Resting In Essence

The talk tonight is called Resting in Essence and this might be one of several talks about cultivating essence and expanding it.

And in this talk I give a lot of examples tonight,

They're exercises because I don't want this to just be about words,

I want you to be able to feel what cultivating and resting in essence is like deeper than the words.

So our attention is constantly on the mind day after day after day,

What it's doing,

What our mind's doing and thinking,

What other people's minds are doing and thinking.

Our life is really spent in the mind commercial,

The commercial of you rather than the real essence you.

In meditation and all spiritual practice what we're trying to do is move the attention,

This attention that we have from the commercial you more to the essence you,

To the unchanging essence versus endless commercials.

In somewhere,

You know,

In our conditioning via school or culture,

Language acquisition,

We really learn to blend with the mind and its stories and the endless commercials.

It's kind of like the Truman Show movie,

We blended with the falsity of it all,

We just didn't even really know what was real anymore,

What was true,

What was deeper.

So how do you break out of this commercial of mind to your essence?

First,

A really simple example of the difference of the two,

Like look around your room right now and you know there's a lot of objects in the room where you're at and if the mind is looking at all the objects and then you're thinking about how to manage these objects or rearranging them,

We get involved with objects all day long and managing objects is exhausting.

And then for a moment shift that perspective and just be aware of the space in the room.

It's much easier to notice the space,

But then realize that every object is made up of space as well and you're made up of space as well.

Space is in every object and in you,

So it's really just space on space on space on space.

And notice how much more relaxing that can be to see from the space versus the endless objects.

And similarly,

This is like being with essence versus the mind commercials all day long.

I'll be talking about resting in essence in a bit,

But I first want to look at the ways we can unblend from the mind commercial.

The way the Buddha recommended to let go of the fascination of mind was to become disenchanted.

And the word in Pali for disenchantment is nibbida,

Spelled N-I-B-B-I-D-A with a diacritic over the A.

And the Buddha said disenchantment or nibbida was one of the first and most important steps in awakening.

Nibbida allows us to pull back from that mind's urgency and kind of that addictive nature of mind.

Most of you today that are here today for this retreat,

You probably already understand a lot about disenchantment.

That's why you're here.

You already know there's no end to your to-do list.

You already see that the body has to be washed and taken care of over and over and over again.

It doesn't have an end.

And you also see that the mind is really never happy for very long.

So a lot of us know about disenchantment.

It's reminding yourself of this.

Persian poet Hafiz humorously addresses this disenchantment in his poem Cast All Votes for Dancing.

He writes,

Learn to recognize the counterfeit coins that may buy you just a moment of pleasure,

But then drag you for days like a broken man behind a farting camel.

This is the mind,

Counterfeit coins,

Moment of pleasure,

Dragged for days like a broken man behind a farting camel.

But then Hafiz adds the solution.

He says,

You are with the friend now,

I.

E.

The essence.

Learn what actions bring you true freedom and love.

So he's advising us to switch the attention here from that farting camel to what brings true freedom and love.

Another way to cultivate disenchantment is a different principle from the Buddha,

Which is impermanence or anicca in Pali.

It's realizing that everything we put so much time and energy into,

All the thoughts,

Words,

Beliefs,

Doing,

Building,

Creating,

All of this will end,

All of it,

Down to every last dust particle in the universe,

Limited time only,

It will all end.

And during these current times,

It's good to see that principle of anicca or impermanence.

People and governments and the world will never behave right,

Not for long.

It's not about getting the world to behave right.

The chaos of the mind and other people's mind,

People's desire,

Anger,

Hatred,

It's never going to end.

Has it ever ended before?

No,

Never ended before.

But you can end it.

You can end it for you in this very life,

Ending this identification with the mind commercial.

More and more,

You can bring your attention to this deathless you,

This essence you.

And you can use the events of the world like a springboard to the deathless essence of you.

One of my students,

Her daughter said to her the other day,

Mom,

Feel the feels,

But don't get stuck there.

Feel the feels and all that's happening in the world,

But don't get stuck there.

Use it as a springboard.

Another way to be disenchanted from the commercial is to explore this idea,

What if your life was not about you?

You might have thought so,

But what if it wasn't really about you and it never has been?

Where would this leave you now?

Your life's not about you.

Just entertain that possibility and just feel what that would be like.

How would you go forward from here?

Again,

It's like a free pass.

And what people tell me when I ask this question is they say they would celebrate,

They would be the I am,

They would be the thank you,

They would laugh more.

One person said they'd be like a giant flower,

And yet another person said they'd be like a garden for people to walk in if life wasn't really about them.

Don't wait for later.

Do this now.

Cultivate whatever you find when you try on this idea if it's not about you.

Continue to be this in your life.

One of my students the other week told me that he was at a workshop where they asked participants the question,

Where do you find yourself withholding love?

It's a great question,

Isn't it?

Where in your life do you withhold love?

And then pair that with,

You know,

What if my life wasn't about me?

And you just get this nice combination of not withholding love,

Not trying to protect the you,

Quote unquote.

