Self-Liberation of Thought and All Experience
Okay, welcome everybody. I’m Michael Taft, and we’re going to do an hour-long guided meditation in which you are expected to sit still. So just out of compassion for yourself, if you’re not used to sitting on the floor cross-legged for an hour being still, it’s like a thing you get used to. But if you’re not used to it, it is going to be real unpleasant. So, you might want to get in a chair before it’s too late, and you’re stuck—and then you have to embarrassingly get up in the middle of the meditation and flee, or whatever.
I’ll be guiding the meditation, and, as usual, you don’t have to listen to my guidance. It’s just there if you want it. Feel free to do your own sit, and get out of it whatever you wish. Then after that, I’ll give some kind of talk, mainly—as I usually say—a demonstration of ignorance; a public demonstration of ignorance, and hopefully that will be helpful or interesting in some way. Then, after that, we’ll pass around this microphone to people who would like to share their experience, or talk about stuff, or ask about stuff, or whatever. And then, when that’s all done, and we wish we’d never opened our mouths, we’ll then get a whole extra meditation in absolute silence, where even I am silent during that one. Okay. So that will be our program this evening.
Let’s begin as usual with a little movement.
[guided movement]
And from there, let’s do a little bit of chanting. Sometimes we just do a seed syllable, but today we’ll do the mani mantra. if you don’t know it, it is: om mani padme hum. And we just continuously chant it—there’s no breath in there. So just take a breath whenever you want. Hopefully we all take breaths at different times, and so the chant just continues.
[chanting]
Good. Now, let’s just sit for a moment in the energy of the chant. And I’ll just suggest that you set aside the thinking mind. Set aside the machinery of thought. It’s welcome to continue doing whatever it’s doing. You’re not trying to stop it or control it or turn it down or do anything with it except just not really engage with it. So, we’re setting it aside, and instead, just resting in presence, natural easy presence. So, let’s do that for a few moments together.
Setting aside any engagement with thought. We’re not playing with that. We’re simply being, simply resting in natural presence, which takes no effort. It’s nothing special. You’re not doing anything at all, except not engaging with thinking. Notice that there’s a kind of uncontrived openness and spaciousness in presence. If we’re stuck down inside the machinery of thought, things get very tight and very small. But outside of engagement with thinking, presence itself is very broad, and very open, and very spacious, and very relaxed.
If, for whatever reason, you’re finding yourself drawn back over and over into engagement with thinking, then just notice instead the rising and falling of the breath wave. You don’t want to focus on it or make it an intense object, but just notice it enough to keep coming back into simple, easy, open, natural presence. If you’re trying real hard, just cut it out. If you find yourself placing your mind in any particular way, see if you can let go of that. Don’t place your mind in any way at all. Just rest.
Good. Now feel free to just continue like that if you want. But if you’d like to, you can tune in a little more, specifically to presence in the body, and feel body sensation. Remembering that that includes your face and head, the whole body. And I’d like to suggest that you do this with the whole body all at once. Feeling the entirety of body sensation all together. Staying really broad, really open, really relaxed. Not trying to concentrate hard. Just in a really natural way. Just noticing all of body sensation and giving that a little more attention.
And this is interesting to notice. Some parts of body sensation feel kind of dense and tight and constricted. Some parts feel real open and relaxed and easy. Some parts feel real energetic—like it can feel buzzy, tingly, energy-type feelings. Some spots in body sensation might feel just like there’s nothing there at all. And there’s lots of ways body sensation can present.
But the more you tune into it, you begin to notice something interesting, which is that the actual boundary of the body starts to be hard to find. It’s more of an idea in your head than something you’re really able to feel. And you may notice that the body feels less and less like an object, like a lump of clay, and a lot more like just a field of sensation—an experience.
Good. You may also notice that there can be a persistent fantasy that you’re somehow feeling body sensation from some place in your head. Like there’s sort of a spotlight or lighthouse in your head somewhere and it’s pointing attention down at parts of the body or maybe even the whole body at once. Just notice that that is an imaginary fantasy. That’s not what’s happening. There is no spotlight. You’re just feeling your body.
