This is an AI-generated transcript from auto-generated subtitles for the video above. It likely contains inaccuracies, especially with speaker attribution if there are multiple speakers.

Guided Meditation: Awareness with No Location

Hello everyone, and welcome. Here we are at the fifth of this five-part series I'm calling "Locations for Awareness." One of the perhaps difficult things to understand about awareness is the degree to which it's a conditioned, constructed phenomenon. The mind, to some degree, constructs its ideas of what it means to be aware. So the idea that there's a location for awareness has some truth, and it also has some sense of choice and construction.

What happens when awareness is not constructed, when it's allowed to just be? This comes into play particularly with the idea that there's a "here" and "there," that there's a place to be aware from and there's something that we're being aware of. At times, this is completely normal and natural to have that sense. There are also times when the mind gets quiet enough or still enough where we are very aware, but awareness has no location. It's just everywhere, in a sense, or nowhere. We're very aware, very clear, there's a lot of clarity, but the objects of awareness are not objects. There's not "awareness" and then "objects"; there are just things that are known, and the knowing arise together. It can feel a little bit like objects in deep, dark space, where something exists without any reference to anything else. An object can exist without any reference to anything else in awareness and attention. So it might be difficult or unusual to understand what I'm trying to say, but we'll do a little meditation and see if maybe you can get some feeling for this.

Assume a meditation posture and gently close your eyes. Gently become aware of your body. Feel the substance of your body, the weight against your chair or your cushion.

Feel the weight of your hands, and if they are resting upon something, feel that resting of the weight.

Within this body, take a long, slow, deep breath. As the torso expands, feel it as a massage from the inside, a stretching and opening. As the torso contracts on the exhale, again feel it as the other half of the rhythm of a massage. A gentle caring for the body.

Let the breathing return to normal. As you exhale, relax the body. Soften the different parts of your body, scanning through.

Then gently, as you exhale, relax the thinking mind. Relax the energy and agitation of thinking, any sense of contraction, pressure, or coagulation in the thinking mind.

At the end of the exhale, really feel for the exhale. Whenever you're exhaling, have a heightened sensing of the physical experience of exhaling. Notice how the chest moves, the diaphragm, the belly.

When you come to the end of the exhale, pause for a second or so before you inhale. In that pause, maybe you can let go more, relax more, for there to be more of the exhale. If that happens, pause again at the very end. One way or another, let there be a pause at the end of the exhale, feeling the sensations in your body where that pause occurs.

Then allow the inhale to begin. Allow the sensations of the inhale to come into awareness.

If pausing at the end of the exhale causes some discomfort in breathing or throws it off a little bit, let there be almost a pause at the end, so that there's a heightened ability to receive the inhale.

Allow for the exhale. Allow the body to release as you exhale. Receiving the inhale, allowing the exhale.

Notice if your awareness is more in the sensations of breathing, or if awareness is more in the head or the knowing of breathing.

Is there a distance between awareness, the knowing, and the breathing? Is there a sense that there are sensations to be aware of, and you being aware?

If there is, what is the feeling? What's the location of the "you" that is aware? What's the feeling or sensation of that which is aware? That which is receptive, that which is allowing.

If there is a "you," or that which is receptive or allowing, on the exhale, let that relax. Let that soften. Let the sense of a doer or of mindfulness recede into the background. Let it evaporate.

There is no receiving, no allowing. The sensations of breathing just are; they appear in awareness.

No distance between awareness and what you're aware of. The sensations of breathing appear in vast space. Each sensation, each experience of breathing just is. Awareness of breathing just is. Inseparable.

Knowing has no location apart from the sensation. There's no need for it to exist in reference to anything else. Breathing, breathing itself.

No watcher, just aware. No distance, just awareness. No location, just awareness.

No receiver of experience. No victim of experience. No actor of experience. Just knowing, just awareness. Experience by itself.

Breathing by itself is not thinking. Breathing is free of thinking. Thinking is an overlay, a separate process from breathing. To be aware of breathing without thinking, without reference to thought, just breathing.

When there is no thinking, or beyond the edges of thinking, awareness and experience just is. Without location, distance, "here" or "there," thought about, conceived, conceptualized. Awareness without a self, experience without an experiencer. Nothing extra, nothing added to the basic simplicity of experience.

