Effortlessly Being the Welcoming Openness
Streamed live on Jun 15, 2023
Welcome everybody. Different crew—this is who shows up when Vibe Camp happens. How many people have sat a lot in their lives?—raise your hand. Okay, good. Normally, we sit here for an hour, and you’re encouraged to remain really still. So, if you haven’t spent a lot of time on a cushion, remaining still for an hour, you may wish to grab a chair. We’ll bring you a chair now, if you need one. Other than that, I’m going to do a guided meditation, so I’ll be speaking a lot. You’re welcome to follow along, and you’re also welcome to not follow along, and just do your own sit in the group. That’s fine, too.
Let’s begin by simply moving in a circle like this—doesn’t have to be like I’m doing it, just move in some kind of nice circle. You can go in two directions, different directions, if you want, but I want you to start feeling how that feels. Feel your pelvis, feel your spine, feel how your shoulders and neck react. Let it be loose, let it feel good. Don’t do it if it doesn’t feel good. I’m just tuned into that movement, and if you can tune into the—let’s call it energy—of the Earth, that’s kind of sticking you to the cushion. And how your spine is rising up from that, and just moving in a nice circle—really feel how it feels in your pelvis, how it feels in the diaphragm. Where’s the center of the movement, and how is it interacting with this energy of the earth—of course, gravity, but also more than that.
And now, as usual, just make the circles smaller and smaller, smaller and smaller, smaller and smaller. Really feeling it, until you’re still doing a circle, but there’s almost no movement at all. Then, eventually, you kind of can’t tell if you’re doing it or not, because there’s just the body’s natural movement of breathing and sitting there. Then, just let go of any sense at all that you’re moving on purpose, and instead, just rest. But notice, there’s still some kind of natural slight rhythm of movement there, heartbeat, breathing. Even the uprightness of the spine moves around a little bit, but no more circles, just sitting still.
From here, just tune in to yourself, into your own experience, asking the question, metaphorically, what’s it like to be me right now? Several folks still have their glasses on. You may wish to take those off, you don’t have to, but just in case you forgot they’re on, you might. What’s it like to be me right now? Check-in with yourself, your internal weather report: How’s the thinking mind? The feeling, emotional heart? The sensations in the body in general? The overall mood, the overall weather? Being very clear about it, not overly harsh, or overly pollyanna-ish, but simply as realistic about it as you can.
Just check it out, and no matter whether it is very positive or very difficult, or both, or just something in between—maybe really neutral—come into a place where you can let it be exactly that way. You’re not dedicated to fighting it, or changing it, or holding on to it. You’re not dedicated to manipulating, controlling, you’re not dedicated to demonstrating fundamental aggression towards yourself—I must change, I must be different—but rather, the opposite mood: fundamental acceptance. However you are right now, let it simply be that way, without fighting it, and if you’re noticing that the way you are right now is fundamentally aggressive towards yourself, you’re going to accept that kind of non-acceptance. Just notice that you can let that be there, too, and have a deeper sense of openness and letting go, even with that there.
So let’s just sit together for a little while, opening, and letting things just be the way they are. It might be the easiest thing in the world to just let it be the way it is, but you might find that you’re actually highly dedicated to getting in there and changing it all. So, just for now, just drop that, and just let it be the way it is. Just remain relaxed and open, and very, very present with what your experience is. Very, very, present with experience.
Good. Let’s do a little bit of anulom vilom together. This is alternate nostril breathing. If you know how to do it already, just go ahead and do it. For those who don’t know how to do it, we’re going to cover one nostril—usually on the first round—covering your right nostril with your thumb. Just close the nostril, and then breathe in through the left nostril. Then close the left nostril with your middle two fingers—or maybe you learned it with other two fingers—but close the left nostril, and breathe out the right. Then breathe in the right, close the nostril, breathe out the left. That’s one round, so you breathe in the left, close the nostril, breathe out the right, then breathe in the right, close the nostril, breathe out the left. So you’re always breathing out the opposite nostril from where you breathed in.
To begin with, let’s do this in a very balanced way, so whatever your normal breathing is, somewhere that’s very comfortable for you, breathe in doing a count. I’ll just give you an example, breathing in, one two three four, close the nostril, breathing out one two three four— or whatever rhythm feels good, but have it be the same number of counts on the in-breath as the out-breath. Let this be very relaxed, very pleasant. No struggle—if it feels uncomfortable, don’t do it. Let this work for you. We’re gonna do this for a while—like five minutes, so just settle in.
