are avoiding, even if it is just business, anxiousness, it’s going to be the thing you bump up against as you tune into more openness. So, eventually, that thing has to be included, or there is a limit to how you can encounter the peacefulness and openness that is available.
It’s like, here’s this nice hotel room, there’s a good bed, you can put down the shades and sleep, but there’s also a cobra in the room. It’s just over in the corner, don’t worry about it. You can relax completely in this beautiful room, but there is this cobra in the room. So that kinda limits how relaxed you can get. What we’re always doing is, once we’re relaxed, we go over and see if we can make friends with the cobra. You can make friends with a cobra. Then, eventually, you’re dancing with a cobra, and instead of being a stressful thing you’re avoiding, it’s a beautiful, energetic friend that’s available, and that’s included. So now you can relax even more than you could have imagined. So, little by little, we want to find these things and include them. Then, the ability to let go becomes larger. As long as we are shrinking away from them, we are always going to be kinda tense. Does that make sense?
Questioner 3: Yeah, the analogy I think of is there is some water, and the sand clouds the water, as emotion, and then you let the water be still, the sand sinks to the bottom, but it’s’ only then that you can see the water itself. Are there still fragments in the water, even when you’ve gotten it as still as possible, is there still some contaminant? It might not always be the same.
Michael: So, your idea is you want the silt to settle to the bottom and the water to become perfectly clear.
Questioner 3: Ideally, but there’s always going to be some that doesn’t settle.
Michael: That’s a typical metaphor, and it’s good for the first part of the meditation we did. Beautiful metaphor for the stillness. But eventually we want to stir up the mud, let the water get as silty as it wants, and notice that the water is just as pure as it ever was. So it goes where you were talking about, and then eventually, when that gets really available, we on purpose notice that, in a way, the mud and the water are never really separate. They go together. Even all the sticks and bits of shell, and so on, are part of it. So we are not rejecting that in the long run.
You guys were pumping out so much compassion, I’m having a hard time talking, still kinda knocked out. Especially Kati.
Other comments?
Questioner 4: I avoided listening to you.
Michael: You avoided it?
Questioner 4: As I said when I came in, I have an enormous hive reaction over my entire body at the moment. I like to sit really still in practice, not moving—I didn’t think I could do it, so I sat in the other room. I used the itching as my focus,
Michael: Were you using it as a shamatha focus, or were you vipashyaninzing it?
Questioner 4: Both. I realized, when you asked what were you avoiding? When I was in there [the other room], I was not avoiding the itching, but just bringing awareness to it, and I didn’t scratch for an hour. And now, I come in here, and my awareness is aware of all these other things. I can’t avoid the feeling of it, and I can’t avoid the scratching. So now it’s annoying.
Michael: What’s causing that difference, do you think?
Questioner 4: Equanimity.
Michael: In there you were able to bring a lot of awareness to it, but in here, there’s a lot more distraction, so it’s harder.
Questioner 4: Yes, and as I’m sitting here, I’m trying to bring that peace back in.
Michael: When you asked yourself what am I avoiding, did it cause the itching to explode.
Questioner 4: It did a little bit.
Michael: So interesting. As you get used to bringing that much openness to experience, you can bring a lot of it to experience as you are walking around. It just takes a little more practice, to have that much allowance. [Itching is] Particularly designed by evolution to be unavoidable. That’s a good one to work on while walking around. Did you have any moments when you could see that the itching itself was awake awareness?
Questioner 4: Yes.
Michael: Can you do that right now?
Questioner 4: It was a bit that itching could spread out in awareness until I didn’t notice that it was itching, it was just sensation. Then other times it felt like the itching sensation was so small compared to awareness. But both of those tactics seemed like they could dispel the need to scratch.
Michael: It’s so interesting; deep down in there, it itself is aware. At that point, scratch or don’t scratch, it’s fine. Good job sitting with that. That’s a real yogi thing to do.
Any last question, comments, reports?
Questioner 5: I had a similar experience of the place of avoidance, and then a softening, and I was able to see the sensation that was uncomfortable. What struck me was how that sensation of avoidance changed so much with attention I brought to it. It moved within my body, the intensity, it sorta had its own life force.
Michael: What did it feel like?
Questioner 5: It was tight, undulating, going up and down.
Michael: That’s a real lively, energized thing.
Questioner 5: Then it seemed to go beyond me, I was just part of it. Sensations of lots of energy moving.
Michael: It doesn’t sound like avoidance at that point.
Questioner 5: Then I felt like it, at some point there was a transformation that happened.
Michael: I wonder if, instead of an actual transformation, if you just saw more deeply what it actually is.
Questioner 5: I think you’re right. It’s hard for me to articulate, but, yeah. That rings true.
Michael: So cool. Thanks for sharing, you guys!
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