As we come to the end of this sitting, take a few moments to relax on the exhale. Soften whatever is energized or contracted.

With any doubt, any sense of distance, close or far away, no sense of receiving or being active, allow there to arise some notion of care and kindness. Kindness that, for now, has no object. Not thinking of anybody, just kindness which has no reference point of other people, other places, other times. Just kindness, care, love, without an object.

Maybe love that has no location because it's everywhere. Everywhere in the field, the range of how far away you can hear, sense, feel, or imagine. That love is part and parcel of whatever field of awareness there might be here.

In this objectless love or care, fill it with universal goodwill for others. May all beings be happy. May all beings be safe. May all beings be peaceful. May all beings be free. And may all beings be known peacefully within the range of awareness, within mindfulness.

Thank you.

Dharmette: Locations for Awareness (5 of 5) Compassion and Locations for Awareness

Welcome to this fifth talk on locations for awareness, or perspectives on awareness. This theme for this week was selected because the last time I was here I talked about compassion, and next week I'd like to continue this theme of compassion. But in between, I wanted to explore the medium through which compassion travels, occurs, or is stimulated. That medium is our capacity for attention.

If we have compassion for another person who's suffering, the only way we know they're suffering is that there's an awareness of it, an attention to experience it in some way. That act of knowing, that act of being aware, can often go unexamined or unconsidered. It's almost as if there is no separation, it's just suffering, and we experience that suffering. Sometimes, the empathy for other people's suffering is experienced and it's too hard for people. They feel overwhelmed, they feel like they're way too sensitive, they feel exhausted from it, or they don't quite understand how to have compassion because they feel apart from other people's suffering and don't feel like it touches them in some way. A lot of this has to do with the nature of how we're being aware, and we can be aware in different ways.

To begin, know the range and variety of ways in which knowing comes into existence. We know something because we see it, we know something because we hear it. If someone tells us a story about someone who's suffering, the medium through which that's coming is hearing. If we're with someone who's suffering and we see it, then it's through seeing. If we're sitting by ourselves and remember someone who's suffering, then it's through the medium of our thoughts, images in the mind, or memory. These are all different means of becoming aware.

Then there's a sense of how we're aware, from where we're aware of this. Often enough, the locus of awareness is our sense of self. In fact, that locus sometimes is what we construct a sense of self around. How we're aware, the location from which we're aware, is something that we can change and adjust. That's been the theme for this week. A skilled use of awareness, of mindfulness, is to be sensitive to the different ways in which we can be aware, and then be able to have some skill in choosing how to be aware.

If we don't differentiate between all the different modalities of awareness, and the modality we have is not serving us when we're with suffering, then we're going to keep touching into that unhelpful way of sharing the suffering of others—in a way that is exhausting or debilitating, or we just feel too much pain to really have effective compassion. So we want to find a way of being aware that allows us to be balanced, not to suffer more than the person who's suffering, to suffer less, but to be empathic, to feel and know what's happening.

We can move around our awareness. Sometimes it helps to feel like we're really removed, like the mind steps back and gets a bird's eye view. Sometimes we can get really close. We don't physically get close, but we feel close to what's happening. And maybe it's feeling closely what's happening to ourselves, because if we only use this medium of awareness to be aware of others, then we're missing out on the impact and how we're participating in the experience we're having. If we're only with ourselves, then the whole situation can also be imbalanced. Yesterday I talked about the 50/50 approach to being aware: 50% here, 50% there.

As meditation and mindfulness become richer and fuller for people, one way we can be aware of people suffering, be aware of compassion, and be aware in general, is to not have the awareness yoked to our sense of self, to "me, myself, and mine." To have that part of the mind not hijack or engage with how we're aware or what we're aware of, and just be aware. Not even being aware receptively, because in receptive awareness there's someone who's receiving. Not being actively aware, going out to be aware "out there," because then there's an actor who's doing the awareness. There's this marvelous middle way where we can just be aware without being the receiver and without being the actor who goes out.

