Other Transcripts:
DSC Teacher Intensive Day-Long
August 5, 2006

Aaron: (beginning 5 minutes are lost due to faulty recorder; Aaron has been speaking of karma and the resolution of karma, as seen in the body) When the advanced practitioner dies, he is left sitting in a room in a small house or room, closed, sealed. Normally the body would rot because the body has impurities... That’s part of what leads the body to rot when it’s no longer alive, It’s dead meat, in a sense. The mind also has impurities. Impurities and karma are not the same thing. Impurities are impurities and karma is the result of the impurities. When the impurities are completely resolved, the body simply dissolves, literally. When people outside watch that room, they see rainbow lights shining out of the room, and at the end of the week when they go in, all that’s left of the body is the hair, fingernails and toenails. Those are the only things that don’t completely resolve, not because they have impurities but simply because of their content. Hair and fingernails do not carry karma. They grow and fall off, so they remain.

This being is an Arahant, who has completely resolved everything. When there is karma, it continues to bring you back into a new birth.

This may sound extreme. You may be thinking, “I am not yet capable to do that." And you’re probably right! That’s not a problem. Our concern here is not to turn you into Arahants overnight but rather to help you understand the experience of karma in the body, the energetic physical, and mental experience of karma in the mind and in the body, and to learn how to release it.

The release will pick up speed as you practice with it. You’ll hold on to less and less karma. This is a practice that will be relevant for you at the time of your death, not after you die so much as while you are dying. Lying there and seeing the places of fear and contraction, you mingle them with light and space. It’s basically a practice of non-duality. There is that contracted level of the body and mind, there is the uncontracted level, and there is, as SW pointed out in her notes, that which is beyond contraction and non-contraction. When you know yourself to be that which is beyond contraction and non-contraction, the movements of contraction and non-contraction cease to matter. They cease to matter before they cease. You rest in that space of knowing that you are that which is beyond it all, and that knowing stops any contraction around the arising contractions. Contractions still arise. Awareness watches them arise, watches them pass away.

Sometimes contractions arise in balance, as with the breath, and the balanced contraction as the breath comes in and goes out. The heartbeat arises as balanced contraction; there has to be a contraction for the heart muscle to beat, but there’s no concern about that contraction. But if your heart suddenly started to beat in an unusual way, out of rhythm, that irregularity would cause concern, and a contraction around this unusual contraction. And then the pace of fear builds up.

At any point you can stop it by stepping back into that space of the one who is beyond contraction and non-contraction. It doesn’t mean that there’s no longer concern about the heart that’s beating out of rhythm, but it’s a kind concern that says, “Ah, so, look at this. Unusual. Maybe we’ll have to call an ambulance." But the calling doesn’t come from a place of tension and fear. Even if it does, when you rest deeply in that place Ajahn Chah called “the one who knows," when you rest deeply in that place, beyond contraction and non-contraction, you not only do not create new karma but there is the complete release of karma which has been--you’re going to have questions about this--which has been illusion from the start.

Let me try to give you a metaphor that will explain this. Suppose I give you all some stage make-up and told you to make yourselves up so that you are not identifiable anymore, so that you were completely a different character. Color your face, age your face and put on costumes. And then I ask you to be in the role of the person you have made yourself up to be. (Said in old voice) Be somebody very old, the face looking haggard, the voice carrying that age. (Normal voice resumes) To play it convincingly, you have to believe that’s who you are, or you can’t convince anybody else.

You have put yourself in the guise of a very old person and you really believe that’s who you are, and then the building catches on fire. You have to get out quickly, but you can’t because you’re 97 years old! But in that moment you wake up and recognize, “that was just a part I played," and right then you’re free of being 97 years old.

Karma works the same way, to some degree. As soon as you recognize that you have brought this whole illusion of karma in to the mind and body and have been living it out for lifetimes, for eons, there’s a certain release of it. Release of karma and balancing of karma are 2 different things. It’s released; it was illusion, and yet because there was a relative level of it, it still must be balanced. You do not have to do the balancing within the lifetime. You can; you do not have to.

So, at this point instead of being an Arahant with it, you might be a non-returner. You do not have to balance it within the human situation. But the karma that draws you back into a new birth is gone.

Karma is also stored in the cellular tissue of the body. Many of you can identify one weak area of your body, that’s been weak since you were young, an area that’s more susceptible to injury such as the knee, the back, the eyes, teeth. This is karma stored in the cellular tissue of the body. These also can be released. Part of what brings you back into a new birth is that the body itself is pulling itself into the same old distorted form. When there’s no longer that pull, the body doesn’t need to come back. The mind pulls itself into a new birth; the body pulls itself into a new birth. Both can be released.

The practice I want to teach you today is a first step toward that release. When I say a first step, today it will bring release but of course it’s taken you so many births to build up this karma and there’s much to be released so you can’t expect that you’re going to release it all in one day. But you may release something significant today as you practice with this.

I want to shift here and talk for a moment about the dzogchen tradition. In the Tibetan tradition, dzogchen is the highest practice. So first there are the basic ngondro practices, as you do with your vipassana. The spelling is “n-g-o-n-d-r-o." These are the basic mindfulness practices and so forth. But it is recognized in that tradition that resting in awareness takes you to that place beyond contraction and non-contraction, to a place that’s able to watch everything without building in the stories of the self.

These teachings are not just for Tibetans, of course. Many within the Theravada tradition are now teaching with the use of Pure Awareness. It’s a helpful tool. When I read some of Ajahn Chah’s writing and the way he speaks of the “one who knows", it’s clear to me that what he’s talking about is the one who rests in Awareness. It’s no different; it’s just a different language.

Most of you have learned the basic dzogchen practice of alternating resting in rigpa and analysis. This is the practice where something arises and it pulls you out of rigpa – there’s a loud noise or some other object that pulls you out of that place of awareness, – you ask whatever question has worked for you, “what is it?" or, “anything here that’s not an expression of the Unconditioned?" You ask the question. As we’ve demonstrated it, as you ask the question, the wisdom mind comes in. Space opens up. It’s as if you’re looking close and you step back to see it for what it is again. We don’t have to call this dzogchen, it’s simply the mingling of wisdom and awareness. I’d prefer not to call it dzogchen; just Pure Awareness practice, non-dual practice.

When you are very present with something, let’s say that you are resting in spaciousness and suddenly a raccoon runs across the floor, you’re startled. It runs over your feet. What is it? You have been in a very open space, present, seeing this creature without seeing it as something separate or different, and then suddenly it runs across your lap and you are startled by it. You pull out of this non-subject-object consciousness. Fear comes up, what is it? Is it a rat? Is it a chipmunk? What is it? Is it dangerous? What is it? As you bring attention to it, looking at it, what is it? What is it? Suddenly you recognize it’s just a living creature, a small sentient being. There’s space again. We don’t have to call this dzogchen or vipassana, doesn’t need a name.

Or it may work that there was that moment of separation, then relaxation into, “just a creature," but there is separation form yourself because the body still reverberates with “startled." What is it? What is this trembling, contraction or tension? Anything “other than"?

You talked a lot last night about being present with objects and whether just awareness is enough to bring liberation. You talked about how when something is very painful, playing on old conditioning, you’re pushed out of that centered space and are unable to hold that wide spacious presence because you’re shaking with the presence of this object, whether it’s somebody’s anger with you or with body pain or whatever it may be. There’s not the ability to rest in that one who knows. The small personality self has become predominant and it’s trying to figure out, “How do I fix this? What do I do?"

With enough practice, awareness starts to note, “Trembling, fear," and if it knows how to work with fear, slowly the space grows. So the dzogchen practice gives you another tool to work with it through the repeated recognition that there is nothing here but another expression of the Unconditioned. This anger is an expression, this fear is an expression, and this self-judgment is an expression. I don’t have to be concerned about it. Return to that space of balance.

