Feel the Love Outside the Mind
Welcome everybody to tonight’s live guided meditation. We will do a guided meditation for an hour, and as usual, the rules are just to be still and quiet. You can follow the guide of meditation or not, and you get to do whatever meditation you want inside the privacy of your own cranium—even though really your awareness is not stuck inside your cranium, but it’s just a figure of speech. Beyond that, when we’re done with the guidance, I’ll probably rave for a while, and then after that we’ll open it up for you all.
Let’s begin. I want you to move your spine in circles—like this—or you can go back this way—it doesn’t have to be perfect circles. It doesn’t have to be in any kind of rhythm, but it could be if you wanted it to be. Just make it feel good to move your spine in circles and really feel it. Feel your spine making circles. If you want, you can do some big ones, but then you can get much gentler. Just keep feeling into it.
Then, what I want you to do, as you gradually start making these spinal circles a lot smaller, and then smaller, and then smaller—but I don’t want you to ever stop—meaning they just get so small you can’t actually tell if you’re doing them anymore or not. So you don’t lock it, you keep it loose and open, like that—and maybe it’s still kind of doing nanometer circles, or something.
Okay, so feel that aliveness in your spine when you don’t come to a complete rigid stop—but it’s maybe still going—it’s real alive, it’s real open, it’s real released, it’s real happy. Then you sit up kind of straight—doesn’t have to be military straight—but just kind of upright. It’s good if your chin is a little lower than horizontal but not a ton, and then just feel your body like this. Some ways of understanding meditation talk about a balance of relaxation and attention, or relaxation and wide awakeness. And the way we read that, we often think they mean your mind—and they do—but they can also mean the body. So, a balance between the body being quite relaxed and quite upright and alert. So just feel that sense of your body being both real relaxed and still, but also alert.
Shamatha style meditation we could even define as just combining these two things—as relaxed as being asleep, while as awake as you can possibly be. So we’re already, by allowing our body to be this way, we’re already embodying the meditative principle of relaxed awakeness. If you’ve got it in your body, it’s already starting to happen in the mind, at least a little bit, because the two things are one system. So feel that relaxed stillness in the wide awake, wide openness.
Now we’re going to do some mantra. So from this place of very relaxed stillness, wide awake, wide openness, easy, peaceful clarity, we’re going to just let the sound come through. Normally we do the Om Mani Padme mantra, but because I’m insane tonight, we’re going to do a Hanuman mantra, which contains a seed syllable ham. We just chant that together—really nice, really wide open. Don’t struggle with it, let the energy of the mantra just start to bring peace and clarity and brightness to your being. We’ll do it for a few minutes, so just settle in.
[chanting] Om Ham Hanumate Namaha
Very good, just feel that energy of love, and openness, and devotion, and wisdom, and clarity that the mantra engenders —completely outside the thinking mind—just sitting in the body, sitting in openness, sitting in the peace of perfect presence. Letting go of the mind entirely. It can be there, it can talk, it can do its thing, but we’re just not paying any attention to it. If you notice yourself paying attention to it, just let go and come back to simple embodied presence.
Next, we always do pranayama. It’s interesting, because Hanuman, one of his properties, is that his father is the wind God, and so when we do pranayama it’s good to invoke Hanuman first, because he helps you do your pranayama. So we just did that, now let’s do some alternate nostril breathing. If you know how to do that, go ahead and do it. Use the mantra that will make Hanuman happy, so instead of doing kreem as usual, do mantra Ram at your third eye. So while you’re doing your alternate nostril breathing, ram, ram, ram at your third eye.
If you don’t know how to do alternate nostril breathing, follow me: make your hand like this, then close your right nostril like this, breathe in through the left, then close the left nostril with these two middle fingers and breathe out the right. Breathe in through the right, close the right, breathe out through the left. So you just keep going back and forth like that—breathe in through the left, out through the right, in through the right, out through the left. Nice and slow. While you’re doing that, stay upright, and repeat the seed syllable ram at your third eye. We’ll do this for about two minutes, so settle in, and just really let the energy do its work. This is very good for clearing the mind and balancing the mind, so all the disharmonious crazy stuff bouncing around in there starts to settle down quite a bit. Probably good to have your eyes closed while you do this one so your mind is not racing around. You’re just going ram, ram, ram, at the third eye.