So without getting in there and trying to change anything, see if you can let go of—or not engage with—that mental image you might have of kind projecting awareness from, you know, the guard tower in your head with its big spotlight. And instead, allow body sensation to just be naturally present. That whole mental image of what’s going on is not necessary.
Good. Now see if you can let go of any mental image of the body whatsoever. Doesn’t mean stop it. It just means don’t engage with it. Again, that is a part of thinking. It’s part of what we set aside. So just be present with body sensation and if there’s a lot of mental images of body arising, that’s okay, but we’re not engaging with those—just feeling the moving, changing, bubbling, rippling, body sensation.
Good. You may notice something really interesting as you sit in simple presence with body sensation. Not engaging with the thinking mind, not engaging with the machinery of thought, and not engaging with the mental images of body—that the experience of body begins to simply be energy, right? It feels just like moving, shifting, changing sensation that doesn’t have a particular boundary—that isn’t locked into some form. All of that is a mental image.
So when we disengage with the mental images, there’s just a sense of a field of shifting sensations that usually starts to feel pretty pleasant. Even if there are uncomfortable spots, the overall vibe, the overall flow is quite pleasant. So see if you can. This is not something to imagine. This is not something to generate. This is not a fantasy we’re coming up with. This is when we let go of the imagination. When we let go of the mental images, when we let go, let go and just relax into the sensation itself. It presents like this. So, I’m not asking you to make this happen, but rather let go and begin to notice that the experience is very open, and a lot more like a kind of bubbly, tingly field of energy rather than a pile of meat and bones sitting there.
Remember, this field of energized body sensation is not something we’re looking at. It’s not over there. We’re experiencing it from within. It’s just an experience that arises. It’s not an idea that we’re looking at over there. We’re in it. We are it.
Good. Now, as you continue to sit with this, you may begin to notice something very unusual: That within all this buzzy, tingly energy of body sensation is just enormous space. Again, it’s not something we’re picturing or trying to make happen. It’s just there. Tremendous room, vast openness, within which sensations are still arising. But oddly, they’re not arising anywhere. They’re just appearing in this vast openness. Again, not something to imagine. If you’re noticing it, you’re noticing it. If you’re not, that’s okay. This openness, this vastness, this spaciousness is not something over there you’re looking at. It just is.
So, some of us might be feeling regular old body sensations. Some of us might be feeling energy and movement and change in a kind of boundless field. And then some of us might just be noticing the boundless field. Wherever you’re at in that, let’s just hang out there for a while, letting it be what it is, not trying to make anything happen. Again, we’re not really trying to do anything here. We’re not trying hard in any way. Just noticing. You don’t need to be in a special meditative state. This is just simple noticing.
Good. Now, you can either stick with what you’re doing now, or, if you’d like to move a little further into this, especially if you’re noticing this tremendous openness that’s just sitting there. It’s actually impossible to not notice once you’ve noticed it. It’s just sitting there all the time. It never goes away. It’s absolutely open. If that’s clear, then simply allow the thinking mind back into that vastness, within which the thoughts will just sublimate. They’ll evaporate. They come up like wisps of incense and just dissolve into the sky. They arise and just dance in the openness and become the openness. There’s no need to do anything with them. We’re not imagining something. We’re just noticing that in this boundless openness, thoughts liberate themselves without any need to do anything at all to them.
And there’s a chance that now that you’ve let them back in, that you might start getting caught up in them again. That’s okay. Just keep coming back to the openness. It’s always there underneath and within and around everything. The openness that we found in body sensation is also the openness all around the body. There’s no separation. It’s just openness. It’s just vast space.
When thoughts arise within the vast space, they simply become the space. Doesn’t mean they’re not there, but they just self-dissolve into openness. If we were to get real focused and follow them in a mindfulness kind of way, you’d see that they’re coming from the openness in the first place, and then dancing within the openness, and then dissolving back into it. Just relaxing with it. We just allow them to arise and become the sky without any effort of any kind. Notice that they’re just happening. No one’s doing thinking.