This is very calming and balancing for the mind. It balances the hemispheres, does a bilateral stimulation thing on the brain that is very soothing, and brings up the parasympathetic nervous response. So just notice that this is tremendously calming. If you’re counting to keep the breaths of equal length you can use numbers, or, if you want to use seed syllables, you can use om on the in-breath and hun on the out-breath.
Continue doing this. For those who’ve done a good amount of pranayama in the past, or are in very good physical shape, you can add to this one variation. Definitely don’t do it if it’s uncomfortable at all, but, for example, if your count is four on the in-breath and four on the out-breath, breathe in four, close the nostrils, and then just don’t breathe for four, and then breathe out for four. Then just stay in the out-breath holding the breath for four. So the two holds are for four counts also. You’re not doing any locks, or anything, but just don’t breathe. Again, if that’s uncomfortable at all, just don’t do it. If you find that you’re gasping for air, or anything like that, then don’t do it. Again, as you settle into this, you’ll notice yourself growing very, very relaxed, very balanced, and the general level of activity in the brain will die way down. The mind activity follows breath activity, so especially during the pauses, as your breath is just paused, that’s gently leading the mind into pausing more often, also.
Very good. End on an out-breath, through the left nostril, since we started breathing in through the left nostril, then just relax, and breathe easily. Settling into that more balanced, even, grounded state. Just feeling how that feels in the body, how that feels in the emotions, how that feels in the mind.
When we’re doing just alternate nostrils that’s called anulom vilom, but when we add the breath holds, it is more accurately called nadi shodhana, the cleansing of the energy channels. You can just feel—it’s a very harmonizing, balancing, opening kind of thing.
From there, just let your mind naturally and effortlessly notice its own openness, like the sky. Just be the sky, wide open, not congealing, or crimping, or constricting around anything. Noticing the natural wave of the breath rising and falling, but mainly, just resting as wide openness, boundlessness. There’s a real urge here to try to force the mind open or try to do some effortful thing to make it wider, or make it bigger, but that’s not actually how to do it. We just relax, and notice that when we’re not tightly constricting around an idea, or a feeling, or a sensation, or a desire, when we’re not tightly constricted, the mind is just automatically broad, automatically wide.
So relax in such a way that the naturally, already existing, automatic sky-like mind is present. Then simply rest as that, noticing the breath wave, gently rising and falling. We’re not really concentrating on it at all. It’s just there in the sky of boundless awareness. Notice how, as the mind is able to rest in a relatively less constricted state, the body as well can begin to relax and open a little more, releasing tension in the face. Like if you have a stuck scowl on your face, or some kind of expression that you’re tightly holding, notice that you don’t have to hold that expression. It can, just of its own accord, just release. Any tension in your face can just relax, the upper and lower teeth are not touching, because the jaw is relaxed, and any other voluntary tension that’s in the body can just release itself, into the openness of the sky-like mind that is always present. Simply resting as the sky, boundless openness of awareness itself allowing the breath wave to rise and fall.
Begin to notice if attention is being stimulated into grabbing onto thinking. Certainly, thinking can be happening, that’s fine, but don’t let attention grab onto it, allow attention to be as broad as awareness, allow the attention to be like the sky, almost not attention at all because it’s so broad. It’s wide awake, it’s very clear, it’s very sharp, but it’s incredibly broad. If it begins to constrict down and grab onto thought, just let that go, don’t grab on, or if you do grab on, just let go. We’re not engaging with thinking, neither are we fighting it, trying to control it, trying to make it go away, judging it, or anything else. Simply not engaging. Just push in the clutch and the motor of the mind can just run, but it’s not turning the wheels at all.
I invite you, as usual, to let go of all fidgeting. If it’s possible, don’t move your arms. Let them relax, come to a complete stillness. The more fidgeting of the body, the more fidgeting of the mind. We’re allowing it to just come to a restful place, a relaxed, restful place.