Most of you have found at least some degree of success in working with this. You have learned to work with this practice to the point that when you are sitting with your eyes open doing dzogchen practice and something shakes you out of that space, you’re aware, “I’m no longer in rigpa; the everyday mind is predominant. What is it? Anything separate here?" and watch tension dissolve and mind come back into that space. Few of you can stay stably in that space for a length of time, but most of you have learned to hold that space in a meditation practice, and return to it again and again. And you have found the power of the practice that allows you to hold that space.

But things still pull you out, yes? Anybody who doesn’t get pulled out?

In the Tibetan tradition the practice you have learned/ are learning is given the name trekchod, cutting through; The practice that may follow trekchod is called togyal. The beginning of togyal practice is the practice of mingling whatever has come with light and space until it dissolves and it is clearly seen, “There is nothing there that’s solid; there never has been."

Remember that I do not teach you trekchod or togyol; I teach related practices but I am not a Tibetan teacher and these may be quite different in articulation than such a teacher would use. You will find the end result the same.

As we do trekchod-like practice, it has the effect to, let us say, wash off that stage make-up I had you put on 10 minutes ago. You look in the mirror and instead of seeing the 97-year-old, you see “Ah, this is make-up on the outside. I’ve can wear it when I like but I can also wash it off. I don’t have to create a self-identity with it." But there is still a doer, one who releases the make up, the self, so there is still some layer or self awareness.

The togyal-like practice has a further effect. It breaks through residual self-identity, and thus, it brings you to the place that’s free of karma because the karma exists only in the self-identity.

First let me hear any questions about what I’ve said so far, and then we’re going to do some meditation together. I’m going to teach you the basics of the practice and then ideally send you off to the woods, lake, sky, and the earth, to do some practice with it. Any questions about what I’ve said so far?

Q: It seems to me that this practice sounds like a kind of fluid movement between meditation practice and a contemplation practice.

Aaron: I think that’s accurate. It’s got one more step, between meditation and contemplation, non-meditation. Non-meditation is simply that place of resting in. Once you’re there, there’s no longer meditation, there’s just pure being. But when something shakes you out of true being, then there’s the contemplation, what has pulled you out, the meditation that is the passageway back into pure being, and then resting in pure being.

Q: About the practice of asking, “Is there anything here other than the Unconditioned?" What about people who are living with terrible conditions, bombing of their homes in wartime? Is this just a nice practice for easy living?

Aaron: Not at all. I first learned this practice in a lifetime in which the being that I was experienced terrible suffering and deprivation, terrible abuse by those who had enslaved me, by those who killed my neighbors and my loved ones. It was more challenging. It’s more challenging to look at a murderer who is holding a gun at your head and say, “Not other-than," but if non-duality is a truth when it’s peaceful, it’s a truth when it’s violent. Nothing other-than.

This was a lifetime of great progress toward freedom for me. The lifetime ended in a brutal way, first watching my family killed and then being killed myself, cruelly killed. I’m not saying just because it’s not other than, there’s not a compassionate resistance. It’s not compassionate to allow someone to kill you. Bad karma for them! I did resist. I did what I could to protect my family. We had hidden in a cave. We were found, pulled out and killed with sharp swords, knives. There’s a choice. Once it’s beyond me to save my family and myself. I can die with hatred and separation and know that’s going to bring me into a new lifetime based on that karma at the moment of death. I can hold hatred against the ones I see killing my children. Or I can release hatred, seeing the hatred also is not other-than. It has arisen out of conditions, it’s based on fear. Just as that which is beyond contraction and non-contraction observes them both, that which is beyond love and hatred observes them both. It’s a place of perfect peace, deep wisdom, that sees these “others" acting out of their conditioning, just as the human that I was, was acting out of my own conditioning. This is the trekchod practice. At that moment there’s nothing to forgive, there’s just compassion for the human condition – the word “condition," I wish there was another word for it. The human situation in which the conditioning keeps playing itself out – and shifting into that spaciousness which is completely non-contracted. At that stage, compassionate awareness sees the human tension, pain and struggle. Then the togyal practice in which that pain and fear is merged with light and space until it all dissolves. There is no longer any doer, nor anything to be done, just clarity and compassion.

This paved the way for the following lifetime in which the being I was became completely realized, free of need to return. So there still was some karma left at the end of that lifetime that drew me back into the new lifetime, but it prepared the way for the next lifetime in which there was liberation. I don’t think it could have happened in that way had there not been such trauma at the time of death. But also, I had prepared for this all of my life, for this end of my lifelong practice.

I lived in a part of Tibet where there was some invasion by neighbors who were warlike people, wanting conquest over others. So it was a very difficult time. It was very powerful.

I am not saying it’s easy, but remember you are not here for comfort and convenience, you’re here literally to become liberated, but to become liberated doesn’t mean just not to have to come back, to become liberated means to learn to hold this place of love and non-duality irregardless of conditions. Because once you have learned that, then you are able to move on to the next phases of your growth and nothing can shake you out of it. Only then can you truly be of support to other beings that are caught in violence, hatred, and fear. Whether you choose to come back as the bodhisattva or whether you serve as I do now from the spirit plane, you are able to hold that space of love. Are there questions?

Q: In dzogchen, seems that there are no concepts, just hearing, just seeing, just feeling, just awareness. Would it be correct and true to say that it is a subtle contraction whenever concept should arise? For example, resting in dzogchen practice and here is raccoon is just seeing. When concept “raccoon" arises, is that a subtle contraction out of resting in rigpa?

Aaron: You’re correct, Q, that the concept and separation arise together. When there is the concept that labels something, it labels it that way out of the sense of separation. I said they arise together. One might come first, but so quickly on the heels of the other that they seem to arise together. However, at that moment, if there is separative consciousness, because that’s really what it is, as soon as there’s this “other," there’s a self. Separating. As soon as the separating is seen as simply arisen out of the flow of conditions, not other-than in the sense that it comes from somewhere else, it’s just the outflow of conditions, you’re right back in awareness.

To take it a step further, with that separating there’s usually contraction in the energy field or in the body. It’s sufficient simply to observe, “Contracting, contracting." Who is contracting? What is this contraction? It’s just the outflow of fear and the conceptualizing habit energy.

Ignorance is simply the manifestation of the dualistic fixation. Three words pertain to ignorance: avijja is the Pali word translated as ignorance. Avijja is comprised of moha, which is delusion of a separate self, and annana or non-knowledge. So those two combined words, delusion and non-knowledge, are ignorance. They interrelate so it’s never just one or the other. Delusion sees the world as duality; self and other. It grows out of fear which solidifies self. Non-knowledge begins as the non-knowledge of all phenomena as manifestations of Pure Mind. Thus, it is also fixated in duality, the dualities of light and darkness, good and evil, Pure Mind and not pure mind, and so on. Annana may be read as simply something you haven’t met yet, and yet you may already know it in the wisdom of the heart, but fear creates unwillingness to acknowledge that knowing. Both come together for the word avijja. Please understand that this is an oversimplification.

So moha is the habit energy of that aspect of ignorance that is deeply grounded in the idea of a concept of separation. Not just separate self, but duality. When you practice in such a way that it continually keeps cutting through the concept of duality each time it arises, eventually you shift it. This duality is just a concept you keep creating and creating, over and over again. It’s just habit energy. You don’t have to do that any more. And then there’s Awareness. Connected, nothing separate.

Let us work with the practice up to this point, and there will be time for questions later. What I would like us to do is to move outside onto the front porch where you have a view of the sky and water. Bring your folding chairs out… and I’m going to lead you in a guided meditation. I’m going to return you to Barbara now for a moment so she can explain the plan for the day. We’ll go out there and I will come back into the body and lead the guided meditation. I return the body to Barbara.

Aaron: I understand that you all need to work with this more. Rather than giving you 10 or 15 minutes to practice and then new instructions, I’m going to give you a series of instructions and ask you to take them one at a time into your longer practice period.