There can be a lot of clarity. It's not being aloof or disconnected, but it's a connection which doesn't have a receiver, doesn't have a thought, idea, concept, or stories about who I am, what I have to do, my responsibilities, that this is something I have to deal with, that this is happening to me. "There's a victim here, here I go again." There's a lot of extra stuff that comes along that has to do with our conceptual mind, our thinking mind. There's an activation going on that we don't even know is activated; it just seems like this is how it always is.

In meditation, as we get quieter and more settled, at some point the construct of a receiver receiving is not needed. The construct of having the mind go towards something and become aware of it is not needed. There's just allowing whatever arises in awareness, whatever it might be, without choice. Just arising without a sense of a doer or receiver, without a sense of "it's out there and I'm here," without distance. At the same time, there is no distance, there is no concern for distance. It isn't like we're glued to anything. It's because there's no reference point for distance, no reference point for being glued to something. It just arises. And it can be phenomenally respectful for oneself and for others, this kind of very relaxed open awareness, because it allows each thing to be just what it is for itself.

Sometimes it's completely wonderful, fun even, and appropriate to take agency over how we're aware, to adjust how we're aware, and find the appropriate way to be aware for the moment, for the situation. Then sometimes, what can be available to us is just the dropping away of self, dropping away of a reference point. It isn't that we're becoming shut down, aloof, or disconnected. There's a lot of sensitivity to our body, our mind, our thoughts, what's happening here. It just isn't organized around this idea of a central person who's having this experience. We're responsible for all of this, we know all of this, but we're not engaged in the preoccupation or agitation around "me, myself, and mine."

There can be a lot of presence for another person. There's a sense of freedom, a sense of infinite space, that things just exist in their own simplicity. At times when it's really strong, there's no future and past, it's just what it is. There's no "here" nor "there," it's just what it is. There's no closeness, no aloofness or distance, it's just what's there, and everything is just there.

That's a marvelous way for compassion just to arise. Compassion is just there. Compassion has been triggered, has been awakened, but there's no burden to the compassion, no obligation to the compassion, no "me" that has to do something with this. It's all allowed to arise and be there. Compassion arises, and if there's something we can do, the motivation to do it arises in that same freedom. It's a deep trust in allowing this deeper stuff to occur. As long as we have this heightened sensitivity and heightened clarity to what's happening in our body, our minds, and our thoughts, then the intuition is not going to be hijacked by our preferences, our unhelpful desires, or our ego. Some people just really trust their intuition in this kind of way that I'm talking about, but they're not really in touch with themselves very well. They're not really aware of what's happening in themselves, and sometimes they make mistakes and act impulsively, or they don't realize how much they're acting on ego or desires. It just feels like they're free and allowing things to happen.

So next week I'll talk about compassion, and I'm hoping that this prepares the ground. As you hear about compassion and how I'm going to talk about it, you will consider how to adjust the medium for how to be aware. The way to be aware of suffering in the world, so that how you're aware allows for something deeper to happen, which is what I'll talk about next week.

In preparation for that, if you have the time and the inclination this weekend, as you become aware of your own suffering and the suffering of others, explore a little this thing about the medium of awareness. How are you aware? What's the location from which you're aware? What's the way in which you know it? Is it more feeling in the body? Is it more in the head with thoughts? Is it more from a distance, or more close in? Which of all those is a useful way to be there? Maybe they all have their own use at different times. And then, is there something about being with suffering that is radically simple? So simple that it's just suffering, just compassion, just presence, just attention, without being crowded in by thoughts, obligations, responsibilities, fixing it, or experiencing and being the experiencer? How it is for me, just allowed to be. So explore this, and the more you can explore this over the weekend, I'm hoping the more you'll understand the tremendous value that compassion has for this path of mindfulness, and how it really can be a very significant way to learn about mindfulness and how to develop on this path. Thank you very much.

Announcements

And maybe I've said this before, a reminder: not this Sunday, but the following one, on the 16th, IMC^[1] is going to have an online community meeting at 11 o'clock Sunday morning, after the Sunday morning program. You're an important part of the community, all of you who come here to the 7 a.m. sitting. You're very heartfully welcome to come and be part of the discussion about the community life of IMC, what's happening with the pandemic at this stage, and other things about this community. The Zoom link will be available a couple of days before on IMC's calendar. So thank you very much.