Allowing the mind to be tremendously broad, tremendously spacious, tremendously boundless, notice, boundless is not a size. It’s just without a boundary. Letting it be boundless like that. Rest as that. Notice it takes no effort to be boundless, to be vast, to be open, that’s always there. Everything else that’s normally going on is a constriction of the mind within that boundlessness. That’s what we’re used to doing. We’re just in a wide open field, with a vast sky, and we’re always tightening down, looking at our little watch or smartphone, or whatever, and that’s so tight and so constricted, we forget that it’s happening in this wide, wide, wide open field with a tremendous sky.
So, metaphorically here, I’m inviting you to set down all the things that the mind engages with, and instead, notice the wide open field that’s always there, and then just hang out in it. It’s such a relief, after all that tightness and tension, to just be wide open—not scratching, not itching, fidgeting—allowing yourself, for once, to rest as open, bright, clear, awareness. Besides, the spaciousness of this awareness, it is tremendously awake, bright and clear, very crisp, always wide awake. The mind can get muddy, or fuzzy, or sleepy, even unconscious, but the awareness itself never does. It stays wide awake, it’s always bright.
Just like we’re not engaging with thought, notice, if you’re engaging with a bunch of emotion—again, letting emotion be there—in fact, any emotion, no matter how positive, no matter how negative, no matter how difficult, no matter how easy—let it be there. Don’t do anything with it at all, but don’t engage, either. Don’t get caught up in that whirlpool. Just let it do its thing, very naturally. It just does its thing, and the wide awakeness is completely aware of it, completely clear about it, but not engaged.
The vast boundless, wide awake sky, just rests as the sky. Birds go through it, clouds go through it, planes go through it, spy balloons go through it—it doesn’t care. It’s never disturbed, it’s wide open, it accepts everything—wide awakeness welcomes anything. It’s utterly the perfect host, everything, everyone is welcome, but not grabbed onto, not constricted around. So, I’m not engaging with thought, not engaging with emotion, not engaging with pleasant or unpleasant body sensations—aware of all of that—and yet resting beyond it, as wide awakeness that is very welcoming. Let’s rest there together for a while.
Good. Now, notice if, within this brightly awake spaciousness, there’s somebody doing something, there’s a person who’s meditating, a person who has ideas and feelings, a person who likes this and doesn’t like that. Notice that that person is simply more constrictedness within the field of awareness. We don’t need to dissolve it, we don’t need to make it go away in any way. It can be there being a person, but notice, you don’t have to engage with that, either. That’s just another thing happening in the sky. Be the sky, not the person.
There’s no aggression towards the person, again, we’re not trying to say it doesn’t exist, or it has to go away, we’re just not living inside that sock puppet, like we normally do. So, let go of being the person meditating, being the person doing the exercise, being the person sitting in the room. That can be there, but don’t engage, be this wide open, spacious wakefulness, the thing that is aware of the person. Not separate from the person, but neither wholly identified with it. We’re not separate from the thoughts, or separate from the feelings, or separate from the sensations, or separate from the sock puppet, neither are we wholly identified as them. We’re not engaging it.
Notice, as time passes, and we’re not engaging with any of this activity, there may come a sense of, like, well, what am I supposed to do? I’m just sitting here. And then we start grabbing on to those thoughts, and then we start having feelings about those thoughts, and then we’re all the way back into being the person doing something, and we’re re-engaged. So the answer is, you’re not supposed to do anything. Just let go of all that, and rest as this sky-like, wide awake, clarity. Be the openness and welcoming that you always, already are.
If you’re asking yourself, how do I do that? By not doing anything. Not doing anything means not even engaging with the thought, not even engaging with the idea of being somebody doing something or not doing something. Rest as the thing that is aware. It’s not a thing, but rest as the awareness. Awareness doesn’t do anything.
I invite you to take this even further: Don’t engage with the sense of the world around you. Wide open, spacious wakeful, bright, clear, awareness is aware of it, of course we’re not suppressing it, or denying it, but neither are we engaging with it as an object. External sites, external sound, it’s all there, just don’t grab on. Rest as boundless, timeless, centerless, openness. We’re very used to thinking of ourselves as a solid being stuck in a three-dimensional world. This is the opposite of that. This is just vast openness that is awake without any spatial referent. This is, in a way, the space that the world appears in, not the world. But also, not not the world. Remaining as restful and motionless—I invite you to rest, both mentally and physically. What part of your experience, right now, is just spacious wakefulness and nothing else? Rest in that.
