Dropping the Ultra Ball – Deconstructing Yourself
aka: Ultra-dropping the Ball
(originally streamed during the Covid pandemic)
Welcome to Thursday night with Deconstructing Yourself. Let’s begin, as usual, with some samatha. Last week we did a whole hour of just shamatha, breathing and relaxing. Tonight, we will go back to our normal set-up, and then do some fun, interesting stuff once we get ourselves in the zone. So, first we’ll do some shamatha, just breathing and relaxing, and focusing. A big part of samatha is enjoying it, and enjoying the pleasantness. You won’t go to Buddhist hell for enjoying your meditation. It’s perfectly fine to have pleasant feelings in the body, and have pleasant emotions when we’re doing shamatha.
Get in a nice posture. I want you to feel confidence in this meditation. This isn’t about getting it right, not about some technique that you have to chew through a hundred miles of broken glass to get correct. This is something that is worth doing at every level, right or wrong, good or bad, just have confidence, have openness, a slight sense of playfulness. This isn’t the end of the world, at least not tonight while we are meditating. So, let’s just settle into the posture, and allow the body to relax and become very still. One of the things I have you do–often we do the deep belly breathing. This stills the body and passifies the mind, and, if you do it for 10-15 minutes, you’ll start to feel some pleasant buzzy, tingling in the body, what we might call energy. That’s still together with the stillness, just a pleasant, yummy, bright energy. Almost like if you took an awesome hot shower, and you stepped out of the shower and your whole body is kind of humming on the skin. If you do deep belly breathing for 10-15 minutes, you’ll get that humming body energy, very pleasant, very relaxing, and easy to focus on.
So, for now, we are doing deep belly breathing. Long deep in-breath–to a level that is comfortable for you–then a long out-breath. Let’s do that for a little while.
Now that you are breathing and relaxing and settling in, I want you to allow the muscles of the eyes to release and relax and let go, so the eyes become completely relaxed and still. They might be flickering around a bit, but you’re not looking around inside your closed eyelids. They are just still, relaxed, no tension at all. You can test for tension by trying to open them. If you can’t, it’s because they are so relaxed you would have to tense them up to open them. So get them to the point where you can’t open them without tensing them back up. Then allow the cheek muscles, your lips, your mouth to relax, and your lower jaw to open just enough so that your upper and lower teeth are not touching, and your chin is slightly tucked. That opens the back of the neck in a very pleasant way. I want you to feel this relaxed stillness in your face. The whole face getting kinda melty, soft and relaxed, the scalp releasing. Any of the muscles of the back of the head or ears, or anywhere in the mouth, completely released, and the tongue floating in the mouth, as if it were a lingual zeppelin.
Good. Now, let’s relax the neck and throat and shoulders. Allowing that region to just release and let go and become soft. The shoulders rolling back and opening up, and allowing the upper arms, elbows, forearms, hands and fingers and thumbs to go limp, as though they had been stung by Shelob of Lord of the Rings. They go as limp as a boned fish, and they just relax and let go. No tension anywhere in arms or face, just open and easy with a pleasant easy energy, kind of melting, opening, releasing, a kind of soft glow. Feel your upper body as though it were a pat of melting butter. Continuing to breathe and focus. Notice how the breath can co-mingle with this pleasant energy in the body, and become fully confounded, confabulate together. The breath can be causing the bright, sparkly energy in the body, and this pleasant, relaxed, open energy in the body seems to be making the breathing happen. There’s this wonderful symbiosis between these two factors.
Now, notice that the upper chest relaxes in front, on the sides, in the back. The whole chest region becomes very soft, filled with a nice pleasantness, a nice glow, a nice buttery glow in the heart. Just feeling your whole upper body coming together, unifying, becoming one cohesive beautiful, relaxed energy.
