http://www.deepspring.org/library_other_transcripts/060805CTT_web.htm
Aaron: (beginning 5 minutes are lost due to faulty recorder;
Aaron has been speaking of karma and the resolution of karma, as
seen in the body) When the advanced practitioner dies, he is
left sitting in a room in a small house or room, closed, sealed.
Normally the body would rot because the body has impurities...
That’s part of what leads the body to rot when it’s no longer
alive, It’s dead meat, in a sense. The mind also has impurities.
Impurities and karma are not the same thing. Impurities are
impurities and karma is the result of the impurities. When the
impurities are completely resolved, the body simply dissolves,
literally. When people outside watch that room, they see rainbow
lights shining out of the room, and at the end of the week when
they go in, all that’s left of the body is the hair, fingernails
and toenails. Those are the only things that don’t completely
resolve, not because they have impurities but simply because of
their content. Hair and fingernails do not carry karma. They grow
and fall off, so they remain.
This being is an Arahant, who has completely resolved
everything. When there is karma, it continues to bring you back
into a new birth.
This may sound extreme. You may be thinking, “I am not yet
capable to do that." And you’re probably right! That’s not a
problem. Our concern here is not to turn you into Arahants
overnight but rather to help you understand the experience of karma
in the body, the energetic physical, and mental experience of karma
in the mind and in the body, and to learn how to release it.
The release will pick up speed as you practice with it. You’ll
hold on to less and less karma. This is a practice that will be
relevant for you at the time of your death, not after you die so
much as while you are dying. Lying there and seeing the places of
fear and contraction, you mingle them with light and space. It’s
basically a practice of non-duality. There is that contracted level
of the body and mind, there is the uncontracted level, and there
is, as SW pointed out in her notes, that which is beyond
contraction and non-contraction. When you know yourself to be that
which is beyond contraction and non-contraction, the movements of
contraction and non-contraction cease to matter. They cease to
matter before they cease. You rest in that space of knowing that
you are that which is beyond it all, and that knowing stops any
contraction around the arising contractions. Contractions still
arise. Awareness watches them arise, watches them pass away.
Sometimes contractions arise in balance, as with the breath, and
the balanced contraction as the breath comes in and goes out. The
heartbeat arises as balanced contraction; there has to be a
contraction for the heart muscle to beat, but there’s no concern
about that contraction. But if your heart suddenly started to beat
in an unusual way, out of rhythm, that irregularity would cause
concern, and a contraction around this unusual contraction. And
then the pace of fear builds up.
At any point you can stop it by stepping back into that space of
the one who is beyond contraction and non-contraction. It doesn’t
mean that there’s no longer concern about the heart that’s beating
out of rhythm, but it’s a kind concern that says, “Ah, so, look at
this. Unusual. Maybe we’ll have to call an ambulance." But the
calling doesn’t come from a place of tension and fear. Even if it
does, when you rest deeply in that place Ajahn Chah called “the one
who knows," when you rest deeply in that place, beyond contraction
and non-contraction, you not only do not create new karma but there
is the complete release of karma which has been--you’re going to
have questions about this--which has been illusion from the
start.
Let me try to give you a metaphor that will explain this.
Suppose I give you all some stage make-up and told you to make
yourselves up so that you are not identifiable anymore, so that you
were completely a different character. Color your face, age your
face and put on costumes. And then I ask you to be in the role of
the person you have made yourself up to be. (Said in old
voice) Be somebody very old, the face looking haggard, the
voice carrying that age. (Normal voice resumes) To play it
convincingly, you have to believe that’s who you are, or you can’t
convince anybody else.
You have put yourself in the guise of a very old person and you
really believe that’s who you are, and then the building catches on
fire. You have to get out quickly, but you can’t because you’re 97
years old! But in that moment you wake up and recognize, “that was
just a part I played," and right then you’re free of being 97 years
old.
Karma works the same way, to some degree. As soon as you
recognize that you have brought this whole illusion of karma in to
the mind and body and have been living it out for lifetimes, for
eons, there’s a certain release of it. Release of karma and
balancing of karma are 2 different things. It’s released; it was
illusion, and yet because there was a relative level of it, it
still must be balanced. You do not have to do the balancing within
the lifetime. You can; you do not have to.