The first instruction is to see the non-separation of the elements, to allow the elements in the world around you to mingle with each other and with space and light. You have read this in the previous transcripts (Emerald Isle, May 2006)

After you have practiced that and feel somewhat stable at it, begin to work with the elements within the self, I would ask you to bring forth an unpleasant memory of the last day or two, something that was emotionally or physically painful, a place of anger, sadness, or confusion that brought contraction. Bring this memory into your mind and see if you experience the heavy density of it. The memory probably creates a knot somewhere in your body, a knot of anger or sadness or fear. What I want you to do first is to identify this heavier space through feeling of it, through hearing it, through seeing it, even by tasting it. Take your time.

(pause)

It may seem subtle, just an area of contraction, an area of tension that feels heavier in the energy field than the rest of the energy field. Most of you have found such. If not, then just listen to the instructions and work with it later.

Holding this knot, this heavier, darker or denser aspect of being, in the same way that you allowed the elements to mingle in the earth around you – the earth, water, air, and fire, with space and light—in the same way, allow this heaviness to mingle with light and space.

You are not doing or creating anything. When I say, “you allowed the elements to mingle," you allowed yourself to see the truth of the intermingled elements. You did not mingle them, they’ve always been mingled. You simply allowed yourself to see it. In the same way, allow yourself to see the space and light within this dense knot.

This is what I would call karmic knot…

You are not fixing it, you are simply coming around to look at it from another side. From one side it looks solid. If you could picture a round disk, a hoop, covered with a screen material, a mesh, if you look at it from one side you’ll see a solid straight line but as you come around 90 degrees, you see that it’s just a hoop covered with mesh, nothing solid at all.

As we spoke of last night, your primary tool is the skillfulness to attend to that which arises and pulls you off balance, to attend to it with kindness by which I mean to bring attention to it, and to work with it in whatever way is skillful to invite centeredness. In the same way, take this knot that you have seen and attend to it by seeing that this knot that seems so solid is not solid. As I have phrased it earlier, as this 97-year-old face that’s covered with make-up and age lines and so forth is not all it seems. It’s just painted make-up. The knot in a sense is just painted make-up, painted by your old conditioning. Allow yourself to see it expressing, mingled with space and light and watch what happens to it. If and when it goes, simply rest in spacious awareness.

Again I will be quiet for a few minutes…

(pause for several minutes)

That is essentially the practice for now. I know you will have questions. Unless there are pressing questions now, I would prefer you simply go off and try it and then you can bring your questions to me based on your experience. Especially I would like you by the water or on the water. You do not have to immerse yourself in the water although you’re welcome to. Use a boat or choose a seat on the shore where you can see the sun rippling in the water. The elements in the earth simply serve as reminder of the energy and the elements moving through yourselves, for of course the same elements that are here in the earth around you are here in the self.

The karmic knot does not relate specifically to the elements, the elements are simply an area where it’s easy to see the knot. This is akin to the fact that you cannot see water vapor but when you look up and see a cloud you know there’s water vapor there because it’s pulled into a dense collection. So in a cloud you can see water vapor. In the elements you can see the knots. In the same way you can experience the denseness, habit energy, karma, contraction, it’s a mix of all of these things. Just as that which is beyond contraction and non-contraction observes contraction and non-contraction, so that which is beyond contraction observes it within the self and within the karmic knot. You deepen in insight that what you most truly are, is that which is beyond it and not the karmic knot itself. . The karmic knot is at some level an illusion and you don’t have to be caught up in it anymore. It’s really as simple as that.

It is a tremendously liberating practice. As you work with it, after you begin to understand it, bring in something that is truly difficult for you like an ongoing feeling of shame or unworthiness and watch how it yields to this practice. It’s very powerful.

Are there any immediate questions about how to practice? We’ll release you then until 1 o’clock…

Aaron: Afternoon session…

Barbara: First, just some discussion of the practice, what happened when you tried this? I’ll paraphrase Aaron, he’ll come in directly and talk after awhile, but for now, for the discussion, just me paraphrasing.

So whatever you’d like to share, and also questions.

Q: When I played with the elements, the practice seemed connected when I ate my lunch reflecting on the elements in the food and in me. Sitting, eyes open, light and space, that was lovely. Otherwise it seemed cerebral.

Barbara: Maybe too much doing, or trying too hard. Thank you. Others?

Q: Is this the traditional togyal as taught in Tibet?

Barbara: Aaron is laughing, he’s saying no! In a sense, yes, but certainly not the way it would be taught in a Tibetan retreat. He says he does not teach togyal, he teaches relaxing into the innate space and light of everything.

Q: I found it easy to see the self-contraction when I did something similar to my usual inquiry practice, “Who am I?" And feeling that in the body, just watching that.

Barbara: So when you raised the inquiry, there’s a contraction? (yes)

I want to be clear here, the issue is not whether there’s a contraction but whether we are able to rest in that spaciousness that observes contraction and non-contraction with equanimity, without contracting about contraction and non-contraction.

(pause for latecomers)

This really relates to the proper object/proper attitude practice that we did years ago, that many of you worked with. We start to see that the predominant object that creates separation is the habit energy of moving into a self. Sometimes it’s wanting there to be somebody who can control things or sometimes it’s just habit energy.

If I’m just sitting, relaxed, it’s easy for there not to be a self-identification about objects, but if somebody comes up and starts pushing me, it’s much harder to rest in that non-self-identification and just experience pushing and skillful response to pushing.

So the habit energy for me is, if there’s no big catalyst, there’s also no shift into a strong illusion of self. But as soon as there’s strong catalyst, “Here I am! I’m going to take care of that catalyst!" But then the predominant object is that, that “Here I am." How does awareness relate to “Here I am" when it arises? For me, with annoyance, so that’s the habit energy, no equanimity with “Here I am." Do you need me to say more about it or do you understand what I’m saying? You understand, okay.

So it’s that moment, and awareness watches that. When awareness can be with that movement completely, there’s no need to do anything else, there’s just awareness. But when awareness watches it and sees the heaviness, for me it’s like a black storm cloud that’s running around somewhere out there or in here, awareness just notes, “Ahh, there is that little storm cloud of self."

Okay; it’s there. There’s not equanimity with it at that moment. Then what I can do with it is simply to note it, and the kinds of responses it elicits. It’s impermanent. It’s like the work we do with practice in the body when there’s contraction such as anger. We bring attention not to the idea of anger but the physical experience of anger in the body. This isn’t quite the same kind of physical experience but similar. We just bring attention to the little storm cloud and it has an energetic component. You can feel it in the body, and you can also feel the pushing it away or thoughts that may come around it. But that storm cloud really becomes the predominant object. Then I simply note the element heaviness of it. It feels like thunder. It looks like a dark mass. I don’t mingle it with light and space. I step back so that I can see the light and space that’s already there. This response has the effect of the cloud just breaking up. And as the cloud breaks up, the sense of separate self breaks up and I’m back into that spaciousness that can just be present with whatever is happening.

I would like to hear from more of you. I was not going to say that right away but it came up. So I want to hear more of your experiences with it. I want to hear things that worked and I want to hear areas of confusion.

Q: I found that just the idea of being able to deal with the karmic knot or some anger or sadness in this way of processing it, is a trick by itself, just the idea without having necessarily to go through step by step. The idea of it being able to work made it work, to some degree.

Barbara: This ease with it, to me, is also important. Sometimes we do have to look back and understand what’s pulling us in, but more often it’s a kind of habit energy and there’s still karma there. I’m finding as I work with this practice that I often have no idea what happened, only the knot went! It’s lovely, very pleasant.

Q: I have a subtle knot in my shoulder and I have been attending to it for the last few days. It has many layers to it and I can see there is a motivation to want it to go away. And as I am attending to the elements around it, the heat and tightness, the solidity…

Barbara: Let me interrupt for a minute. It sounds like the subtle contraction in the shoulder is no longer predominant. The aversion or the grasping is predominant. So is this the knot that you focused on?

Q: My experience was the aversion and grasping dissolved as I attended to it (the grasping). Then it is possible to be present with the experience in its elemental forms.