And there'd probably be a lot more of that laughter,

That love,

That flow.

And just feeling that in the body.

Again,

It's not about words.

We're trying to get a felt sense of our free self.

One of my friends,

A good friend here,

Is a hospice nurse.

And he said the other day,

A hundred-year-old man came in to his unit to die in hospice.

And this hundred-year-old man kept calling all his family into the room,

And the nurses too.

He wanted the staff in there too.

And he kept holding their hands and telling them with great emphasis,

He said,

Please remember,

It's about loving each other.

Don't spend so much time in judgment and arguing.

Just love each other.

And he held my friend's hand.

He said,

Just love each other,

Please.

That was a hundred-year-old man's gift,

Wisdom to us all.

Not so much time judging yourself or others,

Just loving.

It's an interesting thing because even though it's not about you,

We still have these particular skill sets or data sets.

You know,

You have your avatar in the game,

And the skill sets of your avatar.

So like for me,

It might be my skill set is maybe a therapist,

Somebody else,

A dentist,

Another person,

A farmer.

It's this unique skill set of you,

But you don't have to take it personally.

You can still have your life not be about you,

But enjoy and ride out your skill sets.

Your character skill sets,

Like a fraction of your Buddha nature.

My teacher,

He jokes with me,

He goes,

Amita,

You're just a Bluetooth.

You're just a Bluetooth of source.

Don't think it's about you.

In a way,

We get this glorious combination of the finite story,

You,

The skill sets,

And the infinite you,

Infinite essence,

Bluetooth of source.

There's a visual representation of this.

Again,

I'm always trying to get you back to feeling.

On the right hand,

And I know this is going to be mirrored for you guys,

But this is my right hand.

This is like where our personal self,

Our burdens,

The worries,

The fears,

The finite you,

That has all the things we go round and round on the beliefs,

The character,

The commercial.

There's the finite you here.

Meanwhile,

On the left over here,

There's the essence you,

No beliefs.

It just is the vibration of truth forever.

The real timeless you.

What we're doing is we're getting our identity to live more and more in this hand on the left.

Notice,

You don't have to get rid of the two hands.

They're both here,

But we're so blended and live here.

We're just getting to gravitate.

We're learning to gravitate and move more to the left and off of this right hand,

This addictive trance.

It just feels like the only world is this right hand.

We're starting to recognize this left,

Your eternal essence,

And live more and more from there.

The right hand doesn't go away.

Again,

It's still your avatar character.

It's really about as we move more to our essence,

It's really about breaking that addictive trance of self-referencing that the mind does,

The mind commercial.

Mind commercials are like real commercials.

They're very loud and enticing.

How do you break that mind trance?

Near-death experiences can break the mind trance.

Meditation can do this as well.

Move us from that addictive trance of the right hand to your infinite essence of the left hand.

And the beautiful thing about essence is it's infinite,

So it's not going to go anywhere.

It's always here.

It's available here and now.

Maybe you don't see it,

But it doesn't go anywhere.

My teacher jokes with me.

He says that looking for your essence is like calling a friend on your phone saying,

Hey,

I have to hang up to find my phone.

Hey,

I have to go meditate to find my essence.

Well,

You're it right now.

It's here right now.

You don't have to hang up your phone to find your phone.

But this is just words.

Let's again try to find a felt sense in the body.

There's a still point in your body like a quiet essence that's unmoved.

You were born with it.

Everyone has it.

In some religions,

They call it the still point.

It's kind of like you have a Buddha quietly sitting here inside you.

And everywhere you go,

It never leaves.

And I have a visual for this.

This is the Tibetan painting of the wheel of existence or the wheel of life.

And there's six realms of existence,

Animal realms,

Human realms,

Hell realms.

And in each one of these realms,

You can barely see it,

But there's… I made little red boxes.

There's a Buddha sitting in every realm.

Just being present,

No matter how horrific the realm is,

No matter how wonderful,

He's just sitting there,

Calm,

Present Buddha.

And this is not just the realms of existence.

This is your internal realms,

Mind commercials,

Happy thoughts,

Hell thoughts.

You could have the still Buddha sitting in your body now.

So you might notice where is the still point of the Buddha in your body now?

And don't worry about a perfect place,

But there was a still point here.

Where might it be?

Your third eye,

Your heart,

Your solar plexus.

And if it's too hard to imagine a Buddha or a still point,

Just imagine,

Think of the most calm and centered moment you've ever felt in your life.

And you could,

If you've got the Buddha,

You could pair it with that.

The most calm and centered moment you've ever had in your life.

Feel where that memory might still reside in the body.

It didn't go anywhere.

That memory might be the still Buddha,

The calm presence.

And when you can find a body anchor for this calm stillness,

You can hook your body up to that state and ride it in deeper.

So even if it's an imperfect place,

Find the stillness,

Register the proximate area in your body.

And ride it in deeper.

This is your essence.

And this can become like a super highway that you can widen and widen the more attention you give it.

This can become more and more of the default.

And that commercial of mine starts to get quieter.