So, at this point instead of being an Arahant with it, you might
be a non-returner. You do not have to balance it within the human
situation. But the karma that draws you back into a new birth is
gone.
Karma is also stored in the cellular tissue of the body. Many of
you can identify one weak area of your body, that’s been weak since
you were young, an area that’s more susceptible to injury such as
the knee, the back, the eyes, teeth. This is karma stored in the
cellular tissue of the body. These also can be released. Part of
what brings you back into a new birth is that the body itself is
pulling itself into the same old distorted form. When there’s no
longer that pull, the body doesn’t need to come back. The mind
pulls itself into a new birth; the body pulls itself into a new
birth. Both can be released.
The practice I want to teach you today is a first step toward
that release. When I say a first step, today it will bring release
but of course it’s taken you so many births to build up this karma
and there’s much to be released so you can’t expect that you’re
going to release it all in one day. But you may release something
significant today as you practice with this.
I want to shift here and talk for a moment about the dzogchen
tradition. In the Tibetan tradition, dzogchen is the highest
practice. So first there are the basic ngondro practices, as you do
with your vipassana. The spelling is “n-g-o-n-d-r-o." These are the
basic mindfulness practices and so forth. But it is recognized in
that tradition that resting in awareness takes you to that place
beyond contraction and non-contraction, to a place that’s able to
watch everything without building in the stories of the self.
These teachings are not just for Tibetans, of course. Many
within the Theravada tradition are now teaching with the use of
Pure Awareness. It’s a helpful tool. When I read some of Ajahn
Chah’s writing and the way he speaks of the “one who knows", it’s
clear to me that what he’s talking about is the one who rests in
Awareness. It’s no different; it’s just a different language.
Most of you have learned the basic dzogchen practice of
alternating resting in rigpa and analysis. This is the practice
where something arises and it pulls you out of rigpa – there’s a
loud noise or some other object that pulls you out of that place of
awareness, – you ask whatever question has worked for you, “what is
it?" or, “anything here that’s not an expression of the
Unconditioned?" You ask the question. As we’ve demonstrated it, as
you ask the question, the wisdom mind comes in. Space opens up.
It’s as if you’re looking close and you step back to see it for
what it is again. We don’t have to call this dzogchen, it’s simply
the mingling of wisdom and awareness. I’d prefer not to call it
dzogchen; just Pure Awareness practice, non-dual practice.
When you are very present with something, let’s say that you are
resting in spaciousness and suddenly a raccoon runs across the
floor, you’re startled. It runs over your feet. What is it? You
have been in a very open space, present, seeing this creature
without seeing it as something separate or different, and then
suddenly it runs across your lap and you are startled by it. You
pull out of this non-subject-object consciousness. Fear comes up,
what is it? Is it a rat? Is it a chipmunk? What is it? Is it
dangerous? What is it? As you bring attention to it, looking at it,
what is it? What is it? Suddenly you recognize it’s just a living
creature, a small sentient being. There’s space again. We don’t
have to call this dzogchen or vipassana, doesn’t need a name.
Or it may work that there was that moment of separation, then
relaxation into, “just a creature," but there is separation form
yourself because the body still reverberates with “startled." What
is it? What is this trembling, contraction or tension? Anything
“other than"?
You talked a lot last night about being present with objects and
whether just awareness is enough to bring liberation. You talked
about how when something is very painful, playing on old
conditioning, you’re pushed out of that centered space and are
unable to hold that wide spacious presence because you’re shaking
with the presence of this object, whether it’s somebody’s anger
with you or with body pain or whatever it may be. There’s not the
ability to rest in that one who knows. The small personality self
has become predominant and it’s trying to figure out, “How do I fix
this? What do I do?"
With enough practice, awareness starts to note, “Trembling,
fear," and if it knows how to work with fear, slowly the space
grows. So the dzogchen practice gives you another tool to work with
it through the repeated recognition that there is nothing here but
another expression of the Unconditioned. This anger is an
expression, this fear is an expression, and this self-judgment is
an expression. I don’t have to be concerned about it. Return to
that space of balance.