Barbara: Present with the grasping or the shoulder?

Q: The shoulder.

Barbara: So mind comes to the contraction in the shoulder, to the pain or tension of it, or whatever. And then sees the predominance of either aversion to the knot or grasping, wanting it to go away, which is the way you phrased it. That is its own knot. You let the first one go temporarily. You’re with the second one, this wanting it to go away. As that opens up then equanimity can be present with the knot in the shoulder, is able to work with it with light and space. But you can’t do that first as long as there’s a self trying to do it. Yes, this is a beautiful example. It’s almost paradoxical that no self has to do the practice, and yet the practice is to lead us to no self!

After the grasping to fix the shoulder dissolves, then you can look into the element imbalance in the shoulder. But you don’t have to go into the element imbalance in the shoulder, all you have to do is see that it’s heavy, feels solid, and bring… how do I phrase it? See the already-existent light and space there with the heaviness in the shoulder.

Practice is subtly different working with the physical body than working with mind, because the way the karma is stored is different. I found myself if there’s something like aversion and the tension of aversion and I mingle that with light and space, it just, it’s gone. When there’s something in the body, a place of old karma in the body, it’s different. The other day I was talking to you about Aaron’s final lifetime when the being I was got killed by being stabbed in the belly, I said I worked with this lifetime a lot.

What I became aware of was the subtle attachment to holding on to that old life wound. “Oh, you wounded me! Look what you did! You better be careful! You better be nice now!" In other words, there was an attachment to holding it because I’m still in relationship with the person who stabbed me in that lifetime. And I could see the ways that I was literally attached to this old life wound and didn’t want to let it resolve.

So the work first was not with the physical karma but with the attachment, and then once the attachment went, it was still very hard to allow light and space into the belly because there was, through so many lifetimes, such strong karma in the physical body here in the belly. But once I was able to do that, I had an image of black stuff pouring out until the belly was just completely open and clean with light radiating out. There’s a very clear sense that there’s no more karma stored in the physical body there. This is resolved. And the issues that it was creating, being argumentative with the sword-wielder, those issues have gone. And I find that the relationship, while it’s been loving for many years, is even more harmonious in the past couple of months since I did this because I’m not attached to holding the wound, so when my sword-wielder comes along spinning his sword I just say, “Oh, you’re angry." And there’s no karmic push to it any more.

I had to work with different levels of it, and the physical release came last. I don’t have a lot of experience with this. We’ll have to ask Aaron if this is universally true or just my present experience. (pause) He says, it’s pretty much universally true that the release of it in the physical body comes last. Others?

Q: I was a little tired so I just stayed with the open elements and found it very wonderful, using my mind to see the connection and true non-separation between the elements, how they flow and inter-weave. Very beautiful. And then a very slight wind began and I heard the sound of the air element inter-weaving with the light in the trees and blowing the leaves and things like that. So I was just sitting back and began to hum. Very lightly, in case anyone was listening. And it felt like I was singing a song with the elements, not to the elements but with the elements. Very heart-opening and very connecting with the other elements. And then I took a nap. Very lovely.

Barbara: Sounds good. This afternoon try to find a place where there’s contraction in the mind or body, but especially the kind of thought, “Oh, it shouldn’t be like that," a judgment or opinion that contracts the mind or body. Every time I look at that big dead branch, (pointing up to a tree branch above the deck) I contract. I don’t know if you do but I do. It’s not a judgment about the branch, it’s a contraction of fear or of injury to myself, to my loved ones, or to my friends. Wanting to control for me is part of it. You’d have to look and see what it is for you. When I see that habit energy of judgment, control and contraction, there’s usually some imbalance in the elements so I use the element practice. And invite balance in and bring in a lot of light and space and the knot itself just dissolves. I still may look up at the branch and say, “That’s a problem. We’ll need to see if the branch can be removed." But there’s not a tension about it. Mind doesn’t become obsessive about it. There’s no karma in it, there’s simply skillful attendance.

Q: Would these knots be like sankharas?

Barbara: They are sankharas but everything that arises out of conditions and serves as future conditioning is sankhara. If it is sankhara, it carries karma because this is the nature of sankhara, arising out of conditions and serving as the cause for future conditions, and this is the nature of karma.

And yet it arises out of conditions. If it arises out of conditions--I’m asking Aaron this, I’m trying to get this straight in my own mind. Aaron, what if it arises out of conditions but does not serve as the condition for future result? Aaron is asking me what I think. I think it is then not sankhara and does not carry karma. So that means that things can arise out of conditions and be outside of the karmic field, and he’s saying yes, of course. Okay. Does that make sense to all of you? Did you follow that? (yes)

Q: My understanding of karma is that it is related to intention.

Barbara: Karma is related to intention.

Q: So when something arises out of conditions, if the knot is not related to intention, it is outside of the karmic field.

Barbara: And that means that it does not serve as the ground for future karma or become a future condition. It stops there.

Q: I can see how it would serve as the ground for future conditions.

Barbara: Can you see how it can NOT serve as the ground for future conditions?

Q: I can see how when karma is not present, it doesn’t serve as the ground for future conditions.

Barbara: If somebody walked in here and said, “What are you doing here on this porch?" and banged the table, I would contract. I might become defensive. “What do you mean? It’s our cabin. What’s wrong?" So there’s the shift into a self. The intention to justify or defend, protect, and so that reaction serves as the cause for future conditions. And then one’s reaction again serves as the cause again for future conditions, because I stand up and speak with anger, “What do you mean? Why are you telling me I can’t be here?" My intention to defend, the self-centeredness of it, becomes the ground for future conditions.

What if he comes in and says, “What are you doing here on this porch?" and the idea of defending and protecting arises in me? And this is noted with awareness and held in a big open space? It arose. There’s no intention to use it. It’s noted that it arose but there’s nobody that has to pick it up and use it as a tool, it just arose. But equanimity is there in the spaciousness. Okay, I smile at him and I let it go. It doesn’t serve as the cause for, well it does serve as the cause for a new condition of peacefulness. But it’s not really the cause. It supports the equanimity, but it’s a different kind of cause and effect relationship.

It’s different because we’re coming back into the expression of our true nature. That equanimity isn’t something that arises, it’s simply something that is. So I can’t create equanimity as a new object. Certain aspects of our being cannot be objects. We can look at equanimity as an object, we can look at kindness as an object, but at that place where we transcend the object, equanimity or kindness, there’s simply resting in spaciousness with innate equanimity and kindness. It can’t arise or pass away, so nothing can be cause for its arising. Does that make sense?

I’m getting some puzzled looks.

The blue sky is there. The cloud arises out of conditions. When the cloud passes, we could say the blue sky arose out of the condition of the cloud passing, but more accurately, the cloud’s passing allowed us to reconnect with the innate clear blue sky. We’ll talk more about it.

Sandy: My canoe was drifting in the wind. Looking out, I was becoming closer to being at one with the sky, the water, the lilies, etc. And then that observer self or that Pure Awareness self up here would say, “Oh, there’s Sandy." Becoming more at one or closer; it would toss me out of it.

Barbara: Would toss Sandy out of the experience of oneness. You say “the observer self."

Sandy: Or the witness self or the aware self.

Barbara: I don’t think it was the aware self that was talking you out of it, I think it was more the personality self. It’s hard for me to say because I’m not you, I don’t want to say you had a different experience than you think you had. But the witness self on that level of pure awareness doesn’t try to talk anybody out of anything, it’s just present. So when you say it tried to talk you out of it, that immediately says to me, well it was something else that was trying to talk you out of it. I don’t know what it was, but it wasn’t the witness, it wasn’t just pure awareness.

Q: It didn’t talk me out of it, it just happened. Like in listening to music sometimes and I become at one with the music, and I become aware that that’s happening, and kaboom. It’s gone.

Barbara: Okay, so this is more the everyday mind saying, “Look what’s happening," not Pure Awareness. We’re getting into word usage here. But the pure awareness mind, resting in pure awareness, there’s the experience of oneness and then the everyday mind comes along and says, “Oh, what’s happening?" The Pure Awareness mind just is; it doesn’t talk.