Now we started on a left nostril in-breath, so when you finish, you’re going to be doing a left nostril out-breath, and then you’re done. Then just sit and feel that simple presence, just a lot of openness, ease, and feel that natural embodied presence. If you start getting sucked up into thinking, just let go of that and come back into just feeling your body within the vast space of open presence.
Your ears are hearing all around you. Your body feels sensation, and even air in all directions. You’re wide open, we’re not narrowing down on a single spot, we’re being naturally open and at ease. The mind, clear like the sky, and since we’ve been doing a little bit of pranayama, if you want to, you can continue to just notice the breath wave rising and falling within the space, the limpid, clear, lucid, vast, open, space of awakeness. Just notice that breath wave rising and falling without concentrating on it at all. You’re just noticing it, staying wide open, staying loose, loose and easy, relaxed. No tension anywhere. If there is tension, don’t fight with it, just relax towards the tension, and just let that breath wave rise and fall, and rise and fall.
We’ve just set our thinking mind aside. It can be there thinking as much as it wants, but we’re not really paying any attention to it. Instead, all awakeness is a feeling—the body is aware of the room, aware of the breath wave rising and falling, and just resting as skylike clarity, with tremendous awakeness. Notice how, outside the thinking mind, everything is pretty simple. You’re just sitting and breathing. Awakeness is wide open. You can just be at ease and be awake.
Most of us believe—tend to believe—that we are our thinking minds. And so here we are, resting outside of that, noticing that’s not who you are at all. It just sits there, and thinks. You can be sitting here having this full experience of inhabiting natural presence outside of that. That’s a lot closer to your natural mind. Notice this natural presence has a lot of stillness in it, a lot of silence in it. It’s very very gentle. It’s not something you’re generating. The mind can’t generate it. When you’re outside the thinking mind, it’s just there—you don’t have to find it, you don’t have to search for it, you don’t have to build it up, or whip something up, or generate it. It’s just there. It’s always been there.
Like we did last week, we can say, just rest as what’s always been there. Obviously, if it’s always been there, you don’t have to generate it, nor do you even have to search for it. That’s just what’s there.
Now, see if you can let go of any resistance you have to what’s happening—like, oh, I’m real uncomfortable. Okay, just accept that you’re real uncomfortable, or whatever you’re resisting right now. See if you can just let it be there. Because, guess what, it’s going to be there anyway. Don’t get too mental, we’re not trying to think here, just notice resistance where you feel it, and to the best of your ability, don’t fuel that resistance. Staying outside the thinking mind.
It’s hard to resist very much, actually, but, if you notice you keep coming back to thoughts of resistance, just let go of the resistance. And it doesn’t have to be to something that’s happening right now. You might be resisting what’s happening at work, or resisting something in your relationship, or resisting something in politics, resisting something about the world. And we’re just sitting here right now, so all those thoughts of resistance are just better for some other time. So just drop all that—whatever you’re resisting—just stop resisting it. Give yourself the freedom to not resist, staying outside the mind, resting in simple, open, presence, wide open, wide awake, very clear, very bright, very simple. Let go of resistance, and you’ll notice you settle even more deeply into this thing that’s always been there, this natural presence.
Now look at what you’re trying to make happen. Again, not engaging the mind, but if you’re trying to make anything happen—a special state, being super concentrated, hitting that spot you love, etc., just drop all that. We’re not actually trying to make anything happen at all, we’re resting in what’s always been there. So we don’t need to make that happen, it’s always been there. All the striving and thinking about trying to make something happen is just taking you over, away from that. Natural presence is naturally present—it’s always already been there. Just let go of trying to make something happen
It doesn’t take any effort, so we can be tremendously relaxed without resistance. Not trying to make anything happen, just sitting in our primordial being, not a special state.
Very good. Now, the hardest one—if you notice yourself judging and evaluating and controlling your experience, that’s coming completely from the mind, from thinking. Just let go of judging, controlling, evaluating anything about the experience—am I doing it right? Is this what it’s supposed to be like? Can I do it better? Can I do it differently? Oh, I’m doing it wrong! Oh, I’m bad at this, I’m good at this, I’m bored, I’m not bored. This is turning into some kind of great thing, we’ve got to pump it up. This is the worst thing that’s ever happened. I’m so anxious—whatever—all that stuff, all those ways we evaluate and try to make something happen, just let go of all that. It just is what it is.
Returning to simple, natural, presence every time we depart. Not resisting anything, not trying to make anything happen, not controlling, just resting as open, natural, presence. Wide awake, uninvolved in any thinking.