Now, very gently, very slowly, if you wish, allow your eyes to be open, remaining focused very broadly, not narrowly, not staring at anything. Just as if you’re looking out over the ocean at the horizon. Just notice the spaciousness of the visual field, that it’s wide, wide, wide, open. Notice the edges of the vision as much as the center. Don’t narrowly focus on anything, just let it be very broad, very, very broad. You’re not looking at anything, you’re simply looking, simply seeing. Feel the spacious wakefulness in the visual sense, again, not engaging with any particular objects, yet seeing everything. You don’t have to stare, your eyes can move, if you want, and you can blink, it’s just that it’s wide open, without being particular.
Once that’s really comfortable, do the same thing with external sound. Hear all the sounds of the room as like a giant field or ocean of sound, without zeroing in on any particular sound. Then rest, with the vision wide open like that, seeing the entire periphery and center of vision all at once—the whole visual field all at once. and hearing the whole soundscape all at once. Wide open, welcoming all of it, tremendously awake. Notice when we engage the senses in this way, there is no center, there’s no inside or outside, there’s no boundary at all. There’s just a vast field of experience. Any thoughts or body sensations are simply arising in the same field as external sight, as external sound. Boundless freedom in wide awakeness, everything included, nothing excluded. Engaging everything, but nothing in particular.
Now ask yourself, and don’t answer from thinking, or memory, or reasoning, or rationalization, or the mind in any way, simply look for the answer. Where is the center of this awareness? There might be a center to the visual field, but that’s different. Where’s the center of awareness? Where is the awareness itself coming from? It’s very simple to boot up the rational mind or the memory and be, like, well, it’s coming from the brain, but that doesn’t mean anything in terms of your experience. I’m asking you, in experience, right now, where is awareness coming from? Where is it? Is there a fountain of awareness that is pouring out of? Where’s the fountain? With your eyes open, look at the farthest away part of vision. Isn’t awareness there, too? Because you’re aware of it. Where’s the awareness located?
Well, if you look at your own experience, the awareness is everywhere. There’s no center to it at all. The seemingly furthest away part of it is just as aware as the seemingly closest part of it. You’re used to telling yourself, well where the thoughts are, or where the emotions are, that’s where the awareness is. And that’s true, it’s there, but it’s everywhere else, too. Not as an idea, but just notice, there it is. You are not a thing in the world. The entire world arises in you. Without any effort, without any doing, wide open, wide awake, it all arises within you.
Notice that right now—it’s not an idea, it’s an experience. Rest as the wide open, bright, clear, wide awake, awareness, that has always been here, that never changes, that never goes away, that doesn’t need you to make it stronger or better or clearer, or to even find it. It’s the thing that’s looking. It’s never been lost. Rest as that now.
If you don’t know how to do it, stop trying to do it. Just let go, and you’re there. It’s the most obvious thing in the world. So obvious that you think it can’t be that simple, but it is.
Thank you, okay. Let’s end the meditation there. Feel free to move and stretch.
I wanted to talk about the anulom vilom. The idea is, you’re alternating sides, and there are some details in there that we glossed over. In various traditions, they’re important, like which fingers you use, and maybe it is meaningless, but the traditions are very particular about this, and also different. The way I learned it, you make your hand like that [open hand, fingers extended and separated], and then, for the right nostril, use your thumb, and then, for the left nostril, use those two fingers [middle & ring fingers], like that.
Other traditions, for whatever reason, use those two fingers [ring & pinky], so you’ll see it done like that, also. Now, to me this feels completely fucked up, because I’ve done decades of this, but I doubt it makes that much of a difference. But that’s how it’s taught, so you’re either like this or like that. It makes it really easy if you jam your elbow in there [close to chest], but you’re not supposed to do that. You have it out like that [elbow out to the side]. It’s also super important that you never strain yourself doing any pranayama. It should always be super easy and relaxed. If you’re straining, you’re going too far. The whole idea with pranayama is it’s a lifelong practice, so you’re not in any hurry to do a hardcore version of it. You just slowly build up over time. You don’t want it to be, like when you’re done, you’re, oh, God, I can finally take a breath. You did such a mild version of it that when you let go, feel just fine.