And if you sit with this for a little while, you may notice something odd, which is that the flow of body sensation in space is not really very different than the flow of thought in space. They’re not exactly the same thing, but they’re not that different either. And you may notice the same thing about sound arising, or sight happening, and experience all together.
Notice this is not based on absorption. We don’t need to be real focused. It’s just about noticing. See if you can just notice the space. Again, not pointing attention at it because then that’s just an idea of space, but just relaxing and being space. And then within that, everything arises, and then just liberates itself. No need to do anything at all, and nobody to need to do anything at all.
Good. Now allow this awake space, this vast openness, this simple presence, to manifest some of this om mani padme hum mantra—without any effort, without any thought.
[chanting]
Okay, good. Let’s end that there.
We just arrived back on a delayed flight from Hawaii. So I got to sleep at about 3:30 last night, and so I’m a little blurry and have sunburnt lips and stuff—crunchy. And it’s really interesting when you break your patterns, you know, because I’ve been just basically working working working working working working. Even when you work as a meditation teacher, you’re still working, right? And so I have been working a lot for a long time, maybe a year or something—continuously. And then took a little break, just a few days.
But a few days is enough to break your pattern, right? You break your pattern. And so it was really interesting to just be on the beach, hanging out with turtles and fish, and my son. And we’re just playing in the water a lot. It’s one of those places where just as you walk in the water, there’s just a continuous shoal of fish. Like there’s just fish, a thousand of them sitting right there. And a whole bunch of moray eels that you could see, and striped mullets, and little pipefish. You ever see those guys? They’re just like a line of turquoise with an eye, little pipe nose. Whole bunch of those guys.
My son was particularly fascinated with this dude that was fishing on the beach, and caught a big fish, which was also just a brilliant blue turquoise flash in the water, and then suddenly found itself in a bucket. Not the place to be.
But you know, it was funny, even there, where the spaciousness isn’t a metaphor, right? There’s the whole Pacific Ocean, there’s the whole sky, there’s the world’s biggest volcano that you’re on top of. And you can see the other island over there in the mist and stuff. It’s just a lot of hugeness and gorgeousness. But even there, it’s like this thing that’s not a thing, right? Is just right there.
We went out. It’s the kind of thing that, it’s like, oh, we’re going to do it for Hawk because he’s little. It’ll be cool. But actually, we’re secretly loving it—which was to go out in a glass-bottom boat, right? And look at the reef and look at all the sea cucumbers laying there. And saw a big puffer fish, not puffed up, just like a big potato on the bottom. All kinds of stuff. An entire pod of spinner dolphins doing their thing. But it was funny because you’re looking down in a hole in the boat into a hole in the water. All around you is sky and sea, but you kind of have this weird hole you’re looking into.
It’s a terrible metaphor, but it really did kind of remind me of what I keep trying to talk about, which is just this big vast open thing that’s in there all the time. It’s right there. It’s never not there. So even though there’s all this, there’s also just vast openness that all this is arising in. And there’s a way of saying that that can make it sound like—oh and it dissolves into the openness. And it can kind of sound like—so nothing matters or somehow everything is just nothing and just throw that out. That’s stupid.
It’s all still there. It’s just coming out of every moment, and then just being that. And instead of making it somehow nothing, it makes it sacred or loving. And the thing that I try over and over again—unsuccessfully—to communicate, is that you’re not imagining that. I’m not saying I want you to keep trying to make this picture of this empty big vast thing that everything’s coming out of— because that you could make kind of a virtual little animated hole with things flying out of it. And if anything like that is going on, just stop doing it. That’s not it.
I mean, of course, that’s not not it, but that’s not it. I don’t mean imagine that. It’s just a way of talking. One of my teachers, Shinzhen—his teacher, Sasaki Roshi, was always saying, “If you’re always saying, if you’re as good as your teacher, you’re only half as good as your teacher.” Which Shinzen would interpret to mean, if you just repeat what your teacher says, then you’re not really doing your job. You’ve got to try to say it how you see it—even though it’s impossible to communicate, you have to try to communicate it. But in a funny way, it’s not that impossible to communicate. It’s like being in a glass-bottom boat and looking at the hole in the ocean that the entire world is pouring out of, and then becoming.