Most of you have found at least some degree of success in
working with this. You have learned to work with this practice to
the point that when you are sitting with your eyes open doing
dzogchen practice and something shakes you out of that space,
you’re aware, “I’m no longer in rigpa; the everyday mind is
predominant. What is it? Anything separate here?" and watch tension
dissolve and mind come back into that space. Few of you can stay
stably in that space for a length of time, but most of you have
learned to hold that space in a meditation practice, and return to
it again and again. And you have found the power of the practice
that allows you to hold that space.
But things still pull you out, yes? Anybody who doesn’t get
pulled out?
In the Tibetan tradition the practice you have learned/ are
learning is given the name trekchod, cutting through; The
practice that may follow trekchod is called togyal. The
beginning of togyal practice is the practice of mingling whatever
has come with light and space until it dissolves and it is clearly
seen, “There is nothing there that’s solid; there never has
been."
Remember that I do not teach you trekchod or togyol; I teach
related practices but I am not a Tibetan teacher and these may be
quite different in articulation than such a teacher would use. You
will find the end result the same.
As we do trekchod-like practice, it has the effect to, let us
say, wash off that stage make-up I had you put on 10 minutes ago.
You look in the mirror and instead of seeing the 97-year-old, you
see “Ah, this is make-up on the outside. I’ve can wear it when I
like but I can also wash it off. I don’t have to create a
self-identity with it." But there is still a doer, one who releases
the make up, the self, so there is still some layer or self
awareness.
The togyal-like practice has a further effect. It breaks through
residual self-identity, and thus, it brings you to the place that’s
free of karma because the karma exists only in the
self-identity.
First let me hear any questions about what I’ve said so far, and
then we’re going to do some meditation together. I’m going to teach
you the basics of the practice and then ideally send you off to the
woods, lake, sky, and the earth, to do some practice with it. Any
questions about what I’ve said so far?
Q: It seems to me that this practice sounds like a kind of fluid
movement between meditation practice and a contemplation
practice.
Aaron: I think that’s accurate. It’s got one more step, between
meditation and contemplation, non-meditation. Non-meditation is
simply that place of resting in. Once you’re there, there’s no
longer meditation, there’s just pure being. But when something
shakes you out of true being, then there’s the contemplation, what
has pulled you out, the meditation that is the passageway back into
pure being, and then resting in pure being.
Q: About the practice of asking, “Is there anything here other
than the Unconditioned?" What about people who are living with
terrible conditions, bombing of their homes in wartime? Is this
just a nice practice for easy living?
Aaron: Not at all. I first learned this practice in a lifetime
in which the being that I was experienced terrible suffering and
deprivation, terrible abuse by those who had enslaved me, by those
who killed my neighbors and my loved ones. It was more challenging.
It’s more challenging to look at a murderer who is holding a gun at
your head and say, “Not other-than," but if non-duality is a truth
when it’s peaceful, it’s a truth when it’s violent. Nothing
other-than.
This was a lifetime of great progress toward freedom for me. The
lifetime ended in a brutal way, first watching my family killed and
then being killed myself, cruelly killed. I’m not saying just
because it’s not other than, there’s not a compassionate
resistance. It’s not compassionate to allow someone to kill you.
Bad karma for them! I did resist. I did what I could to protect my
family. We had hidden in a cave. We were found, pulled out and
killed with sharp swords, knives. There’s a choice. Once it’s
beyond me to save my family and myself. I can die with hatred and
separation and know that’s going to bring me into a new lifetime
based on that karma at the moment of death. I can hold hatred
against the ones I see killing my children. Or I can release
hatred, seeing the hatred also is not other-than. It has arisen out
of conditions, it’s based on fear. Just as that which is beyond
contraction and non-contraction observes them both, that which is
beyond love and hatred observes them both. It’s a place of perfect
peace, deep wisdom, that sees these “others" acting out of their
conditioning, just as the human that I was, was acting out of my
own conditioning. This is the trekchod practice. At that moment
there’s nothing to forgive, there’s just compassion for the human
condition – the word “condition," I wish there was another word for
it. The human situation in which the conditioning keeps playing
itself out – and shifting into that spaciousness which is
completely non-contracted. At that stage, compassionate awareness
sees the human tension, pain and struggle. Then the togyal practice
in which that pain and fear is merged with light and space until it
all dissolves. There is no longer any doer, nor anything to be
done, just clarity and compassion.