And your essence starts to get deeper and stronger,

More pervasive.

An example of this is my friend Mark.

He's been meditating for 40 years like myself.

And the other day we were traveling back to Maui from Lanai,

And there's a ferry,

An hour-long ferry.

And Mark had just come off a week-long stint as the ER physician.

So his mind was rather busy,

You know,

He'd been working in the ER.

He just,

Like right in the middle of the packed ferry,

You know,

There's all these locals and tourists and dogs and luggage,

And it's a little bit chaotic.

And we're sitting on the ferry and he just turns to me and he says,

Amita,

Do you see it?

And I'm like,

See what?

And he points and he goes,

Do you see the luminous essence coming out of everything?

And he goes,

Look,

And he points to like the seats in front of us and the people and the life preservers and the ocean around us.

And he goes,

It's all luminous essence.

And I laugh because he's right.

And then I take a moment and I move out of the mind and I can see it too.

And I say,

Thank you to him.

And that's the benefit of many years of practice,

Just switching to that,

Seeing that luminous essence in yourself and all things.

Another way to strengthen your essence is to practice like we did before in the meditation earlier.

What if I was already gone or dead?

It's like unhooking from the mind commercial.

We carry so many burdens in the body and mind.

It's like this weight constantly.

And,

You know,

They say in some heaven realms,

You just have a body of light.

So imagine if you only had a body of light right now,

How much would your mind need to think?

Probably not much.

On this last retreat I did,

I felt great compassion for the mind that it's such a protector for the body.

It's always trying to keep the body safe,

The mind like a big brother or sister assigned to the body.

And it's always saying like,

Don't do this and don't do that and watch out for that and get this and get away from that.

It's constantly working really hard for the body.

The mind is to try to help it.

It's really very touching.

And yet mission impossible,

Body can never be safe.

It's like this fragile water balloon that can burst anytime,

Be poked through.

So the mind's like doing this endless work,

Worrying to keep the body safe and it can't succeed.

Meditation is just to get you for a minute out of this endless samsaric body-mind protection cycle.

What if I was already gone?

Just residing in your deathless essence here now.

What if you had a free pass?

You might still have your avatar that has more time in the game,

More time in the hologram,

But you're free.

You're unburdened.

How would you live your life if you were already done?

Just feel this in the body.

Notice what that would be like,

How that would feel.

Some people have reported to me that it would be like a bird flying in the sky or a room of light or garden blooming their life.

Others have said they'd feel deep fondness or emptiness,

Simplicity,

Truth,

Or a desire to play and dance.

This already dead practice really takes you to your true nature,

Your birthright,

Away from that mind commercial.

And you never know when this might show up.

Adversarial events can even bring us here.

I work with a couple of people that are in government jobs.

And the other day I was talking to a woman and she was saying that doge has helped her so much in learning about this already dead.

She said that she's had so many emails both firing her and rehiring her that at this point she's like already dead.

She's already fired.

She just shows up at work like gone.

And yet she said what that's brought for her is incredible simplicity,

Integrity,

Gratitude for her work.

She's not identified with the role anymore.

She's already fired.

And she said it's brought her great peace once she got through all those ups and downs.

You never know what will bring you to that true nature so that each day can be like a work of art.

That's what our days are meant to be,

Just a work of art that's done and then gone.

Not fame,

Not accomplishment.

Each day can be,

You can just play with the colors,

Play with the colors of love,

Joy,

Truth.

Each day just a simple exploration of the colors of love,

Joy,

And truth.

I'd like to close with my favorite metaphor for resting in essence.

And again,

This is to create a felt sense for you and your body.

Have you ever sat on a chair,

Preferably a rocking chair,

On a porch on a quiet summer's eve at dusk and you're just sitting?

Nothing's happening.

You're not meditating.

You're just porch sitting at dusk,

Just being.

Now imagine you're on a porch of infinite love.

And we're all sitting together right now on this porch of infinite love.

And yet,

You know,

A part of us,

Our mind,

Our character might leave for a while,

Go off the porch,

Go have adventures.

But the real you never leaves this porch of infinite love.

And eventually your character might come back.

It might come and go many times,

Many lifetimes,

Many mind states,

But the real you never leaves this porch of infinite love.

And both are true.

You have this character that comes and goes and has adventures,

But the real you never leaves.

We leave in mind only.

So we will always come back to finding ourselves sitting on this porch of infinite love.

You leave in mind only.

So you will always be back here together.

It's inevitable.

Your essence,

You'll always find this infinite true essence.

So in closing,

The idea is just to keep moving your attention more and more away from the commercials of mind and more to this essence of you sitting on this porch of infinite love.

You could do micro practices throughout the day,

Asking questions like,

If my life wasn't about me,

Then how would I be meeting this?

How would my essence meet this?

If I was already gone or dead,

How would I do this day?

How would I deal with this situation?

So those are inquiry questions that you can do throughout the day.

You can also in your meditation feel that inner stillness,

Ride it into the body deeper.

Or just remember that you're always sitting on this porch of infinite love.

We all are together.