So those are just a few details about that, and there’s a lot of science about it that is really interesting, and confirms much of the 3 000 year old ideas about it. If you want to get into a little bit of the science there’s a recent bestseller by James Nestor, called Breath, that has a lot in there about it. It’s quite interesting. I used to work in the publishing industry. Some of these books nowadays, and the Breath book does this. It was actually twice as long, you can tell, somewhere in the middle of it, it just stops. You’re in the middle of all these ideas, and it just chops off that. You could tell somewhere, they’re like, it needs to be this many pages—so there’s some half of a book out there, just on his desk somewhere. It’s just horrible. But the part that is there to read is excellent. And if you’re interested in tons of science around breathing, it’s really fascinating, and very just as it was always said in many different cultures worldwide.
It’s very, very good for you, and it’s great for meditation, and there’s a lot of science to back that up. So that’s just one version of alternate nostril breathing we did—two different styles of it. We did just the alternate nostril breathing, very soothing, very regulating, but then, if you were to the hardcore part, you held your breath both at the end of the inhale and at the end of the exhale. That’s a little more intense, so only do that if it feels good, and if you want to. I had you count the same amount for the inhale, the hold, the exhale, and the hold, but you can make those holds a lot shorter, if that feels better.
So, I encourage you to do that for five minutes or so before you’re meditating, because it really makes the whole thing much easier. So, that’s a little bit about that particular pranayama, usually in English called alternate nostril breathing. The real name is anulom vilom which means something like alternate nostril breathing.
Good, so comments or questions about that, or the meditation or anything else? Raise your hand and we will bring the microphone. Just reminding you that it’s not just the folks in the room, there’s a whole Internet listening, so if you don’t want to give your name that’s cool.
The thing about the meditation is, from the very beginning to the very end, I’m just encouraging you to rest as spacious awareness. That’s what’s really there, that’s what’s really there when we let go of particularizing anything. All the particular stuff is there also, and it’s not separate, somehow that’s not different stuff. We’re not trying to become a witness looking at that stuff, it’s all part of this spacious awareness, but the habit is that we’re always narrowing down and particularizing, we’re spending a lot of time grabbing onto stuff.
I was kind of a precocious kid, and I remember being with my parents in Cape Cod in about the early 70s. I’m in middle school, and I find this book, and it was called Slaughterhouse Five, and I’m like, this just looks great, and my, mom who is a librarian, and believed all books are good, no matter what, was like, yes, you can buy that, and read that. So I avidly read it and then read it about—and I’m not exaggerating—at least 15 more times. I thought it was the greatest thing, and it kind of is, but in there, there’s this image, because there are these time traveling aliens, and the time traveling totally timeless free in-time aliens, are trying to explain to other timeless aliens what a human being’s view is like.
It’s a really great long description, but the short version of it is, the human is tied to a flat car on a railroad track, and they can’t move their head and the railroad car can’t stop moving. But even more, even where they’re looking, there’s a welded steel viewer, and so they can only see one spot at a time, even though there’s all of time around them. So that image has stayed with me all the way from Cape Cod in the early 70s.
It’s like there’s a thing there that is very true, that we’re constantly narrowing down into our thoughts, and forgetting all this and narrowing down into feelings, and getting all caught in it, and forgetting all this. Even though all that’s still there, and we’re even still aware of it, it’s like we’re tied to a railroad car on a railroad—we only allow ourselves to look at this narrow focus. And it turns out, that gets really uncomfortable, and really tight, and really bound up, and really unpleasant. Then we try to fix it down inside itself, but the fix is to just remember that there’s all this out here.
Instead, we all think the solution is more of this, just different or better than this, and it’s like, no, open. Throw away the viewer, and get off the railroad car, and just remember there’s a whole, you don’t have to invent it, it’s already there. Just quit trying so hard, relax and open, it’s right there. It’s nothing to do. Our culture is like, get down in there and do more of the tight thing, so we’re just really strongly habituated to that. So, over and over again, I just invite you to relax and notice this sky-like thing that is here all the time. It’s not that this part is something different, that’s part of the sky, so it’s not that we’re separate from that, but we don’t have to just be that.