For me the way to work with that would simply be to note the contraction that comes when you’re suddenly pulled out of that experience of oneness. The same aspect of mind that notes, “Here I am, resting in Awareness," is the one that notes, “Now I’m no longer in Awareness." What do we name that aspect of mind? Noting mind, maybe. And then the body contracts from the jarring experience of falling out of Awareness and grasping to re-enter it. Never mind the fact that we can never truly fall out of or re-enter it, and that there’s nobody to do that. That’s how it feels at that moment.

Note the contraction, noting it as pleasant, unpleasant or neutral. Feel where it is in the body. This leads to what we talked about last night.

If as you note it, and it just opens up to spaciousness, there’s nothing else to do with it. Just rest in the spaciousness. But if it’s a kind of contracting voice or there’s an experience in the body of pulling back from that spaciousness, then the contraction is the predominant object. It’s not a question of, “whose contraction;" that’s too intellectual. Just be there with the contraction and feeling the heavy energy of the contraction, and see all the space and light right there with the heavy energy contraction. Don’t take the contraction so seriously. It’s like a shadow figure, shadow puppets. You can see my hand or you can see its shadow (making a shadow puppet face on the deck with hand and sunlight). What is that big creature! Somebody might come along and try to step on it, destroy it that way. But it’s just a shadow. It’s illusion. It’s not really anything. If you shined a light from a different direction, the shadow would disappear. In a sense what we’re doing is bringing the light in from that side here so the shadow disappears and we can see it for what it is.

We work with the contraction in that way. It is, and it isn’t. Real and not real. Everyday mind says, “real" and wants to fix and we contract further, more Sankhara; more karma. Pure Awareness just steps back and smiles, and in that smile, shins the light from the other side so the shadow is seen for what it is, as illusion, and it goes. This is the effect of the element practice. Mingling the elements with space and light, the object dissolves into its true aspect, which is just an expression of conditions.

Q: The same thing happened to me as with Sandy. I would start to become one with the elements and then be pulled out of that. And soon I noted a strong grasping energy (inaudible) and contraction with that. Would the practice be to try to bring the elements to balance that contracted grasping energy and then bring light and space to that?

Barbara: To see the unbalance of the elements in that contraction and invite balance, yes.

Q: And then try to see the light and space that is already present there?

Barbara: Yes. Seeing the contraction, to invite balance through the elements, seeing the imbalance and invite balance. Then see the light and space and rest in that spaciousness. But that contraction is not specifically the habit energy. It’s not specifically the knot. Rather, it’s one habit energy, but may not go deep enough.

There’s spaciousness and then something pulls you out of spaciousness. There’s contraction. Then however one attends to that contraction, just noting it and feeling it open again, or seeing that there’s a strong imbalance there and inviting balance. Once there’s balance, you’re back into spaciousness.

The space is part of that first step; it’s part of the balancing of the elements, balancing them and seeing the light and space. When I say seeing, also feeling, tasting, energetically feeling the light and space within the elements.

There may be no next step. There’s just the light and space. For example, if I’m sitting here and a acorn falls off the tree and hits me on the shoulder. I’ve been sitting and meditating and mind, body and attention are very open and spacious and suddenly the hit on the shoulder. There’s contraction and maybe even anger. Who hit me? The acorn hit and bounced over there. I didn’t see it, I have no idea who hit me.

Tension comes up. I said last night, I can simply be aware of tension, an awareness, “ tension, tension." Watching; there’s nothing to fix, there’s nothing to change, there’s just tension. Almost immediately Pure awareness is back with a lot of space and light. There may still be tension in the body, some reverberations of the startled experience, but no self is built on it. There are no self-stories left. They dissipated almost immediately.

But if the tension feels compulsive and keeps building on itself, and I keep looking around and there’s a very contracted experience, then I might look at the nature of that contraction and see, for me probably the heaviness of earth energy in it, that the earth energy doesn’t have any fluidity anymore. My whole body is compressed into a very solid stance.

So I would probably look up at the sun or out at the lake, looking at the lake, feel the water energy that’s there, the fluid energy, invite it to mingle with the earth energy until it starts to come into balance. And then work with feeling the light and space that’s also there until the whole thing opens up.

Then I might reflect, there’s a habit energy that’s very old in me. When I feel attacked by something I close up; I armor myself. So I might, with that reflection, say, “I see that. I see how that happened yesterday and two days ago. This is really a recurrent habit energy that this thing dropping on my shoulder brings forth." What is this habit energy? It’s happened 10,000 or a million times in so many lifetimes, and I don’t have to know the situations, just in this moment I take the habit energy itself. I can see and feel it as a kind of heavy knot. There’s a density to it. So I’m no longer working with the reaction of the thing dropping on my shoulder, I’m working with what I see as ongoing habit energy to armor myself when anything feels threatening. Feeling the knot of that. Then I can see the heaviness or the element imbalance in that knot, and I mingle that with light and space. What happens for me is I start to see clearly, this is something that I have simply created over and over again through so many habits/happenings, so many lifetimes, so many habits/happenings.

It never was real to begin with. When I say it never was real, in an ultimate sense it was never real. The openness and spaciousness have always been there. Which path do I choose to follow, this habit energy path or this big open path that I’ve had my back turned to forever? I can choose this path. I can literally step back from that enticing habit energy. I don’t have to get psychological about it and ask why it’s enticing, it’s been enticing obviously because on some level it felt safer or more pleasant or easier or something. I don’t really have to know. Just, here is the habit energy. Here is that which has never been caught in the habit energy and it’s accessible, right here. I find when I work that way then the habit energy just goes. I won’t say immediately; it may come up a couple more times. But it goes very quickly.

Q: So a question a forming, what is the use of the practice, and you are kind of answering this. It sounds like really stuck places might benefit from this practice. However, for me, to be using it to deal with every contraction feels useless.

Barbara: Not with every contraction, just with predominant contraction that’s repetitive, that keeps coming.

Q: I guess my danger would be that it would be easy for me to get lost in the busyness of it and that the one who wants to know, who wants to control, would get in there.

Barbara: Here is the whole knot of wanting to control it, the one who wants to control. And you start to see right there with the one who wants to control, there is something that has no need to control.

Q: But then the one who has no need to balance is there too , and it feels like a lot of work to balance and almost easier to just make big space around the contraction…

Barbara: Then there’s nothing to do. Let me phrase this carefully. If the one who has no need to balance is resignation, contraction will remain, at least a subtle one, heavy. If what has no need to balance is true Awareness, spaciousness and equanimity, no-self, then of course we just rest there. But more often is may be resignation, some self. As we work with this practice, my experience is it becomes very fluid and no longer takes any thought.

I’m trying to think of a specific skill; how about driving a car. How many of you remember first learning to drive a car and all the steps that were there, especially if you had a car with a clutch? There were so many things to remember, just how to work the clutch and the brake and what to move when, and you’ve got to steer at the same time. But then after awhile there’s no thought to it, you just know what to do.

So for me, I found it’s very much the same thing. There was a learning period where it felt awkward, and then it just became…I hardly think about it. But I am aware that there’s release from karma.

Q: So it’s another way to be in that open spacious place. I guess for me, the way I get there is to completely surrender to what is, no problem, here it is. And in that way the space is so big that it’s not a problem …

Barbara: That’s fine until it gets too big. I surrender and I surrender, little twigs are falling down, it’s not a problem. And then there’s a big crash! At what point can you not surrender anymore? But when you get to the root of it, which is the creation of this self, and how it comes and tries to fix everything, that’s kind of the ultimate surrender. But you still get up and move out of the way when you hear the crash; you attend to it.

Q: I guess I still don’t have a framework for where I might use this practice.

Barbara: There was a big storm out here 2 or 3 weeks ago. Along my path up from the parking area, a big oak tree came down in the wind that preceded the rainstorm. Those of you walking up that path may have seen this big tree trunk lying on the ground.