Now, let’s include the lower abdomen, particularly the abdomen, noticing how the deep breathing in and out is allowing the belly to almost give itself a massage. The sides of the belly region and the back and the lower abdomen, all of that becoming very relaxed, open, super pleasant. Feeling some nice, smooth energy all the way from the bottom of the torso to the top of the head, both relaxed and open and energized and bright. Also, a little bit clear, not muddy, sleepy relaxation, but bright, clear relaxation.
Now, the hips, your butt and thighs and knees, lower legs, calves, shins, feet, and toes, all goes limp–totally relaxed, utterly no tension there. Notice now that the whole body is now one big glowing field of relaxed pleasant energy, that the breath is both soothing and opening, relaxing and massaging, and the energy is moving the breath and mixing with the breath in a delightful way.
If that is starting to resonate for you, you’re starting to get that sense of the breath, the energy and the relaxed muscles together, just let your mind dissolve into that. Let your whole awareness dissolve into that, so that it becomes the entirety of your focus, not in a tight way, but in a complete manner.
Now, in a lot of the Buddhist texts, they are very clear that space and awareness are different things. But they often say that if there is anything that awareness is like–like a metaphor–it is space. So, let’s drop into vast spacious awareness, just drop everything, concentrating on nothing at all, and allowing–just simply–the mind to rest in vast spacious awareness. If that’s available to you, just go directly there. Another way we can do something similar–not exactly the same–but very similar, is the dropping the ball technique, which is a kind of ungrasping.
To “do” dropping the ball, anytime the mind grabs onto any object of attention, just let go of that. If the mind grips onto a sound, listening to the sound of that dachshund trotting down the hallway, with a lot of pep in its step, you just hear that click-click-click of its toenails, I’m just going to let that go. If thoughts are arising, something about my life, blah, blah, blah, I just notice that the mind is getting interested in that, hanging onto that, I’m just going to relax, and let that go. If I’m really used to meditating on body sensation, or just did a whole bunch of that, and my mind is still going to the body, and hanging onto the body, I’m going to, instead, let go of that. So, we are just relaxing and opening the mind, relaxing and opening the mind.
I brought up the dachshund because that’s the dog that we are metaphorically playing fetch with. Remembering my old example that there are dogs that love to play fetch who go get the ball, run after it with great vigor and zest. And they come back, and dutifully and playfully drop the ball at your feet, because they know that’s how you pick it up and throw it again. Now we can have this flowing loose, open play. But there are some dogs–and in my mind that dog is a dachshund–that get their mouth on the ball and don’t let go of it. They even bring it back, but just sit there with the ball clamped in their teeth, growling. And now, the game is over. You can’t play ball that way. So, what do we want the dachshund to do? We want it to drop the ball. Let go, release. It’s a lot of effort to hang onto that ball and growl, taste the saliva of the tennis ball, or whatever. But you want to just metaphorically relax the jaw, drop the ball, and wag your tail. Every time you pick up the ball, you just drop it again. If the mind picks up a ball, you just drop it again and wag your tail. Happy, you just keep dropping the ball. Actually, you’re the world’s worst dog at playing fetch, but you’re really good at every time you pick it up, you just let go of it again. You are easy, open, and happy. So, let’s practice that.
Continuing to let go of anything that the mind grabs onto, I want you to make sure that you’re not getting aversion going. You’re not subtly pushing stuff away, or making it go away, or developing a kind of irritation when the mind grabs onto things. That’s just building aversion–we’re not trying to do that, not trying to build not liking. Instead, we’re just opening the mind and letting go. Letting go is not pushing away, it’s not disliking, it’s not trying to scrape some crap off your boots with a disgusted look on your face. You’re simply relaxing, and opening, like the flower is just blossoming, it’s totally, easy, relaxing, opening, effortless. And, whatever the mind was holding onto just drifts away of its own accord.