This paved the way for the following lifetime in which the being
I was became completely realized, free of need to return. So there
still was some karma left at the end of that lifetime that drew me
back into the new lifetime, but it prepared the way for the next
lifetime in which there was liberation. I don’t think it could have
happened in that way had there not been such trauma at the time of
death. But also, I had prepared for this all of my life, for this
end of my lifelong practice.
I lived in a part of Tibet where there was some invasion by
neighbors who were warlike people, wanting conquest over others. So
it was a very difficult time. It was very powerful.
I am not saying it’s easy, but remember you are not here for
comfort and convenience, you’re here literally to become liberated,
but to become liberated doesn’t mean just not to have to come back,
to become liberated means to learn to hold this place of love and
non-duality irregardless of conditions. Because once you have
learned that, then you are able to move on to the next phases of
your growth and nothing can shake you out of it. Only then can you
truly be of support to other beings that are caught in violence,
hatred, and fear. Whether you choose to come back as the
bodhisattva or whether you serve as I do now from the spirit plane,
you are able to hold that space of love. Are there questions?
Q: In dzogchen, seems that there are no concepts, just hearing,
just seeing, just feeling, just awareness. Would it be correct and
true to say that it is a subtle contraction whenever concept should
arise? For example, resting in dzogchen practice and here is
raccoon is just seeing. When concept “raccoon" arises, is that a
subtle contraction out of resting in rigpa?
Aaron: You’re correct, Q, that the concept and separation arise
together. When there is the concept that labels something, it
labels it that way out of the sense of separation. I said they
arise together. One might come first, but so quickly on the heels
of the other that they seem to arise together. However, at that
moment, if there is separative consciousness, because that’s really
what it is, as soon as there’s this “other," there’s a self.
Separating. As soon as the separating is seen as simply arisen out
of the flow of conditions, not other-than in the sense that it
comes from somewhere else, it’s just the outflow of conditions,
you’re right back in awareness.
To take it a step further, with that separating there’s usually
contraction in the energy field or in the body. It’s sufficient
simply to observe, “Contracting, contracting." Who is contracting?
What is this contraction? It’s just the outflow of fear and the
conceptualizing habit energy.
Ignorance is simply the manifestation of the dualistic fixation.
Three words pertain to ignorance: avijja is the Pali word
translated as ignorance. Avijja is comprised of moha, which is
delusion of a separate self, and annana or non-knowledge. So those
two combined words, delusion and non-knowledge, are ignorance. They
interrelate so it’s never just one or the other. Delusion sees the
world as duality; self and other. It grows out of fear which
solidifies self. Non-knowledge begins as the non-knowledge of all
phenomena as manifestations of Pure Mind. Thus, it is also fixated
in duality, the dualities of light and darkness, good and evil,
Pure Mind and not pure mind, and so on. Annana may be read as
simply something you haven’t met yet, and yet you may already know
it in the wisdom of the heart, but fear creates unwillingness to
acknowledge that knowing. Both come together for the word avijja.
Please understand that this is an oversimplification.
So moha is the habit energy of that aspect of ignorance that is
deeply grounded in the idea of a concept of separation. Not just
separate self, but duality. When you practice in such a way that it
continually keeps cutting through the concept of duality each time
it arises, eventually you shift it. This duality is just a concept
you keep creating and creating, over and over again. It’s just
habit energy. You don’t have to do that any more. And then there’s
Awareness. Connected, nothing separate.
Let us work with the practice up to this point, and there will
be time for questions later. What I would like us to do is to move
outside onto the front porch where you have a view of the sky and
water. Bring your folding chairs out… and I’m going to lead you in
a guided meditation. I’m going to return you to Barbara now for a
moment so she can explain the plan for the day. We’ll go out there
and I will come back into the body and lead the guided meditation.
I return the body to Barbara.
Aaron: I understand that you all need to work with this more.