It hadn’t started to rain yet and Hal said it wasn’t thundering so I was sitting at my computer on the screen porch working. I could feel the wind; wind had actually picked up the paper on the shelf where my printer is and was blowing it around and mind noted “wind, wind, wind." But it was warm and mind noted, “pleasant, pleasant, pleasant." Watching the screens moving, watching the leaves blowing, it was dusk so it wasn’t clear, but watching everything moving and blowing in the wind, a lot of energy. Just noting it all. No contraction and no sense of a self.

So I was sitting there watching the storm, in very open space, really no self, just wind and pleasant, pleasant, and suddenly this tree was coming down right at me. I didn’t know how far it was going to go. There was a moment of being frozen to the spot. And then, I have never moved so fast in my life. But it wasn’t fear that moved. There was no story that came up. There was no thought of, “oh that could have fallen on me." There was no “me." The tree snagged some of my screens as it came down and the top branches landed on my lower deck under the screen porch.

What was amazing to me in retrospect is in the past, I would have been into stories of, “Oh, look what almost happened!" or a feeling of fear or some kind of tension. And there was absolutely no tension. Because I’ve been looking all summer at precisely this kind of tension, of feeling threatened by something, observing the closing up, breathing into that space, saying, “I don’t have to go there. I don’t have to create a self around this. Where there’s tension, just tension." Let it go. It was very powerful to see how strong that practice had become and there was no karma, there was no self, there was no nothing, there was just a tree that fell down. Does that answer your question? (yes)

Barbara: OK. Others?

Q: Are you saying that equanimity cannot arise because it is always there?

Barbara: It seems to arise, but it’s the difference, … the blue sky cannot arise. The sky is always clear and blue. When the clouds move away it seems like the blue sky has arisen. But it’s always been there. The clouds dissolve. That which hinders equanimity is released. So we enter back into our innate equanimity. That means we’re not creating equanimity, we’re just allowing the clouds to dissipate so the innate equanimity is with us, so we can connect with it.

Q: Is that true of all the brahmavaharas?

Barbara: Yes. Others?

Q: This is about last night’s discussion about the choice of this kind of practice, or just to be present. Is this not fixing? Q: Also, Aaron said this was a practice for senior students.

Barbara: I’m checking with Aaron to make sure my answer and his are the same. We have to be very aware of any tendency to want to fix. And that can lead us deeper into a somebody-ness and into a trap. By the time you have come to your level of practice, you may not see it immediately but you see it pretty quickly. You can work with it. But if you introduce this to beginners, remember that students first need to learn just to be present with what has arisen, and to watch aversion and attachment to whatever has arisen. Only after there is both equanimity to some degree and the ability to know attachment as attachment, to know aversion as aversion, can we work with this practice.

Q: I have been working with what seems like a short cut for these contracted states, lizard brain, the part of the brain that is involved with survival. The amygdale. It’s a mechanical reaction. It just comes.

Barbara: And then we don’t build stories on that. We just say, of course, a startle reflex is a natural reaction when something falls on my shoulder. That’s it.

Q: It creates instant space, humor and compassion toward this lizard brain.

Barbara: But it’s not a self that has a lizard brain, it’s just the hookups in the body. That’s the way the body is.

Q: If we have a body, we have a ready, installed lizard brain…

Barbara: Yes, and greet it with a spacious smile. Are you all ready to go into another hour of practice? Let’s make it an hour and a half…(scheduling)

Period of practice.

Aaron: We’re now in the final afternoon session of teachers’ intensive training day. Let me start with a review of a question that Barbara answered with one of you during one of your last meditation periods. The question asked was, what is the difference between vipassana, the traditional Pure Awareness practice you’ve learned and this new practice? Are they 3 distinct practices? And Barbara said no, but they are not totally different…

Vipassana watches the arising of consciousness, mind consciousness, body consciousness. It begins with observing the rise and fall of the breath. When that is stable you begin to note the space between the breath. So the faculty of awareness watches the whole flow of conditioned body and mind consciousness. Understanding begins to develop that each object arises into consciousness because of conditions are present for it to arise, and when the conditions cease it ceases. It is not born of a self, out of conditions only, and is impermanent.

But we still have not paid much attention to what it is that observes. At first the observer is the conscious mind, but it shifts. Who watches? What watches? Something observes seeing consciousness arise, judging consciousness arise, planning or hearing. What is that something? Let’s call it Awareness.

So Awareness begins to shift and look at Awareness itself. What is this Awareness? It begins to be seen that Awareness, unlike consciousness, does not arise and cease out of conditions; it simply is like the clear sky and the clouds that come forth. The clear sky doesn’t go away; only it’s hidden behind the clouds. It is just so with Awareness. Does it go away? No.

We start to ask after the nature of this Awareness and how it relates to Buddha nature. What is it? We learn to rest in Awareness. Some of you have practiced with nada, which is one practice of resting in Awareness. In vipassana practice nada, the sound of silence, may be the primary object. There is nobody doing the practice at this point, there is just Awareness aware of nada as an object. But one does not say, “I did this" because you can’t hear nada as long as the “I" is there. There’s not a strong self. There is intention but intention does not need a self.

Awareness begins to see into the nature of the objects. The breath is a conditioned object that arises and falls because of conditions. It is like the clouds. Nada is like the blue sky behind the clouds.

Awareness becomes more and more accessible and stable, so instead of moments of entering into Awareness and then falling out of it and saying, “Oh, what was that?" there’s a stability and ease to it. And in fact, even attention when you’re pulled out of it. Where did it go?

This is the predominant work of trekchod practice in dzogchen, stabilizing the meditation, stabilizing pure awareness or Rigpa in the Tibetan articulation. And becoming more alert as to when the clouds close in and awareness is temporarily lost and you are back in the everyday, mundane mind. That everyday mundane mind is seen clearly as clouds, nothing solid there, it breaks apart; the blue sky is there when the clouds break up and even if they do not break apart the blue sky is there. There’s a certainty to that, not just faith, because you’ve experienced it so many times. You know that this level of Awareness, this pure presence, is the Ground.

This is also the primary vipassana practice as I teach it. There must be increasing distinction between the levels of Awareness mind and mundane consciousness.

I prefer not talking about these as vipassana and dzogchen, but as a practice that first is watching the conditioned realm, develops some wisdom, starts to increase in awareness of the Unconditioned, and becomes more stable in resting in the Unconditioned. Then you come to a different door. Mind and body consciousness are seen popping up and dissolving, popping up and dissolving, but the space of Awareness remains, even when the mind and body consciousnesses and objects are rapid and tumultuous. When that practice is stable then we introduce this next practice.

I realize that Pure Awareness is more stable for some of you than others. But all of you have worked with this enough to understand what we’re talking about. So the next level of practice starts with the ability to rest deeply in Awareness and to note both conditioned and mundane objects and also to recognize the arising and passing of mundane consciousness and the continuity of supramundane Awareness.

Then amongst these mundane objects, Awareness sees this density of the karmic knot. It’s only a mundane object. Like any other mundane object, it’s impermanent, so there’s nothing to fix, just as there’s nothing to fix with any mundane object within your experience. Thus, there is no fixation on it, no contraction around it. Attention is held to it, watching it arise, and also watching any reaction that comes to it. The reaction is also just an object and may arise with no fixation on it, and no reaction. There is just a chain of objects. However, if a reaction becomes predominant and pulls you out of awareness, you attend to heaviness. It dissolves and mind opens back into Awareness, like the sun breaking through the cloud.

When you do this with the karmic knot itself there is clear realization about the nature of that karmic knot, and that it only exists on the mundane level. It does not exist on the supramundane level. And yet it still must be attended on the mundane level; you can’t say it’s not real. This is where we get into what seems like a paradox. It’s real and it’s not real.

So we must treat it in both those ways. It’s not real, so “Ahh…" And yet because it’s there and seemingly solid, we work to balance and release it, because the habit energy bringing it up is so strong.