So, you don’t want to be building any aversion. We want to have a kind of holy indifference, or equanimity with whatever arises, and then we are just not grabbing onto it. So, there is quite a difference between just relaxing and dropping that ball, and kicking the yucky ball away and getting mad and frustrated with it. If you are doing that, just drop that, that’s just more gripping. If you’re trying to figure out, what does he mean?–just drop all that. This is about just dropping it, over and over again. Anything the mind is tightening around, the dropping is just a serene opening, a total letting go. Letting go, letting go, letting go, letting go. Still awake, still aware. Awareness itself is very bright, very clear, very lucid and awake. Letting go of everything. Dropping the mother fucking ball.
Good. Of course, you are welcome to keep doing that, it’s a wonderful practice. You can do it for the rest of the meditation if you wish, that is perfectly fine. If you want to keep going, using this open, vast, spacious mind that is relaxed and alert, very broad, very awake, to do some exploration, then, follow along with me here. The thing I want to work with here is the sense of relief that occurs when we drop that ball. Instead of simply dropping it and letting go, I want you to actually bring a little bit of vipashyana clarity to that moment of letting go. So there is a little bit of effort, we are doing a little bit more meditation on purpose. I want you to notice that moment of dropping the ball, notice the moment of opening the mind.
There is a Zen text called Opening the Fist of the Mind, they see that as a similar metaphor, as just relaxing that fist. In that moment of letting go, I want you to notice the relief that occurs. That relief is very small, but it is noticeable. It’s not gigantic, not like a wave of enormous relaxation, pleasure coursing through the body. It’s just a little ahh, a tiny little pleasant letting go of something. Then, if the mind grasps onto something again, then that tension is just a little bit unpleasant, and the relaxing, the letting go – ahh, is a relief, is a little bit nice to let go, to do the ungrasping. So, I want you to–not generate or fabricate or pretend or imagine that niceness, that pleasantness, that relief of letting go–but allow awareness itself to be clear, lucid and vivid enough to notice a sense of a little bit of ahh. You don’t have to deal with that anymore–not aversion–just a kind of releasing and letting go. So, see if you can feel that pleasant relief in the ungrasping. You may have to look carefully to see that, but, give it a shot.
Continuing to just drop the ball, relax the mind, but really getting super clear about that moment of letting go, the moment of relaxing away from the object, and noticing the pleasantness, the mild little frizzon or thrill of pleasure at letting go.
Good. Now we’re going to try something a little different. Instead of letting go, or dropping the ball, or relaxing the mind in the way we have been doing, I want you to allow awareness to just notice that the object itself goes away. If we don’t hang on, the object will dissolve, vanish, it will become dreamlike or wispy like fog, smoke, or a soap bubble of its own accord. Even if we don’t let go, objects themselves reveal their emptiness and begin to vanish. And, as the object vanishes, the sense of being able to grasp it, to hang onto it will dissolve as well. Each time the object fades or dissolves or falls apart or quiets down and then vanishes, the grasping, the gripping vanishes too.
So, just notice that you can not only drop the ball, not only relax, open and let go, but the objects themselves are already doing that. If we don’t hang on and try to keep them together, keep them clear or solid with a kind of tension in the mind, they just dissolve of their own accord. So, in a way, they drop themselves. Here we are going to let the ball drop itself, or, notice that the ball isn’t a ball, the ball is empty, dissolving, is like the wind, is a dream. If that’s too weird, just come back to noticing the relief of dropping the ball.
Notice that each time an object fades, a perception vanishes, dissolves, relaxes, lets go, reveals its emptiness, shows its dream-like nature. Each time that happens, there is a similar relief, a similar letting go, kind of an inner aahh, each time an object does this dance of opening, relaxing, letting go, fading, dissolving, going away. That same sort of pleasantness is available. So just notice that.
