Digging into Experience and Experiencer
Introduction
Hello and welcome! I’m Michael Taft, and we’ll do a one-hour guided meditation tonight, followed by talking about stuff for a while, and then meditate some more. Let’s begin by just doing some stretching. You can do what I’m doing, or do your own version of what I’m doing, or do whatever you want—but make sure it feels good to you.
You guys want to do a little bit of mantra tonight? We’re on day eight or nine of Navaratri, the nine-night festival of the goddess, and so we’ll do the one I had written on the board before that we never used. It’s the seed syllables we’re used to using: Om, Aim, Hrim, Klim, Chamundaye, Vicce. Chandi is a really intense manifestation of Durga—super lion-riding, weapon-wielding, hyper-enlightened mega-goddess called Chandi, and so this is doing a bunch of goddess seed syllables: Om, Aim, Hrim, Klim, Chamundaye—to Chandi, Vicce—I bow. We’ll just continuously repeat it for a few minutes, but we’re not just going to intone it, the idea is first, to open up, to set aside the thinking mind—you don’t need it at all to do this, it just gets in the way. Just take the machinery of thought and just set it over here. Then, just notice, as soon as you do that, you’re in touch with everything—openness, wide awake, wide openness. Because, when you’re not trapped inside the little box of thought, you’re just wide open, with no boundaries at all, it’s big, big, big. So, from that place, just let the sound energy of Om Aim Hrim Klim Chamundaye Vicce manifest itself, and again you’ll get it as we repeat it.
Mantra: Om Aim Hrim Klim Chamundaye Vicce
Very good. Now, having set the machinery of the mind aside, and dwelt in wide open, wide awake space, and invoked this mega-enlightened energy, just allow yourself to rest that way. Outside the mind, outside of any thought, simply wide awake, wide open, in contact with essentially everything, because it’s not separate from anything at all. Let’s just breathe that way for a little while, in simple presence.
Each time you find yourself involved with thought, if you do, just set it back down. It can sit there and do its thing, but you’re just not really playing with it, not engaging it. Instead, we’re being wide open, wide awake, in simple, straightforward, presence.
Good. Now, of course, you’re welcome to just continue doing that, and that could be the whole meditation. Just stay in open presence, uninvolved with any thought. But if you want to do the meditation equivalent of dressage horse training, we’re going to go through some dressage horse training, some circus pony stuff, so let’s try that now. So, from this place of open awakeness, begin to notice the rising and falling of the breath—as if you’re going to do meditation on the breath, sensations in the body—but, again, from a very open place, not tightly focused on any one spot, but just from openness feeling the breath, like we often do. Wide open, awake space is just noticing this body sensation of breathing as if it’s the wind moving in the sky. Disengage from any thinking. Thinking is welcome to happen, we’re just not engaging.
Good. Now, I’m going to ask you a question, and you’re not allowed to answer the question by picking up your mind and using it to think. You have to just look for the answer. It’s the kind of question where, if I said, do you see an oak tree over there? You just look, and either see it or not. You don’t think too much about it. So, this is that kind of question, the kind of question where you just look, or just feel, or whatever. So, here’s the question, what is noticing the breath? Just like you would look around for something, look around, or feel around, or aware around, or whatever. Find what is noticing the breath.
If you start trying to figure it out and think about it, just put that old thinking thing back down, and just come back to looking. What is noticing this rising and falling breath in all this awake space? If you’re particularly clever, and you pick up your mind—you’re not supposed to do this—but if you pick up your mind, you might go, well, I know Michael says, or people say, you’re not able to find it, so I just know I’m not able to find it. I’ll just go back to breathing. No. You’ve got to keep looking and not finding. It’s not the kind of thing that it helps very much to know as an idea. You’ve just got to experience, again and again and again, that you can’t really find it.
What is it that’s noticing this breath? If you can, do it while you’re continuously noticing the breath, so it’s like, what is it that’s aware of that? Can you find it? Most of the answers that people will give come from the little thinking box—like, me, or my brain, or something like that. That’s that’s an idea. You’ve got to find it in experience, not an idea.