One of the things that we’re always crimping down into is the sock puppet of our personality, which it’s there, it’s not not there, it’s an experience. But you don’t have to be that all the time, and you don’t have to force yourself inside that really tight, tiny little, stinky sock puppet all the time. It’s just not all there is. But so many traditions are going to encourage you to throw it out or imply that it’s not there at all. You can’t throw it out, and it is there, and that’s fine, you just don’t have to be it, or be exclusively it. And, always the question is, well how do I not be it. That’s it, right there.
Questions, comments, reports, critiques? I always like a good critique. Raise your hand if you want to say anything.
Questioner 1: Thank you for the meditation.
Michael: Thanks for coming.
Questioner 1: My question is, a lot of the way that it’s made sense for me to kind of drop into the wider lens that you’re referring to. Someone once told me, just don’t be yourself, be the room that you’re in, and that made sense to me for whatever reason. I’ll be in the grocery store and it’ll feel hectic, and—just be the grocery store, and everything gets easier. And at some point during your meditation today, you said to drop even the grocery store.
Michael: Yes, and be the sky. It’s just a bigger version of the same instructions. How big is the sky?
Questioner 1: Maybe I misunderstood, because I thought you said like drop the seeing and the hearing and just be awareness itself, independent..
Michael: And then I said, ..which is aware of all that, but isn’t being any of it.
Questioner 1: Okay, yeah that’s one of those things that my mind wants to get ahold of. I don’t think it’s gonna work.
Michael: You can get a hold of it in that way through the mind, but, again, that’s engaging all the thinking, and now you’re down inside the tight constricted hole again. It’s not that you can’t think—please think, but don’t engage it like that, just notice that. Even the thing that’s trying to think is happening within this sky.
Questioner 1: Okay, thank you.
Michael: Yep, thanks for your question. What else is going on out there?
Questioner 2: I would like you to address this notion of the bottomlessness that I
feel.
Michael: Very good, I’m so glad you feel that.
Questioner 2: …because the instructions are to relax, and then there’s the bottomlessness, which does not feel relaxing.
Michael: Relaxing to what?
Questioner 2: Say again.
Michael: You said the bottomlessness does not feel relaxing, and I said, relaxing to what? What doesn’t feel relaxed?
Questioner 2: Oh, so then I’m…
Michael: Right, yes. So I’ve answered this question for you in the past. What did I say? Do you remember?
Questioner 2: No.
Michael: Okay, whenever someone brings up the bottomlessness and the fact that it is uncomfortable, I always give the same response. I say, good, I’m glad you’re experiencing that, because that’s getting it—the whole seeing, the whole feelings, the whole—there’s nothing underneath it—it’s completely fabricated, with no ground. And when you notice there’s no ground, at first it’s terrifying, or at least uncomfortable.
Why? Because there is no ground, and so you’re Wile E. Coyote off the cliff, and your paws are flailing in the air. But, unlike Wile E. Coyote, there’s no ground, so you can fall forever, but you’re not going to hit it—there’s no danger. In fact, when you fall far enough, and you realize there’s no center, there’s no edge, there’s no ground, how is it even falling? It doesn’t mean anything to fall when there are no boundaries, and no center, there’s no ground.
So, eventually, and it might be a very short amount of time, or a long amount of time, or anything in between. You just can’t be uncomfortable forever with something that isn’t harming you. You’ll just essentially get used to it. But then, it gets much better than that, because groundlessness is total freedom, it’s total openness. That thing that feels uncomfortable is this little ball of constrictedness, but it’s happening, and even that is happening in a groundless freedom. The image is like the little Shetland pony that’s never come out of a shed, and we open the door to the shed—that’s really scary—you can find videos of this everywhere. The Shetland pony is too afraid to get under this big sky, but eventually it walks out onto the paddock, and it starts gamboling around, it’s totally happy, it’s free.
But there’s that moment of, wow, that freedom is really scary. But you’ve seen the freedom, you’re seeing it so clearly. Because it’s scary, I know you’re seeing it, so I’m, like—Yay, there’s a little Shetland pony there—go, run free. It’s right there. So, the groundlessness is the feature, not a bug, and everything that’s occurring is a wild, exuberant, joyous expression of groundlessness. This is an expression of groundlessness—it’s all fireworks of groundlessness. Nothing could exist without that groundlessness, so that is joy itself, but, when we’re used to being in our little shed, it’s scary at first. So come on out, the groundlessness is fine. I know we’ve had this conversation before so, you have all the time in the world, but eventually…
Questioner 2: Okay, thank you.
