Meditation – The Non-dual path
11/24/2024
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Transcript of the Meditation
Hello, everyone. Lovely to be with you. Welcome.
So if we can sit comfortably, and welcome our experience just as it is.
A sort of relaxation into presence.
You don’t need to engage the mind.
Simply relax your body, allow things to be as they are.
You can, for the duration of this meeting, suspend the past; and don’t be concerned about reaching any state or any goal.
Rather, invite yourself to sink deeper and deeper into presence.
So the mind is invited to relax, to rest. No activity. Nothing to pursue. Nothing to resist.
Effortless presence, effortless awareness.
There is nothing that you need to do in order to hear these words or to notice the sensations within your body.
They’re just there: a gentle breath, the sensation of your feet on the ground, or without any feet and without any ground.
Awareness is effortless.
It is not something that you need to think about. It’s not something that you need to remember or to become more aware.
All of that is thinking, thoughts. These thoughts appear to you.
What is this you?
They appear in awareness, don’t they? Meaning in this openness, whatever it is, which is effortless, which is indisputable.
There is a reality which perceives something, whatever it is.
Maybe that which you perceive could be a hallucination. But even though it may be a hallucination, there is a reality which perceives it, Awareness, Consciousness, which is your very self.
It’s effortless. Effortlessness.
There is a crucial understanding, which is the understanding that I, whatever that is, whatever refers to itself as I, is this effortless awareness.
The understanding that I is not the body-mind entity, is not a form, is not an object in which you perceive.
I is the perceiving aspect.
The knowingness, that which is and knows it is.
For so long, we have been assuming and believing ourself to be a male, female form, some sort of form, something, somebody, someone.
A bundle of of what? Images, preferences, sensations, beliefs, ideas, notions?
Are you a bundle of something or this pristine awareness?
The light of knowingness, the formless aspect.
This is crucial understanding about the significance of I, the reality of I, as that whatever it is which perceives, which is, knows it is.
Because there is no isness, there is no being without knowingness, without awareness. They go hand in hand.
So you don’t need to look for yourself somewhere in the mind, somewhere in past, in future.
You don’t need to search for yourself and find yourself as a narrative, as somebody born in time and space and with past trauma and future hopes.
No!
That is just a mind narrative. Because right now in this moment, and it’s always this moment, there is no narrative, just pure awareness.
Because you cannot leave now. You cannot leave nowness, to go into the past, into the future… it’s not possible.
You cannot leave the now, because you are not an object.
You are not in limited form that you perceive or that you conceive of.
And if you are not the limited entity, if you are this effortless awareness, is this awareness limited?
Is this awareness a female or a male awareness?
Is this awareness aging? Younger awareness or an older awareness?
Does this awareness have a shape, a triangular shape or a hexagonal shape?
No!
I, Awareness, do not have any phenomenal attributes, no limitations, no phenomenal structure.
It’s formless, invisible to the senses, and yet, absolute reality.
So what is it that suffers?
What is it that is disappointed?
What is it that is ill?
What is it that is lacking?
It cannot be this, formless awareness.
What is it? How real is it?
Can you burn the wide open sky? Can you slice the ocean in segments?
The images that appear on the screen, if it’s a fire, the screen does not burn. Or if it’s the image of a storm, or the ocean, nothing is happening to the screen.
Because the screen is not a thing as we conceive of things.
Those are conceptions, maybe useful conceptions.
Namarupa, names and forms.
I have a certain function, but they do not refer to reality. They do not refer to awareness, to consciousness.
So in the non dual path, there is the understanding about reality.
That reality does not belong to the dream, does not belong to the content of awareness. That reality does not appear and disappear like thoughts appear and disappear, memories, sensations within the body, appear and disappear.
And the non dual understanding is about that which neither appears nor disappears.
And the understanding that all perceptions refer to one reality: the reality of consciousness, of awareness.
All sensations, thoughts, memories, perceptions appear within awareness and at zero distance from awareness.
The perceived is not separate from the perceiving aspect.
They are one. Like your night dreams, they’re not separate from the dreamer, the dreamer’s mind, the content of the dreamer’s mind is not separate.
Zero distance. No space in reality.
And yet I perceive the mountain out there. What makes it out there? Take a look.
Right now, with your eyes closed, you may perceive a sensation or a thought.
Where is it? There’s no out there.
And then we open our eyes and, suddenly, we claim that there is an out there.
Just because the eyelids have lifted by a quarter of an inch, suddenly there is an out there.
Out there where? What is this out there?
What is this distance that we believe in and experience of it, as if it has a reality of its own.
Sometimes we say, it is far apart from me. The tree is a 100 yards distance from me.
What me? Yes, the tree is a 100 yard distance from the body. The distance from the tip of your nose to the tree is a 100 yards.
But the nose is the nose of your body, not you.
Believing that you are the body is an aspect of ignorance. Denying the body is an aspect of ignorance as well.
The understanding about I, about consciousness, about reality, is that I perceive. I am the perceiving aspect. I perceive the body. I perceive hunger. I perceive the toes of this body. I perceive various sensations. I perceive images of the body, maybe.
I am the perceiving aspect, the invisible reality, the knowingness.
So in the non-dual understanding, in the non-dual path there is the understanding.
There are various understandings which relate to consciousness, to awareness, to reality, to I, to the perceiving aspect.
And there is also the living of that. Living as this borderless presence, this effortless presence, which is neither resisting nor seeking, which is not holding on to any beliefs.
This open field of awareness, this effortless welcoming.
Welcoming without welcoming. Doing without a doer, no personal separation.
I and the universe are one as I am living that in life, in relationships, in interactions, in the many situations that life presents.
To explore living as this formless openness, not always referring to I, me as a separate entity.
Not referring to the past and the future except when it’s practically needed. Not to referring to oneself as any entity, to be not-knowing, walking the walk, living this understanding, allows this understanding to embody you, to embody itself.
Dissolving all barriers, all impressions of separation. That is the gift.
So if you have any questions, any things that you would like to explore, make sure to unmute yourself.
You can raise your hand or use the icon on the bottom of the screen, where the heart is. It says ‘React’.
And at least turn on your videos, if you don’t mind, because I’d like to see you.
So, any questions?