Remember to expand this to objects that at first you’re not even aware that you are holding onto, such as the sense of awareness coming from a particular place in the body, the body sensations of that place; such as the sense of feeling the chair or cushion beneath you, or the mental images of the room around you. All these things we let be there, these orienting fabrications. See if you can notice that those are dissolving, unfabricating, deconstructing, fading, demonstrating their emptiness also. And, if they open up like that, at first it’s a major relief. They might come back, or it might be a little disorienting. If they come back, just notice that they fade again. If it is disorienting, notice that that sense of disorientation is some thought, some emotion that is also fading, dissolving, relaxing, opening, demonstrating its emptiness. So, bring in a sense of relief when it does.
Now, just relax and let go, deeper than you have ever relaxed and let go before. Allow awareness to drop, drop, drop, deeper, deeper, more and more expansive, more letting go of everything, letting go completely, falling backwards, down, down, down, letting go, opening, relaxing, letting go. Any time anything starts to arise, notice that it dissolves into emptiness. The ground, the surroundings, the sense of the body, the sense of a mind, the sense of the world, the sense of having a history, of being a person, of any reaction to experience, the sense of meditating, the sense of doing anything, of being anything, noticing anything at all–dissolves, fades and vanishes, over and over and over. Keep going. Don’t rest, keep allowing emptiness to reveal itself in any resting place. This is falling through space, nothing to impede the drop, and, at the same time, nothing and nobody dropping, and no space, and no direction, and no time, and nothing that’s not completely empty in all directions. Just ultra ball drop. Let go, let go, drop everything, everywhere in every direction, utterly empty, vanishing, not even there.
Not resting even now, continuing to release, noticing the emptiness even in the sense of doing anything, the sense of being anyone, the sense of noticing anything at all. Awareness itself–empty. Self and world–empty. Everything is completely empty, offering no ground, no place to land, no one falling, no refuge. Except, of course, the vast relief of that much emptiness, that much letting go, ungrasping, tremendous wave of pleasant relief. Almost a tsunami of letting go, of relief.
And, now, allowing things to begin to solidify again, materialize again. Maybe allowing some self and world to arise, allowing there to be orientation, direction, space, ground, a place to stand, a place to be. Imagining now, in your mind, the incredibly beautiful, celestial sound of a single bell ringing, as we end the meditation. Allow yourself to come back to yourself, in a sense. Fabricating enough to orient to the room around you. Feeling free to move and stretch. Opening your eyes, moving your head a little bit, to orient to the room. Feeling your body, gently moving your fingers and toes, and getting ready to ask some questions.
One of the ideas we are playing with here is that there is a gripping of the mind onto objects that has a certain tension or unpleasantness associated with it. When we either let go of the object, either we are not grasping onto it, or we are letting it go as an object–meaning that we allow it to become a non-object, we allow it to dissolve and vanish, which is another kind of ungrasping–we are going to notice this relief. It’s a relief from dukkha, the pain of hanging onto that thing. So, as we let go or notice the emptiness, and relax, it allows a real sense of pleasantness to arise, which is the lack of unpleasantness. The unpleasantness dissolves, then we are noticing that that feels good.
It’s an interesting conundrum because we do want to experience the world as lovely, bright, colorful, powerful, interesting, and at the same time, there is the sense that if we grab onto it in such a way that we make a real, solid object out of it, that can have its own unpleasantness associated with it. That can be unpleasant. So there is this in-between zone that is beautiful, where we are interacting with the world skillfully, powerfully, and at the same time there is a real sense of it being a dream, and that at any moment it can dissolve. At any moment we can let go, open up, so we are fully involved in the divine play, the lila. We are not backing out, or rejecting, or avoiding it, and also fully aware that it’s a play, a dream, that can fundamentally dissolve and open in that way. It’s a very beautiful, powerful way of understanding.
Michael:Any questions on this?
Questioner 1: Can you comment on the seeming disconnect from the drop-the-ball state and being able to behave in the world?