Very good. Now, you can continue doing that, or we can switch gears just a little bit here, and from this place of tremendous openness and ease, just think of someone you love. Again, in a simple way, you might have to use your mind a little bit to do this, but very minimal engagement. Think of someone you love, and then just feel that natural presence, the kind of shine of love that starts to radiate from this open presence. So you’re not trying to make it big, or trying to make it strong, you’re just, in the simplest way, bringing up love, kindness, caring, friendliness, towards a being. It can be a person. It can be an animal. It can be a child—whatever—but just bring up that very simple, very gentle, very sensitive, sense of love. Really simple love, and just let it be present. And notice how the whole sense of presence takes on a beautiful shine to it—not like an imaginary shine. I’m not asking you to imagine a shine, it’s just a way of talking—like your energy starts to shine with love.
Just feel that nice and clear. Real simple, natural, presence feels love very, very easily, very gently. It’s not like—BOOM— my love, it’s just real soft, real gentle, real sensitive. It’s mainly in the body, it’s mainly in the energy, it’s not really much of a thought. You may have to think a little bit to bring it up, but then it just shines, and the body shines in the open space, in the open presence.
If it starts to go away, just again think of the person, or whoever that brings up the sense of love—or maybe a different being that brings up a sense of love, and just let it shine again, very gently. Notice that this can make us feel tremendously vulnerable, and that’s why we don’t often let ourselves feel this, because it’s real vulnerable, it’s real sensitive. At the deepest level, it’s actually indestructible, it can never be harmed in any way. But it can feel real extra open. Try not to get involved in thinking. That takes you off in some kind of sad or difficult direction. Stay with the simplicity of just the love, just the caring, just the kindness, just the beauty of that real simple love.
When we’re outside the thinking mind, it’s easy to just sit with it. It just stays there, shining in our energy field, shining in our presence, shining in the body. It’s very stable, beautiful. Again, in a very simple way, without getting too complex in the mind, just imagine doing something sweet or kind for this being that you love. Something very, very simple, nothing elaborate. Not out of wanting to get anything from them, but simply to just express this kindness, this caring, towards them. And feel what that feels like, how it not only brings up even more gentleness, even more sensitivity, vulnerabilities, but even a kind of sweetness. It’s just sweet.
Just come back to the simplicity of open presence, without any manipulation, without any control, without any sense of resistance, without trying to do anything, just come back to just being what has always been there.
Very good. Now, again, from this place of wide openness, wide awakeness, simple presence, effortlessly inhabiting what we’ve always been, allow this from the mantra we were doing earlier, just that one seed syllable hum hum to arise. We’ll chant that together for a few minutes in the way that we do seed syllables here. So remember I’ll chant at a certain pitch, but you can chant at any pitch you want, and we all take breaths at different times, so it’s just continuous chanting.
[chanting]
Again, simply continuing to rest as what’s always been there. Riding, in a way on the energy of the hum. Just feeling the brightness, the clarity, the openness, the love, the beauty of that.
Okay, very good. Let’s end the meditation there. The hive of bees is coming to a landing.
The hardest thing about this is to recognize that you don’t have to do anything, and this tends to drive people crazy. I saw some of you were in your thinking mind the entire time, resisting, resisting, resisting, the entire experience. The rest of us were something like that, but just less. It’s the hardest part. We are trained from birth to do–do–do, and make stuff happen, and see what’s wrong, and fix it, and see what’s right, and try to do more of it, and to evaluate, and judge, and control, control, control, control, control. And there’s actually nothing wrong with that at all. That’s what mind’s do, and they’re good at it. And we can make some interesting stuff happen that way.
But it has its downsides if it gets out of control, and if we start to imagine that actually what we are is an evaluating, controlling, doing, thinking, judging, thing. Really, that’s just something the brain does, and it does that without needing to be inhabited. It just does that, just like the lungs breathe, the liver filters, your guts digest, and your mind will do that stuff. And that’s completely fine. In fact, wonderful, right? That’s what it’s intended, so to speak, that’s what it’s there for, that’s what it’s intended to do.
So we’re not fighting that, or thinking that’s bad or wrong or somehow, now we’ve got to control the controlling, or judge the judging, or somehow kill our ego or something like that. If you’re involved in such a project, like I must stop that—and I certainly was for a long long long time. I can tell you, it doesn’t work, and it’s a waste of time to try to do that. On the other hand, what is a problem, as I was saying, is if you imagine you are that thing. I’m the judger. I’m the controller. I am the thoughts. I am the thinker of the thoughts. I’m doing the thoughts. Now I’m doing a thought without doing a thought.