I want to use Barbara as an example. You’ve heard Barbara talk about the experience of unworthiness and how for much of her early life she experienced a strong sense of unworthiness and shame, fear of being abandoned, the fear of not being good enough. This grew out of her childhood conditioning.

At a month-long retreat she’s described to at least some of you how she worked with somebody approaching, making eye contact, the person looking away, feeling the sense of unworthiness arise, and asking, “Is anybody unworthy? Has anybody ever been unworthy here?"

She asked it time after time, day after day. She kept bringing forth conditions that would give rise to unworthiness, … —is it good, that cookie? You know he is observing the dhamma at some level as he stands here and listens to us. There’s no accident! We’re talking here of the 18-month-old Isaac who has just approached me; he is walking around the porch eating his cookie and listening very carefully to everything.

She invited the experiences by trying to make eye contact, knowing that people would avert their gaze, and watching to see what came up. Even though she was prepared for it and knew that it was habit energy, feelings of unworthiness still came up and were still painful. She has not talked at length about what came next in that retreat. She was learning both from the teacher and also from me because she could not hear the instruction periods and he had suggested that I teach her.

So after the first week or two of watching this pain come up each time, I asked her to note that strong karmic knot. I asked her, what is aware of this contraction? Rest in that spacious awareness. As soon as she moved into that spacious awareness, she was free from the pain of feeling unworthy, feeling shame, and so forth. But because she was not stable and able to stay in that space of pure awareness, there was an instant where the person looked away and it hooked her. She shifted out of awareness and that pain came up, even if only for a moment.

Then I gave her the instructions we’ve given today. It was premature in some ways and I did not label the practice, only asked her to take that tension, mingle it with light and space, feel the opening there each time it came up. What happened was that each time she practiced with this through the coming weeks, each time it came up, there was just a spaciousness until eventually she would look in somebody’s eyes, they would look away, she would feel the sudden contraction almost as a blessing, a benevolent blessing, coming through and saying, “Ahh… nothing ever was unworthy. Ahhh!" It was a reminder that invited her back into the spaciousness of certainty. There’s never been unworthiness.

So each time she did it, it became deeper and surer until it finally stopped coming up. She could invite somebody’s gaze for a moment. They would look away. And nothing happened; just a smile, an inner smile. The blessing, “May you be well. May your practice flourish," was offered silently to that person as she passed. The karmic energy completely dissolved.

This was perhaps 18 years ago and it really has not come back. This is the power of this practice and how it relates to vipassana. You can see that she had to start somewhere. She had been doing the vipassana practice. When the strong contraction came up, she noted the contraction. She noted her aversion to the contraction and so forth. But “she" was noting. Then came the recognition of Awareness, which for her was already quite stable, just had not previously been recognized.

It all ties together. I understand that in traditional Theravada teaching, this Pure Awareness practice is not taught in this way, and in traditional Tibetan practice, vipassana is not taught in this way. And yet something akin to choiceless awareness is taught in the Tibetan practice and something very akin to the Pure Awareness practice is taught in Theravada tradition. The blessing that all of you have is that you are not enmeshed in one tradition. You have taken birth at a time and place when you may mingle what is useful to you of the traditions while still holding true to your primary practice, which is vipassana.

So let us use the remaining time for any questions you may have. I hope this gives some clarity about the practice, what I’ve just said.

Q: How is this practice used at the time of death?

Aaron: It cannot be practiced at the time of death unless it has been practiced in the lifetime. If it has been practiced in the lifetime, at the time of death there are two periods: the immediately pre-death period and the post-death period. In the pre-death period, one works with whatever contractions are coming up. One holds as much as possible the intention to rest in awareness, aware of each conditioned object such as discomfort or mental objects like fear or even hallucinations, as just that, conditioned objects arising and passing away free of any self. In this way, at the moment of death there is not a lot of karma involved with arising objects. If there is fear, there is spaciousness that notes, “Fear has arisen as a conditioned object into consciousness, and that which is aware of fear is not afraid." The self-identity is not around the fear; to whatever degree there is self-identity it’s with the spaciousness. Self-identity is not the correct term but lack of self-identity. There’s no building of a self.

Equally important, following the immediate death there is the movement, the arising of many illusions based on one’s karma in the lifetime. The more stable one is with this practice, the more able one is to dissolve all of these illusions into light. As one makes this transition and goes through this process, there’s nothing that hooks you, no sense of a separate self arises. At that point there is nothing to bring about rebirth. There still may be work to do, karma that needs to be balanced in some way, misunderstandings that need to be clarified. Awareness is still present. But there’s no need to come into a birth to do that work.

Q: These illusions are things like images of demons filling the sky? Are you talking about such things as demons in the sky?

Aaron: In part. These illusions may arise. Also, let us use one fairly common example that brings people into rebirth. How many of you when you drive past an accident on the highway are pulled to look? Many. A few of you may say you are just offering blessing to whoever was in the accident and not pulled by the violence. But for many of you the excitement of that violence has some kind of a hook to it. I don’t mean that you want it, you certainly have not wished that accident on someone, but there’s some thrill or energy movement that comes when you see something violent happening.

If you’re sitting here peacefully, if you saw a rabbit on the ground there and suddenly a hawk dove down to attack the rabbit, for most of you there would be some kind of an energy charge that came even though there was sadness and offering blessing to both of these creatures. But there’s a certain hook.

Human sexuality can be deeply loving but it’s also related to power and surrender. There is a certain hook for most humans in certain forms of sexuality so that one of the illusions that can arise is literally the seeking of the mother’s womb and watching the experience of creating the fetus. Some of you would be drawn toward a great tenderness and others might be more drawn to violence, I don’t mean somebody raping another, but toward more strength and surrender and different kinds of energy movements.

This is part of what comes, not immediately after death but eventually, so that the person who has passed through these illusions, demons and so forth, and is resting in a space of light, may still be enticed by the potential parents’ sexual relationship and literally drawn into that womb. We see that pull also as an illusion of sorts. We see the karmic contraction that comes with that. Being drawn and just mingle the tension with light and space. It’s not aversion, it’s kindness: don’t need that, letting it go.

Even if you are drawn into the womb in terms of a very tender and loving relationship, you’re still being drawn by the whole experience of becoming and being. You will even see that as a karmic knot and allow it to dissolve. So there’s a whole series of objects that will present themselves at very varying rates of speed. If you attend to them all from the depth of this practice, then there’s a point where it’s clear. You are free of rebirth.

Then, for your interest only, there may be at that point usually some period of, I don’t want to use time because time itself is an illusion, but what seems to be for the human, time, a period in which you simply rest in this spaciousness, and then awareness touches on the suffering in the world and the loving intention might come, not for rebirth in terms of any karma but for rebirth as a loving presence with this suffering, and with the commitment to resolve suffering for beings. And this is a very different form of rebirth. This is the movement into becoming a bodhisattva. There’s no karma pulling, it’s a very different experience.

Just because you have not karmic need for rebirth does not mean that you will not be reborn; it means only that there is the choice. You may also see the power of deepening into spacious awareness as the answer for the alleviation of suffering, and not choose rebirth but such deepening, grounding into this spaciousness and holding that space for all beings. There’s an interpretation that the bodhisattva is one who takes rebirth with intention to attendance to suffering, but another form of bodhisattva does not take rebirth. That’s also a bodhisattva. The point is that there is a clear intention to the alleviation of suffering and really a choiceless, let me phrase it differently, a choice made free of personal preference. The choice is not made on what will give most joy but what will do the most good? What is the greatest service here?

Q: This afternoon session was helpful for me to have some framework for where this practice could be useful. So it seems that it’s also linked to what Ajahn Thanasanti was saying yesterday, from her discussion with Jack Engler, about how just insight alone isn’t enough to unravel patterns, habits, karmic tendencies. I’d love to hear you talk with him about this.