Michael: That is what I’m commenting on. If we sit down, and are nice and still, we can do this super, ultimate dropping of the ball–really letting go in a very deep way. If, on the other hand, we need to avoid traffic and cut vegetables for dinner, because we are eating at home, and we are getting good at cooking, putting peanut butter on a rice cake, we don’t want to break the rice cake. If you’re lost in a dropping the ball place, your rice cake might be at risk, so you do want to let it come together a little bit. Not just instantly notice the vanishing, but instead, enjoy the play, enjoy the upwelling of the world, noticing its display, and the display of you with it, and getting into it, engaging in a way.
So, there’s a little bit of non-dropping the ball, a little bit of coming together–and that’s fine, because, once you understand that, in a Matrix kind of way, there is no ball, it is empty and vanishing anyway, which is what we were doing in this meditation. Noticing that you can let go, or you can just notice there’s nothing there to let go of in the first place. Once you get good at that, then we can play with these in-between zones of engagement with the world and with everything interesting, powerful, beautiful, awful, terrible, tragic thing of life, we can engage with it very fully, very completely, while still never quite buying its object-ness. We are always able to dissolve into the dream at any moment. That is where the interplay happens, where the energy happens. I know that sounds a little paradoxical, but it is only paradoxical if we are trying to be absolutists. When we let things have some gray zones, some in-between areas to play, it begins to make more sense. It’s not just dropping the ball vs. not dropping the ball, it’s more about, can you notice that the ball is a dream to begin with.
Questioner 2: Someone is saying that the continuous dropping the ball felt effortful.
Michael: Notice that that sense of it feeling effortful is empty. Notice that if you are trying, it’s simply that the habit of grabbing back on is really sticky. So, that’s the part to notice the dream of, notice it’s dissolving, it is emptying out, and is empty of itself. And, who is it that feels like they are trying to begin with? Go deeper, not into the, “boy, this feels effortful”, but deeper into “who is it that feels there is effort happening anyway?”
Questioner 3: You mentioned that awareness and space are analogous modalities.
Michael: Actually, I didn’t say they were analogous, I said that space is a metaphor for awareness.
Questioner 4: Sometimes when I’m dropping the ball, I wonder if I am confabulating consciousness and vast spacious awareness, or fabricating self.
Michael: Well, don’t fabricate, if you are. If you are sensitive enough to be aware of that, just let go of that. If you are just sitting there wondering, am I fabricating? Well, that wondering is its own extra fabrication that you are hanging onto, so drop that wondering, or notice it’s dissolving, or let it go. So, if you are noticing the fabrication, drop that. If, on the other hand, it is just an intellectual question, that is even much easier to drop and let go of, because we are noticing its co-dependent arising, its construction. Everything is co-constructing.
So, if you have a tripod, you only have to knock out one leg–it can be any one of the three, but you only have to knock out one leg, and the whole thing falls over. So, we relax the hand, that’s a kind of letting go; we notice the emptiness, that another leg of the tripod. Actually, it’s a 5-legged tripod–there are other legs we can knock out–but you only need to knock out one of them to get this effect.
I noticed during the meditation that I’m getting used to just talking to this phone in this empty bunker, and at the same time, I am really aware of you guys out there. A lot of you I know personally, a lot of you I have never met personally, but I’ve talked with you a bunch on the phone, or on the internet, or via email, and so, I’m really noticing a feeling of love and togetherness, and just missing you. Just saying hi, I’m so glad you’re out there.
So, before we get too lost in the emptiness soup, and it sounds like I’m spewing nonsense–even though I’m actually saying something that is core Buddhist philosophy. Before we get too lost in that, I just want to remember to say, hey, you guys, I love you, I miss you, I can’t wait till we can get together again and meditate. I’m going to do a lot more online stuff, because that’s what we are about, for the next month at least in California. So, that’s how we’re doing it. It seems like you are quiet tonight on the questions. Feel free to comment on the video afterward, or send me an email on the deconstructingyourself.com website to tell me how it’s going, how you like or dislike the meditations. See you guys next week.
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