Of course, what we learn from meditation very quickly—really quickly, like day one—is that if you were actually in control of your thoughts you could just stop them. But try. It doesn’t work that way. You’re not the thinker, it’s just thinking, just like your lungs are just breathing. Give it a shot, if you want, the next time you sit down, just go, okay, okay, I’m the thinker of the thoughts, therefore they stop. And you are not the thinker. It does whatever it wants.
So that identity that I am the thinker of the thoughts, and I have to be inside that controller, and inside the judger, and inside the storyteller as an identity is just false. And, furthermore, that’s pretty much the cause of all the misery—maybe not 100%, but certainly 95%—is just the fact that you’re caught up in that as an identity. And it’s not an identity, it’s a thing that just does what it does. It’s like being caught up in the identity of being your liver or something. I must get in there and filter the blood in this special way, and I’ve got to get all up in it, or I’m going to be my intestines—it’s ridiculous, right? But that’s exactly what we’re doing with our thinking. We’re being the thinking—and that’s just imaginary. And that causes big problems.
So what we did here tonight mainly was just—don’t be the thinking. Be what you really are: just be present awakeness, unboundedness, unconditioned-ness, that which was never born. That’s not really an identity, so to speak, but it’s what we naturally are. What was never born, that thing that’s always there. Just rest as that. It’s just resting—you just let go of judging and controlling and thinking and trying—you’ll be right there. It’s just sitting there, being you.
Remember, I’m not saying you have to stop judging or controlling or thinking—just don’t be it. So how do you not be it? Just what we did—every time you notice you’re being it, just come back to actually resting as presence. And eventually, over time, you notice, oh, that thing just sits there thinking as much as it wants, and I can be over here being. And, of course, the two things aren’t actually separate—the thinking is coming out of the being in the deepest sense, but it doesn’t require you to guide it or control it, and it especially doesn’t require you to pretend to be it. But it is a kind of addiction, and especially in our society, you get a lot of rewards for being really good at it. Good at thinking, good at talking, good at those brain skills. You get a lot of reward for that, and so we can start to really believe that is who we are.
But then, just watch someone with dementia—they can’t be that anymore. If they haven’t spent any part of their life working on just recognizing being presence, but are truly identified with that, that can be really, really, really hard when that starts to fall apart. Because it will fall apart, just like every other part of the body. But the presence was never born and it never dies, so to speak. I mean, it’s not involved with everything of this world. The body, the mind, all that comes out of that, is born out of the presence.
Presence is there first. It’s wide awake, it’s wide open, playful, spontaneous, loving, easy. It’s just perfect potential, radiating, gushing forth—that’s what you are all the time. And you don’t have to believe me, just sit outside of thinking for a while, and you’ll end up there, you can’t help it. You might not end up there for very long, because the habit of thinking and getting involved in thinking and being an identity and worrying about this and worrying about that, is strong. But even if you kind of let go of it for a few seconds, and just rest as openness, you’ll see. And then you start unbuilding that habit, extinguishing the habit of being The Thinker.
It’s incredibly simple. It’s got a little bit of a brute force aspect, where you just keep coming back, letting go of the thoughts, and keep going back to being. But there’s some things, like connection, like love, like play, singing, make it a lot easier, make it a lot easier to let go of that habit. And we should probably set all the cell phones on fire, and sink them to the bottom of the deepest pit. But as long as that’s there, try not to get too involved in the doom scrolling, twitchy part of it—because that’s just mind mind mind mind mind. It’s allowing no presence, ever. The algorithms aren’t about—they could be about—but they’re not about bringing forth presence, they’re all geared towards twitch twitch twitch twitch. That’s all it is, so it’s just fucking you up on purpose for money. So fuck them—beautifully and sweet, okay? On that note of joy, let’s switch to the Q&A, reports, and what’s on your minds portion of the evening.
Questioner 1: I have a personal connection to that, and I’m very curious if you can recommend more reading or research whether Dharma or Neuroscience, or something about mindfulness, either in the presence of those with dementia, or as a support for those with dementia?