Good. Now, let go of that one, and come into simply feeling emotional sensations in your body. If you’re not having any emotional sensations, then just feel regular sensations. But, for most of us, there will be some trace of something in there—some flavor of joy, fear, sadness, anger, disgust, love, pride, shame, embarrassment, etc., some little flavor of some of those. So you find those flavors in your body sensations—again, not thinking about them—but just feeling them in the body. Feeling them in the meat, so to speak, the various flavors of experience in the body that come about from emotions. We’re doing the same thing we were doing with the breath—there’s this vast, wide open, wide awake space, and there are these movements of emotional sensations within that. Now, again, if you’re not having any emotions at all—that’s very unlikely, but it’s possible—then you just feel regular sensations moving through awareness—like breathing or the feeling of the air on your skin, or the feeling of your spine—whatever sensations arise. Just notice those moving through awake space. Very often there’s just a bunch of little tiny, low-grade emotions happening—maybe very transient, maybe very background-y emotions.
It’s a very powerful meditation to just sit with what your emotional body sensations are. If you did an hour of that a day, it would change your life within a month, like forever. It’s really powerful to sit with what you’re feeling, not trying to change it, just being with it. Not trying to figure it out, either. No ideas about it—remember, the box of thought is set aside—we’re just feeling now. You can keep doing that, of course, but I promised circus pony training.
So, now, what’s aware of those emotional sensations? Look. What is it that is feeling them? What is it that knows it’s feeling them? Don’t try to figure it out, just try to find it—Look. Look. What feels the emotions? What is aware of the emotional sensations? Find it. Keep looking, and again, every time you think you’re figuring it out, stop doing that. Come back to looking and feeling.
It’s an interesting thing. Notice that you know the emotions are being felt. Something is aware of the emotions. So, it’s not like there’s no awareness there, but you also cannot find exactly what it is. If you think you’ve pinpointed it, then try to find what’s pinpointed it.
Very good. Now, you can stick with that, if you want. Or, as wide open, wide awake space, listen to the sounds of the world around you. Notice that this boundaryless, openness—this boundaryless, awake, openness, experiences a sound simply passing through. Almost as if it’s completely transparent, and sound just moves through without any impedance of any kind—and there’s a lot of sound. No moment of sound is the same, it’s continuously changing. So just tune into that. Allow awake space to be aware of the soundscape.
Remember not to engage with thought, just be awakeness, listening in simple presence. Wide open awake space listening, or we could even say, simply hearing. And then, you guessed it, now ask yourself, What hears? What is it that hears? As usual, don’t reach for the bag of potato chips. Don’t reach for the thinking mind—that habitual thing. Just look. What’s listening? What’s hearing? What’s awake to sound? Find it. Find what’s hearing. Obviously, hearing is happening, so something’s hearing, but when you try to find it, it’s oddly elusive. What is it that hears, that is aware of sound? Can you find it? Keep looking.
Good. Again, you can keep working with that if you wish. Otherwise, open your eyes, and you can either look at the ground in front of you, or the whole room at once, or whatever, do this with a soft gaze. So you’re not hard staring at anything, your eyes are relaxed awake space, aware of sight. In this case, it helps to be aware of sight in sort of a colors-and-shapes-and-highlights-and-shadows-and-textures kind of way, rather than really tuning into objects. More like tuning into patterns of light. So, instead of your eyes reaching out and grabbing stuff, you’re letting all the sight, kind of paint itself on the back of the cave of your skull. It’s just a feeling—so, wide awake, wide openness, aware of vision.
Then again, What is aware of sight? What knows sight? Find it. Don’t think about it, don’t figure it out. Look for what is seeing. Find the seer. Isn’t it that you can’t—even though seeing is happening, you can’t find a seer. Keep looking and looking. It’s not enough to hear me say that you can’t find one, because that’s just an idea. You’ve gotta look until you really notice you can’t actually find one.
Good. Feel free to close your eyes again, if you want, or to leave them open, if you wish. And, you can do any of those ones we’ve been working with, but now we’ll do something a little more challenging. Allow yourself to notice what’s happening in thought—not engaging with it—but aware of it. Aware of the thought activity. See if you can be wide open space, awake to this thought activity that’s just occurring—blah blah blah—but not engaged in it. That’s a little bit harder. If you can do it successfully, sit as open space, with just this stream of unfixed thought sensation passing through awareness, like wind in the sky. That’s a very nice meditation.