Michael: What else?
Questioner 3: I’m curious if you could talk about how to work with mental states that have positive feedback loops of agitation. I feel like I almost never capture this in formal sitting practice, but if I’m awake in the night, and wish I was asleep, there can be very subtle levels of frustration that will increase, which then makes me feel more awake, which then—it’s more frustrating. Attempts to sort of relax, or let go feel like—there’s a futility sort of feeling in that relaxing, and having more openness and clarity can increase the clarity that there’s a lot of agitation present.
Michael: Sure. What’s that agitation present within?
Questioner 3: Boundless, wide open…
Michael: Do you think the boundless, wide open, wide awakeness is in any way bothered by the agitation? Does the agitation shake boundlessness, or somehow corrupt or debase it?
Questioner 3: I don’t know, it seems like a good question.
Michael: Yeah, good question to look into. I would suggest that it can’t, and so, focusing on the agitation, crimping down, now all you can see is agitation. And it’s a big problem in your microscope, but if you look up from the microscope, it’s a microscopic non-problem in the field of this vastness. So there’s some agitation happening—great, the waves in this infinite ocean—even 100 foot, 100 meter waves in this infinite ocean, do not bother it. So the narrowness of the focus on that is making it seem gigantic.
But there is another thing, which is when you’re engaging in this kind of meditation where you are non-controlling—letting go of the controller means that things that are normally suppressed and denied and held under great tension—held down, are coming out—whoops. The tension is being released, so it is telling you something about your psychology, which is, there’s some suppression and denial and control going on, of stuff you don’t want to feel. So, the long range—and I’m not a therapist—I’m just talking as a meditation teacher. That might take a while, of just letting go, and letting the agitation come out before you’re not holding that so tight anymore.
Same thing at night. There are things that we don’t want to think about, and so, during the day we can use our attention, our control, our supervisor part of our mind, to not think about that, with force. But, then you’re laying there at night, and that supervisor’s asleep, and so all the little rats come out to play, and there’s no one there to stuff them in a box. So, at least in terms of meditation, the idea is, while you’re sitting there, allow that stuff to come out, let the agitation come out into this vast field to play in, where you’re not trying to not experience it. Rather, you’re welcoming the experience, even if it’s bad, it’s unpleasant experience, and then it won’t have so much back pressure.
The guy who founded the San Francisco Zen Center was a Japanese Zen Roshi, Suzuki Roshi, who he used to say, people think that if you have a bunch of cattle and you want to control them, you build a fence around them. But really, the way to control them is to have a field so big they can never leave it. That’s the exact idea—it’s just so wide open, there’s no boundary, so how can they ever escape? So, there’s no tension there, all right? Does it make sense?
Questioner 3: Yeah, totally, thanks.
Michael: Good, what’s up?
Questioner 4: Is it the same with physical pain? What do you do when you meditate, and like today, it was so long, that you know, so what do you?
Michael: It depends on how much sitting you’ve done. If you’re not used to sitting still that long, it can be challenging, and you may eventually just have to move, and that’s okay. So what. But, over time, as your practice deepens, you learn that any kind of pain, let’s say this sort of pain, eventually, your legs are fine with sitting. But, there are other kinds of pain, like you hurt your elbow, or something, it’s just in agony. It wouldn’t matter how you were sitting, and so it’s the same thing. We let the pain be there, and, in fact, we don’t resist it in any way, let it fill awareness, and it, paradoxically, will hurt much less. Still hurts, but much, much less, because we’re not resisting it. Resisting it actually makes it a lot worse.
Interestingly, as a meditation teacher, I’ve worked with people in extreme medical pain, like terrible medical pain, and this way of working—it takes time, you have to build your practice up to it, but being able to allow themselves to be all the way in the center of the pain, the worst part of the pain, and just relaxing there with it,
so dramatically changes their experience of pain that they—the people I work with, became dedicated meditators. It was very, very, helpful. But you just have to build up to it, and notice, emotional pain and physical pain are in the same parts of the brain, it’s not different.
Okay, thank you for your questions. See you next week
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