And the funny thing is that, yes, getting real focused, getting real still, can help, but it’s not occurring in the stillness of the mind. The stillness of the mind is not the thing. And if you’re depending on the stillness of the mind, you’re missing it. On the other hand, sometimes busyness or turbulence in the mind can obscure it. So there’s a usefulness in the stillness, but it’s not the stillness of the mind. It’s that stillness of the mind occurs within it. And it is already it—being this vast spacious openness, already absolutely stable. It doesn’t require you to somehow add stillness to it. So the stillness of your mind, you only need enough stillness so that you’re not making so much turbulence that you can’t even recognize this already existing, total stability.
So yeah, a little bit of focus, but not that much because if you get into really high focus, you start getting into a state thing, and then you’re just doing a state thing. Whereas this is just noticing. Just notice. Anyway, that’s what I have to say about that. Let’s see what you guys have to say about stuff. Hear that? That’s your invitation.
If you raise your hand, it means you know that this is going out live to the Internet, and therefore will be recorded forever. And furthermore, you recognize that being mindful of our speech is a compassionate gesture towards everyone.
Q: I’ve been here before. I don’t think I’ve asked the question before, but you started out with this kind of pointer of noticing the body as a field of energy, and then noticing that there isn’t really a boundary. And I’ve been pointed at this many times by different teachers, and I’ve never really been able to actually kind of grock it. It always feels like I feel to the edge of my experience here, and then I can’t feel out here. So it feels like there is a boundary. And I’m just curious, if you could offer any other pointers on that? I can kind of get mentally what teachers are getting at with it, but it’s never done it for me.
MT: Sure. The real way of pointing to this would take me a while. Okay. So, I’m going to do a shorthand version that might not be that satisfying. Okay. It’s not that you’re supposed to start feeling your body out here. It’s that you can’t really find the transition spot with any certainty. And furthermore, if you’re letting go of the mental image of where my body’s at—which I guarantee is 95% of what you’re describing—is just a picture in your head. That’s a big one. But if you let go of that and you just start feeling kind of the let’s say [buzzy] feelings, what’s between those? Answer, nothing. Or, different answer, permeable membrane. Right? It’s like there’s no boundary if there’s open spots.
Q: Yeah. Okay.
MT: So, let it be more like Swiss cheese, because that’s what it feels like. And you’ll start to notice that the idea that the boundary is continuous, is just a concept. And once you notice that, the space becomes a lot more available, and then the space becomes prominent.
Q: Okay. Thank you. Yeah, that helps.
MT: Thanks.
Q: Hi. I’m going to do a thing that I never do, which is talk about current events. Is that okay?
MT: As long as we’re mindful of our speech. Yeah.
Q: So, when bad happens in the world—which is happening all the time—people sometimes ask me—because they know that I have a position that “we’re all in the great perfection.” And so they’re like, hey, bad shit’s happening, but you believe that we’re all in the great perfection. What’s up with that? How do you reconcile that?
MT: Tell them to shut up.
Q: I try to find my own words, but I’m less than half of a teacher, so I’m curious what you would say about that.
MT: Any answer I can give on that will be incredibly—even more unsatisfying—than the answer I just gave. Yeah, this just sounds like enigma for enigma’s sake—for some reason, I’m on a Shinzen kick tonight. He is a simultaneous translator of Japanese, so he’s always translating Zen Roshi’s into English. He tells the story of when they had him on TV—just because he’s the translator—but he was with a Roshi, and the interviewer is like, “Okay, I’ve got a Zen Roshi on camera. So okay, what is then, in the final analysis, enlightenment? Roshi, you know, I’ve got you on the spot here for 10 seconds.” Answer. And Roshi said, “Well, it’s the disappearance of the distinction between enlightenment and non-enlightenment.” That was his answer, right?