Good. Now, ask yourself, what is aware of thought? What knows thought?—And then, look. Look comprehensively. Try to find what knows thought. It’s interesting, that if you’re really looking for what knows thought, it’s very hard for any thoughts to arise. It’s kind of fascinating. If you find yourself caught up in thought, the minute you notice, try to find what it is that knows thought—and just keep looking. Every thought that arises, what is it that knows that thought? What is it that knows that next thought? Find it. What knows that next thought? Find it.
Good. Now, do it all at once. What knows experience—any experience–thinking, breathing, emotions, body sensations, sounds, sights—all of it. What knows? What is having this experience right now? Try to find it. If you want to, you can even do a comprehensive body scan. Look in every spot in your body, from the top of your head, tips of ears, tips of your fingers, tips of your toes. Every spot, every joint, every muscle, every bone, every organ. Find what knows. Find what is experiencing, what’s aware of this? What even is this right now? Look.
Even better, look for what’s even doing it. What’s looking? What’s trying to find all this stuff? What is doing the meditation? Find the doer of this meditation. Somewhere in this vast awake space, there’s some sense of doing going on. What is that? Find it. What’s aware of that doing?
Okay, so I keep talking about being awake space. Can you find awake space? Does it have a center or a boundary? Is it a thing you can locate? If so, what’s locating it? Keep looking—don’t think about it. Can you find the center of awake space? Can you find where awake space is coming from? What was the beginning of awake space? How long has awake space been here?
Very good. Now, let awake space chant the goddess Cundi Mantra, and ask, who is chanting? What is chanting? Can you find the chanter?
Om, Aim, Hrim, Klim, Chamundaye, Vicce
Very good, we can end the guided meditation there—or we could keep going—but let’s end it there. Feel free to keep doing the inquiry continuously, forever, for the rest of your life. What’s actually having this experience right now? Just keep looking. It’s a really interesting search, because it keeps pointing to something very specific. Obviously, you’re aware of breathing, that’s an easy thing to be aware of—it’s not as if you’re a rock or a piece of plastic, which presumably has no awareness of breathing at all. There’s awareness of breathing, but if you look for what is aware, you can’t find it.
Did anyone find what is aware of breathing? Seriously, did anybody find it? If you do, you know, oh, there it is. It’s like a thing in the middle of my head, then just try to find the thing in the middle of your head—and you won’t be able to find it, because what’s looking at that? You never can locate it. What’s aware of the breathing? So, that’s interesting. There’s awareness of breathing, obviously. There’s experience of breathing—that’s really happening. It’s not nothing, but you can’t find it.
In another way, you can’t find what’s aware of it. You can’t find to whom that experience is happening. So, it’s weirdly both an experience, and kind of, not one at the same time. It’s just odd. Who’s at the center of all experience? You can’t find them. We looked at breathing, we looked at emotions. Presumably, most of us feel like our emotions are a pretty important thing about us. My feelings about this, my opinions about that, my feelings matter—and, of course, they do, and there’s an experience of emotion there. It’s obvious, but what’s aware of them? What is it that’s having those emotions? That’s the funny thing—you can’t find it. There’s all this experience happening, what’s it happening to? And, again, you can give a mental idea answer—it’s happening in my body, or my brain—but those are ideas. You can’t find it in your own experience, right now.
Same thing—we looked at thoughts. Presumably, if, maybe I’m not my emotions, but I’m definitely my thoughts, right? That’s me, that’s thinking that stuff, that dialogue, is who I am. And they’re happening, right? Verbal thoughts, visual thoughts—I have tons of visual thoughts all the time. Some people weigh more verbal thoughts, some people weigh more visual thought, some people both. I have a lot of both happening, and it’s like, what’s aware of that? What’s having thoughts? It’s easy to go, well that’s your brain, but is it? I mean, can you feel your brain having thoughts? Your brain, in that way, is just an idea.
So, here’s all these thoughts happening, with nothing having them—at least nothing you can find. Same thing with the sounds of the world around you. [Recording abruptly ends]
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