Final Guided Meditation (Day 5 June 2022 Retreat)

Channel: Simply Always Awake

Transcript

Language: English (original, Whisper AI)

[0:02] So, as we arrive in this moment, from nowhere, something arrives in this moment from nowhere

[0:15] in specific, nowhere in particular, from an unknown place, an unknown time, but finds

[0:25] itself here as this experience.

[0:35] We see what never holds on, acting as the one who's letting go is unnecessary, because there

[0:45] is endless release here.

[0:51] When we see, when we feel and perceive this through the sounds, through the sensations

[0:58] in the body, through the breath, when we directly perceive that this comes from nowhere, and

[1:08] it goes nowhere.

[1:13] The aliveness is here now.

[1:17] We're relinquished of the need to let go.

[1:21] There's no one to stop grasping.

[1:26] Even if there's grasping, it's already letting go.

[1:32] There's something here that's vastly beyond our comprehension, both in magnitude and subtlety.

[1:47] It has a sublime character, and it is quite humbling.

[1:59] So, when we acknowledge and surrender to the truth that we don't know where this comes

[2:07] from, this sound, this body feeling, this movement of consciousness, then we don't have to figure

[2:27] out where it's going, we don't have to figure out what to do with it.

[2:39] And then it is its own teaching, its own lesson, that doesn't need to be structured into thought

[2:47] or consciousness.

[2:51] No notes need to be taken.

[2:56] We can stay with the immediacy because we see that's all there is.

[3:07] Where does past meet future?

[3:09] Only right here.

[3:11] And when we see what right here is, we feel what right here is.

[3:19] We breathe right here.

[3:26] We see that past and future are illusory.

[3:45] Past and future are a simple tendency of thoughts to try to build a bridge over this moment, eternity.

[4:02] But they can't really ever do that.

[4:07] And the way we stay in contact with that truth is through surrender.

[4:13] Feel the letting go that's always happening.

[4:17] The immediate release that's always happening.

[4:22] The disintegration that's always happening.

[4:30] And only then can we fully recognize, inhabit, all that is available here.

[4:45] If we try to hold on, we have to try to span this moment with time, with the future and the past.

[4:58] When we don't try to hold on, we intimately know the endless flux.

[5:15] The endless change and dissolution, reformation.

[5:32] Boundless.

[5:36] Formless.

[5:39] Clarity.

[5:43] When you take one breath,

[5:48] you intimately know this clarity.

[6:00] Breath doesn't happen in time.

[6:07] Breath brings us back here, where there is timelessness again and again.

[6:26] Breath brings us back here, where there is timelessness again and again and again.

[6:28] It's an endless reminder of flux, release, and embodiment of all that is.

[6:47] Breath.

[6:48] All sensations.

[6:49] Breath.

[6:50] All sounds.

[6:52] All forms.

[6:54] And the empty nature of all.

[7:00] Is known in this one breath.

[7:13] What happens when we don't label in-breath and out-breath?

[7:20] We just focus and then relax and release into the sensation of breath.

[7:30] Don't imagine anything.

[7:38] We don't apply a practice.

[7:46] Simply let the breath be the entirety of experience.

[7:50] We don't apply a practice.

[8:32] If we need to remind ourself of what the natural release feels like.

[8:45] What it feels like to never hold or grasp.

[8:50] Then we reattune to the breath.

[8:58] And we remind ourself to let go of any labels of breath.

[9:12] Any visual images of the body, the chest, air movement.

[9:23] And just return to the immediate experience, the feeling, the sensation of breathing.

[9:50] Is it body breathing?

[9:54] Or world breathing?

[10:03] When we don't hold a thought or an image?

[10:10] The answer is clear.

[10:23] When we don't make the first distinction, the answer is clear.

[10:36] And it's only found in the breath itself.

[11:00] Is the breath separate and distinct from other experiences right now?

[11:05] Such as sounds, other body sensations, tight areas, relaxed areas.

[11:20] Or is it all of that, just as it is the breath?

[11:30] Can you find where sound breathes?

[11:46] When you don't entertain thoughts, including doubts, then it's quite obvious.

[12:23] Feel the pressure to be what's worse.

[12:31] Thank you.

[13:00] As the illuminating nature of this, this that we're calling breath, becomes more prominent

[13:18] in your experience, then even thought cannot distract.

[13:28] No thought can touch or alter this vastness, this clarity.

[13:42] No distraction can alter this clarity.

[13:51] No judgment can gain a toehold in this intimacy.

[14:12] No doubt can drive a wedge between you and an intimate, vast, clear experience.

[14:30] Because all of that is conceptual.

[14:41] The belief that there's something apart in any way can't touch.

[14:52] You can't alter what has never known any order of separation, distinction.

[15:10] When there's no distinction between form and formlessness, where could a thought get a toehold?

[15:26] What could a doubt attach itself to?

[15:32] It would be like trying to put a sticky note on the wind.

[15:46] We're trying to watercolor inside the ocean.

[16:00] Nothing sticks here.

[16:11] Even form is formless.

[16:27] Nothing grasps here.

[16:30] Because even grasping is releasing.

[16:49] What if the first is the last, and the last is the first?

[17:00] What if the bottom is the top, and the top is the last?

[17:03] What if the self is the bottom?

[17:12] What if the self is the other, and the other is the self?

[17:19] Where is the distinction going to lie or appear?

[17:44] When the fish swim in the sky, and the birds fly in the ocean?

[17:56] Where are you going to make a stand?

[18:01] Where can you rest your head?

[18:06] Where can you plant your flag?

[18:25] When the breath is the sounds, and the sounds are the breath.

[18:41] And the movement of thought is the great blue sky.

[18:49] Where could suffering possibly exist?

[19:05] And what need is there to try to rest where no suffering exists?

[19:10] What if the world is the best?

[19:39] What if the world is the most likely that you have in the sky?

[19:48] What is it to be neither bound by enlightenment

[19:52] nor by delusion?

[20:32] What does it mean to be free of delusive fixation?

[20:51] And yet not need to hold any position with regard to truth,

[21:03] dharma, enlightenment, nirvana.

[21:26] What is free of fixation

[21:29] is also free of the fear of fixation.

[21:45] What is free of suffering

[21:47] is also free of the fear of suffering.

[21:59] And you find that here.

[22:04] You are free of the fear of the fear of death.

[22:06] You are free of the fear of death.

[22:36] Be willing to release even spiritual paradigms.

[22:43] You are free of the fear of death.

[25:45] You are free of death.

[26:07] Thank you.