And so, in a somewhat similar vein, when we’re in the worldly view, there is really bad shit, but when we’re in a more absolute view, there is really bad shit AND it’s not any different than really good shit. Or, a different way of putting it is, it’s not separate from it. Both are necessary. Of course, they’re different, but both are equally sacred. And so the thing I’m going to suggest disappears is the difference between those two ideas. There can be both obviously really bad shit, and at the same time, it’s all sacred.
I told you this is a demonstration of ignorance. So that’s the best I got.
Q: Okay. That is not satisfying to most people.
MT: Okay. Yes. Another metaphor is the mandala. Right. This is, I mean, directly what you’re describing, I would call the view of the sacred mandala. Right. The world is a sacred mandala. Well, every different color or every different thing has a space in the mandela. Right? If it’s a mandala, nothing’s left out. And in fact everything’s in its place. And it’s the everything in its place-ness that is the sacred perfection of it. Nothing gets cast out.
A third way of talking about it that is more personal is: when you touch into that openness at the center of everything. I hear from people all the time, even very awake people, people who are probably a million billion times more awake than me, that it’s neutral—it has a neutrality. And I’m like, you are stupid and wrong. That is not neutral. You’re right that everything is equally welcome—and it’s that equal welcomeness, equal welcoming of all things that is actually the definition of total love. Everything is welcome. Everything is allowed. That’s the pure perfection of it. It’s so loving. It allows everything. That’s the space for everything to happen. Not just good things—everything—to happen. Okay, that’s how I would really talk about it.
Q: I just wanted to report on an experience. So when you said about letting go of the boundary of the body, and then at some point
MT: which really means notice that you’re making a mental image of your body boundary, and just drop it.
Q: Yes. I just wanted to report that it helps.
MT: Good. What happens then?
Q: When a sensation arises, I just stop identifying, you know, I’m sitting here and my left eyebrow is itching. But at some point I automatically label that. I have a sensation, well this is my left eyebrow, and it’s itching, and that creates this fixation, first on the body part.
MT: This is what I’m calling creating a mental image. You’re building a world.
Q: I drop that, then it just becomes a sensation, and that sensation is kind of formless, and it helps, too.
MT: Now just notice that that’s what you’re making yourself into. It’s not just your left eyebrow. It’s every emotion, every memory, every everything about you as a person is that kind of Mr. Potato Head construction, where you’re just putting it all together. Just stop doing that—or at least notice that you’re doing it. And then something really different is experienced. Okay? So, you’re right on you’re right there. You’re right there.
One more thing.
Q: I’m curious what makes you work so hard.
MT: Oh. You ever take acid?
Q: No. Never. Never heard of it.
MT: Okay. Well, there’s a joke, but it’s kind of true. Like well, okay, I’ll go back. Let’s do some LSD history, and talk about when—might have been mushroom history at this point. When Timothy Leary first gave mushrooms to Alan Ginsburg—and if you ever met Alan Ginsburg, he’s kind of a very flamboyant personality. A lot of wild energy. And as soon as he got high, he was like, “I need to walk. I need to take off my clothes and walk naked in the streets and announce the new AEON.” And Timothy Leary was like, “Okay, let’s just wait a minute.” And then he was like, “No, I’ve got to take off my clothes and go out naked in the streets and announce the new AEON.” And he was like, “Cool, we’ll do it. Let’s just have some tea.” And he kept putting him off, you know, hour after hour after hour. So he never went naked in the streets announcing the new
AEON. But I know the feeling.
Wow, check this out. You know, like I wanted to show my mom. Come on, take some acid. This is great. You would love this. Anyway, that’s why.
Q: Okay, thank you.
MT: Thanks. Let’s end that there. Thanks for your reports and questions and curiosity and openness. I appreciate it.
Let’s sit silently in blessed silence. Let’s sit silently and meditate.
Very good. Thanks for joining me tonight. We’ll be back here next week, same time, same place. So hopefully you see you here again. Okay, see you soon. Bye everybody.
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