Rather than giving you 10 or 15 minutes to practice and then new
instructions, I’m going to give you a series of instructions and
ask you to take them one at a time into your longer practice
period.
The first instruction is to see the non-separation of the
elements, to allow the elements in the world around you to mingle
with each other and with space and light. You have read this in the
previous transcripts (Emerald Isle, May 2006)
After you have practiced that and feel somewhat stable at it,
begin to work with the elements within the self, I would ask you to
bring forth an unpleasant memory of the last day or two, something
that was emotionally or physically painful, a place of anger,
sadness, or confusion that brought contraction. Bring this memory
into your mind and see if you experience the heavy density of it.
The memory probably creates a knot somewhere in your body, a knot
of anger or sadness or fear. What I want you to do first is to
identify this heavier space through feeling of it, through hearing
it, through seeing it, even by tasting it. Take your time.
(pause)
It may seem subtle, just an area of contraction, an area of
tension that feels heavier in the energy field than the rest of the
energy field. Most of you have found such. If not, then just listen
to the instructions and work with it later.
Holding this knot, this heavier, darker or denser aspect of
being, in the same way that you allowed the elements to mingle in
the earth around you – the earth, water, air, and fire, with space
and light—in the same way, allow this heaviness to mingle with
light and space.
You are not doing or creating anything. When I say, “you allowed
the elements to mingle," you allowed yourself to see the truth of
the intermingled elements. You did not mingle them, they’ve always
been mingled. You simply allowed yourself to see it. In the same
way, allow yourself to see the space and light within this dense
knot.
This is what I would call karmic knot…
You are not fixing it, you are simply coming around to look at
it from another side. From one side it looks solid. If you could
picture a round disk, a hoop, covered with a screen material, a
mesh, if you look at it from one side you’ll see a solid straight
line but as you come around 90 degrees, you see that it’s just a
hoop covered with mesh, nothing solid at all.
As we spoke of last night, your primary tool is the skillfulness
to attend to that which arises and pulls you off balance, to attend
to it with kindness by which I mean to bring attention to it, and
to work with it in whatever way is skillful to invite centeredness.
In the same way, take this knot that you have seen and attend to it
by seeing that this knot that seems so solid is not solid. As I
have phrased it earlier, as this 97-year-old face that’s covered
with make-up and age lines and so forth is not all it seems. It’s
just painted make-up. The knot in a sense is just painted make-up,
painted by your old conditioning. Allow yourself to see it
expressing, mingled with space and light and watch what happens to
it. If and when it goes, simply rest in spacious awareness.
Again I will be quiet for a few minutes…
(pause for several minutes)
That is essentially the practice for now. I know you will have
questions. Unless there are pressing questions now, I would prefer
you simply go off and try it and then you can bring your questions
to me based on your experience. Especially I would like you by the
water or on the water. You do not have to immerse yourself in the
water although you’re welcome to. Use a boat or choose a seat on
the shore where you can see the sun rippling in the water. The
elements in the earth simply serve as reminder of the energy and
the elements moving through yourselves, for of course the same
elements that are here in the earth around you are here in the
self.
The karmic knot does not relate specifically to the elements,
the elements are simply an area where it’s easy to see the knot.
This is akin to the fact that you cannot see water vapor but when
you look up and see a cloud you know there’s water vapor there
because it’s pulled into a dense collection. So in a cloud you can
see water vapor. In the elements you can see the knots. In the same
way you can experience the denseness, habit energy, karma,
contraction, it’s a mix of all of these things. Just as that which
is beyond contraction and non-contraction observes contraction and
non-contraction, so that which is beyond contraction observes it
within the self and within the karmic knot. You deepen in insight
that what you most truly are, is that which is beyond it and not
the karmic knot itself. . The karmic knot is at some level an
illusion and you don’t have to be caught up in it anymore. It’s
really as simple as that.
It is a tremendously liberating practice. As you work with it,
after you begin to understand it, bring in something that is truly
difficult for you like an ongoing feeling of shame or unworthiness
and watch how it yields to this practice. It’s very powerful.
Are there any immediate questions about how to practice? We’ll
release you then until 1 o’clock…
(continued in link)