Michael: The thing that someone with dementia can be, is present, usually—not always—but it’s the memory and the processing part that is having a hard time. But the “here we are” that’s—not always—but often, especially if there’s not a lot of drugs involved, it’s available. So we can serve them by coming into presence with them, right where they’re at. Not like, hey what happened last week, grandma? Because that’s just not going to help, but right here, right now. And, interestingly, obviously unintentionally, they’re helping us be present, and come into the moment as well. And the difficult thing—there are many many many difficult things—but let’s say one of the difficult things is that, as I said, that if they’re not used to being present outside the mind, and the mind is really really broken, or not running well, that’s real distressing, right? So sometimes you’re dealing with a lot of distress, and we work with that in the ways we usually do, but bringing, again through our own ability to be present, to be loving, to be kind, to be right there with it, that’s the best we’ve got.
Off the top of my head. I don’t know any studies or anything. I feel like this is pretty obvious advice I’m saying, but, it’s very much like being with someone who’s inadvertently not able to be in their mind, and so that when it happens, and you’re not doing it like this, but it’s sort of done to you, it’s real difficult. And so, constantly bringing back the kindness, and bringing back the reminder, hey, I’m right here, is the best. And notice you can get real impatient—you just said that 20 times, I’ve heard that story about what happened in 1956 like 10 times today. There’s a possibility of getting very impatient, but that’s coming from our mind that wants to move the game along, and move the story along, and move things along, and come on. Presence doesn’t care about any of that. Yeah, tell me about what happened in ‘56 again, and just be there with it. We tend to make other people’s problems all about us, and it’s just not about us. So that’s what I have to say about that. I don’t know if that’s helpful at all, but thanks for asking. I’m not a dementia expert.
Questioner 2: One thing I noticed today in the meditation is that when I would try to let go of trying to do something, I noticed that I would go into a bit of a state of a daydream, one might say. And I wasn’t quite sure whether this is what we’re aiming at?
Michael: Yeah, am I doing it right? Am I doing it right?
Questioner 2: Yeah, and when I would not ask that question, it would just go on, but yeah, sometimes I would ask the question, and I’m not sure….
Michael: Well, in a way, it gets to be whatever it is. So if it’s daydreamy, it’s daydreamy, that’s what’s happening right then. On the other hand, and what you’ll notice as you sit with that more, it’s very awake. And it might even be awake to the daydream, or awake even to a dream, or awake even if you’re super sleepy. It’s still wide awake, so that’s interesting. Because we’re not trying to control it or change it or anything, it’s not like oh, you have to sit up, and wake up, and be awake. It’s like this thing that we’re talking about is awake—no matter what. So, if some hypnagogia, daydreaming, stuff is happening, just be real clear and awake to that, and if it comes and goes, that’s fine. The biggest thing there is we can start getting involved with it as mind content, and then you’re back thinking, so we just let it happen.
Questioner 2: Yeah, yeah. It actually felt very good when was happening
Michael: Just happening—it can feel good. But, again, we can start to get caught in feeling good, so just let it unspool.
Questioner 2: Yeah, yeah, thank you.
Michael: Very good. Other stuff that’s coming up for anybody? Comments, questions, reports?
Questioner 3: Hi. There was a part of the meditation where you invited us to think of a person that you love very much, and so I brought that person to mind, and I was feeling a lot of love.
Michael: And then you started crying like crazy.
Questioner 3: I started crying, and then you said, oh, just just be in the feeling, and don’t veer off into thoughts that make it sad. But, for me, it didn’t feel like a thinking process. It was more like feeling the love and then feeling the heartbreak of the times when I didn’t have that love.
Michael: That’s the thinking part.
Questioner 3: Can you say more about that?
Michael: You have to remember the times you didn’t have the love, and then you’re feeding the story of your pain and suffering. That’s a whole mental construction—everybody does it—it’s totally normal, but that’s why I was saying, yeah, just don’t do that. That’s getting into the story, and then squeezing the juice out of the story, and that’s not what we’re up to here. Just come back to the simplicity of love. And part of the thing is that this thing has always been here, and this thing is loving. So it’s the ego story that it didn’t have love, or whatever, it’s part of how we make ourselves unhappy. It’s always there, it’s always loving, it’s always beautiful. So when we rest back in that, that becomes obvious. And it’s outside the ego story. Do you know what I mean?
Questioner 3: Sort of.
Michael: Sort of, yeah. You just come back to the simplicity. It doesn’t do that, “this time when it was this,” or “that time when it was that,” it just stays in its present, loving, state.
Questioner 3: Okay, thank you.
Yeah, okay. Very good. Thank you. Thank you so much, everyone. Goodnight.
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