Aaron: I would very much enjoy speaking with Jack about this were he willing to dialogue with me, because I understand his concern and I agree that it must be done in relationship, because something must catalyze the contraction. I think there is a great value to therapy for some people at some times in their lives. I am not denigrating therapy in any way. But I don’t think it’s necessary for freedom.

Some people have the karma and the ability to release this habit energy solely through this kind of practice, even when there is a lack of maturity in the personality. Then the realization must be brought back in to the life, and integrated to resolve the personality issues.

Q: I don’t think therapy is essential for everyone but in my observation it can be very helpful for many people.

Aaron: I did not hear a question so this is not an answer, just a statement. Therapy is important for many people but it does not do anything that practice with a clear guiding teacher cannot do. The guiding teacher in a sense serves as the therapist, not through therapy but through constantly directing the attention to the points of illusion and separation. And also by being the spiritual friend who offers enough support that the person finds the courage to go where he or she needs to go. There also can be some transference work with the teacher who is not afraid of the student’s anger and can direct the student’s anger back to where it needs to be directed. Lacking that kind of teacher, therapy is essential.

Q: How might the sequence of events at death likely be different for someone who had a strong vipassana practice in life but had not practiced the things Aaron is teaching this weekend?

Aaron: You come to the depth of realization through the vipassana practice. If the vipassana practice has progressed to the point that the practitioner is absolutely certain that whatever arises has grown out of conditions, and has reached a strong ability to hold access concentration, and is willing to do the difficult and challenging work to live the practice, then that would be sufficient to release the ego centered issues.

However, the practice must be strong enough to hold access concentration even with some kind of seemingly demonic being facing (them), with tremendous fear coming up, and most vipassana practitioners do not reach that depth of stability. If they have reached that depth of stability, probably they’ve had some deep realization experiences and unconsciously, without thinking about the practice, will see this object, see the contraction around the object, and come back to spacious awareness.

I think the practice we’re giving today has 2 extra benefits. One, your vipassana practice does not have to be as deep in order to gain this clarity. And two, it goes deeper in releasing karma. So much karma is released at death if one has been practicing this that there’s much less confusion, much less turmoil in the transition. The period of passing through these death stages is much more peaceful.

(tape turns)

Q: I just want to be sure I understand what was said earlier. Am I correct in hearing that if the teacher is clear enough, therapy is not needed?

Aaron: Not quite. It also depends on the student. The student can have a trust of the therapy process and not yet have a trust of the vipassana process. If the student doesn’t trust the process, regardless of how clear the teacher is, realization will not happen. It also depends on how deep the neurotic patterns run. But even if deep, they can be released through practice if the student is committed. This is not a commitment to become free of neurotic patterns but a commitment to liberation.

How deeply is the student is willing to commit himself to liberation? Liberation demands your willingness to give up everything, to literally allow yourself to be vulnerable, to let go of all your defenses, to stand there naked. It’s very hard. It’s only when you’re willing to do that that you find that there was nothing outside yourself that was threatening. Nothing was dangerous in the first place; it was all illusion. But meanwhile each of you has certain tendencies toward shielding, toward escape. These are not bad. They permit you to survive in the everyday world. And yet you pay a high price for them. You live with a sense of alienation, separateness, and loneliness.

So I think it’s not just the power of the teacher’s love and clarity and wisdom but also what the student believes. If the student believes it will help, and it’s a support they can rely upon, they are more likely to allow themselves to rely upon it. But it’s very hard to do completely on one’s own, without a teacher.

Q: How does the teacher know they are clear enough?

Aaron: You see the results in your students. Are the students able to realize truth? Is there growing skill letting go in the places where they have been attached? Are they willing to open? You cannot do that for them. Only they can do it. You model liberation for them and help them to see the possibilities, but you do not have to be fully liberated, fully realized. You model whatever degree of liberation you have attained. If the student comes to a point where he begins to pass you, he will need to find a different teacher. Most of you are working with newer students and you are fine models for them because all of you, all of you, have brought this practice into your life and found much freedom from it.

Please trust yourselves. No, you are not perfect. No, you are not arahats. You have not found complete freedom. Build on what freedom you HAVE found. Build on what has worked for you. And work carefully to see any attachment you have to fixing the students, or any aversion to your students’ problems. Just hold the students spaciously in your heart, and be willing to repeat yourself again and again until they finally hear it, as has happened for each of you.

Q: I believe Aaron or you were speaking earlier today of levels of ignorance. It seems possible a vipassana teacher would still have that level of ignorance where one does not see unwholesome patterns. It is of some concern to me that if any teacher were at that level they might be working with students and it might not be very skillful. Can you speak to that?

Aaron: Yes. This happens and harm can come from it. There are many stories of teachers who have become sexually involved with students, abused students and so forth. You must be very honest with yourselves. The ground for your honesty comes from your intention to non-harm and the realization that if you are less than honest you can cause suffering. You must know what you understand and what you do not understand. You must always take your teaching back into your practice. You must always watch for and acknowledge the sticky places.

There is no such thing as a teacher and a student as separate; rather you are all in teach/learn situations. Each of your students is your teacher. If you separate yourself and think, “I know this and I will teach it," it creates separation and it creates suffering. But when you co-create learning situations with the student, with a willingness to look deeply in yourself and the request that the student also look deeply, then you will find your own areas of ignorance or distortion. They will begin to clarify.

I’m not suggesting that enormous suffering cannot happen because a teacher is distorted and holds to his or her own ignorance as a way of protection. One of the things that I think is valuable about a sangha such as yours is the work that you do together, teaching and learning with each other. Co-teaching, sharing with each other, so that no teacher that is carrying a distortion can carry it too far without a companion kindly pointing it out, is vital. Does this answer your question?

Q: (inaudible) Thank you.

Aaron: Please remember that if each of you said, “I cannot teach until I am fully realized myself," and if all dhamma teachers in the world said that, there would be very little sharing of the dhamma! We have to be willing to take the risk of putting forth what we know but very humbly, knowing how little we really know, but holding the intention of lovingkindness and the alleviation of suffering, and being willing to hear that which is hard to hear. It is hard to have somebody reflect your own distortions back to you and to be ready constantly to attend to those distortions. It is important not immediately to buy into somebody else’s reflection, but to take it into meditation and ask yourself, “Is this real?" And if it is real, there’s no shame to it; simply ask, “Am I ready to attend to it?" If you’re not ready to attend to it, then it’s fine to stop teaching. But this is why teaching is such a powerful practice. Because you hold such a deep intention to non-harm, it serves as the ground for doing the work that you need to do in yourself.

We are past 4 o’clock. What we have taught here today is a very bare beginning of this practice. Practice with it and then re-read the talks from Emerald Isle in which we went a bit deeper, and where we had 5 days to work rather than one. Those students are not deeper in their practice than you; simply, they have the whole week of retreat to work with this and most of them had worked with the element practice the year before so they had that advantage. But all of you can work with this and learn it.

If it is of interest to you, we will repeat this day at another time going deeper. If most of you feel that this is not where you want to spend your time and energy right now, I respect that and that’s fine. I think it is important that you have been offered this practice and when the time feels right for you to utilize it, you will utilize it. Simply give it a chance and see how it integrates into your vipassana practice. Don’t make them separate practices but bring them together. It’s all practice toward liberation. I want to emphasize I do not teach dzogchen. I simply teach Pure Awareness and that blending of what has arisen with space and light. It may be close to the same thing, but I want to be careful not to call it by the Tibetan names. I do not claim to teach that.

(Bell) May all beings find happiness and peace. (bell) May all beings everywhere find complete liberation and know their true nature. (bell) My blessings to each of you. Thank you for sharing yourselves with me today.

Aaron: (Speaking to Ajahn T) It has been a delight to have you join our circle today.

Q: Thank you for allowing and inviting me to come.

Aaron: You know you are an honorary member of our teachers’ circle. May the blessings of dhamma be with you.

I’m going to release Barbara’s body. I don’t know if she has any kind of announcements, so please wait a minute before you move yourselves away.

(taping ends)

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