Trusting Awareness

Hello.

I'm so delighted to have you here.

Theme of the meditation today is I call it trusting awareness.

Because sometimes it can feel difficult to find awareness and that we have to go looking for it.

And let me actually back up just a little bit roll back and just say that the practices and teachings that I've been exposed to that have just fundamentally shifted my life and very positive ways to cultivate a sense of peace and joy that I'm able to return to really live in all the time and it came through these practices of the Zogchen and Mahamudra teachings,

Good vita vedanta teachings in what's called non-dual awareness.

And probably anybody watching this knows what I'm talking about,

But I just wanted to say that in case somebody had not or you're coming from YouTube and you're new to this and these practices,

The essence of them are really about discovering and finding who we really are and that when you can learn to know who you really are not from the conceptual thinking mind but from the heart mind that's you find and discover this ground of being this place where this sort of everlasting goodness resides and it doesn't mean that sadness or something might you know other emotions might not arise.

They do,

But there's a ground of being.

There's a wholeness that is pervasive that doesn't leave.

So it's as though there's a ground that you can return to and be with even if life is bringing its ups and downs and challenges.

And it's this ground of being in this wholeness and everlasting presence of awareness that we're cultivating in this meditation and that the practices are about coming back to this everlasting ground of being that's whole.

From which you can be with a sadness if it arises or anger if it arises or whatever because obviously we're in a very complex world with a lot of uncertainty and a lot of challenge and a lot of people who are not necessarily rooted in their ground of being.

They don't even know what that is and they're caught in all of the the challenge and the stuff of the material world.

And so what we're doing here is it's like watering the garden.

The soil that will nourish you.

That will give you this this nourishment so you can return to this place,

This sense of peace from which you that you really are and from which you can learn to operate from all the time.

And it's really not a learning actually.

I would just say it's a beingness that you're able to relax into more and more and more until it becomes your lived state all the time.

And I loved the I'm reading this beautiful book by one of his open teachers called Fearless Simplicity and he says in this,

I was just reading this yesterday.

We need to make ourselves gentle,

Peaceful,

Flexible,

And tame rather than being undisciplined,

Rigid,

Stubborn egocentric.

This softening of our heart is essential for all progress and not just in terms of spiritual practice.

In all we do,

We need to have an attitude that is open-minded and flexible.

And so I think for me,

We're cultivating this flexibility of mind when we return to awareness,

We turn to our essential being.

We start to see that the mind is created and in fact,

Residing in this heart-centered mind really feels to me like residing in a way out of mind because for so many of us,

Mind is thinking and that's certainly where I was caught for a lot of my life and move out of that mind back into beingness,

Back into presence,

Back into that beingness,

That presence is your true nature is fundamentally awareness.

It's not something that can ever leave you,

Right?

It's not,

You can't leave you.

Where would you go?

So,

You can take heart that it's always here.

And if it feels difficult to find,

It's because the mind keeps popping up like a little gopher like is this it?

Is this it?

And when you're in that space with the is this it?

It's like the search lights turned on and you're looking out trying to see it but you can't see your beingness.

You can't,

There's like the sun can't see the source of its own radiance.

You can't see it.

It's what you are.

So,

It's it's a relaxing into.

It's not a seeingness and so just just to say and take heart that you can't,

It can't leave you.

It's here.

It's here right now.

It's the most in that sense.

Rupert Spira would say it's the most obvious thing in your nature of being.

It's it's the true you when you say me.

It's the presence of you.

It's not a thought.

It's not an emotion.

It's not the body.

It's none of that.

It's this presence of you.

And so let's return together to that in this meditation.

Uh in a simple way of sensing and feeling in a way all of what we're not and feel just the arising of the simple sensations to awareness and see if that helps.

So,

Let's begin together by just closing our eyes.

And take a few long,

Slow breaths into the belly.

I like to close my eyes because I find that it turns off one of those senses and brings me back to the interior landscape of my being.

So,

I can start here with just what's present in my interior landscape of being.

And there might be all kinds of thoughts running around and that's fine.

They're not a problem.

And then,

Begin by noticing just sensations like your body resting in the chair.

You might feel air on your skin.

Just notice what's present in this moment.

All of the activity of the external world.

Creating sensation in the body.

And so you can just feel and notice that.

So,

We're just feeling and noticing what's here.

And notice that this noticing,

This noticer if you will is here without your help.

Right?

You don't have to make anything happen for the noticer,

The noticing presence to be here.

You don't have to try.

It's just here.

The noticing presence.

Notice that you know this noticing presence will never leave.

You ask yourself the question,

Will this noticing presence always be here?

Your answer is yes,

Right?

At least as long as you're alive that you know that.

And you know that it's always been here since you were born.

You notice that it will never leave you.

And notice that you are confident of this.

We don't have to do an experiment to find out if this is true.

It's absolutely true.

You know that this noticing presence is here and will be here.

You're absolutely certain of this.

In fact,

It may be the only thing you're absolutely certain of.

Right?

We don't know anything about what's going to happen later today or tomorrow or the next day.

All of that you can't say with 100% certainty.

Anything about what's going to happen in the world of things.

But you do know that.

At least as long as you're in this body that this presence will be here.

It's unchanging.

And notice that the quality of this presence hasn't changed your whole life.

It's the same you if you will.

Ask yourself in all of your experience of being human,

All the different things you've gone through,

The pain,

The suffering,

The joy,

The sorrow,

Every meal you've ever eaten,

Every person you've ever interacted with.

Isn't it just the same exact presence that nothing has ever been added to or taken away from the presence?

If you're fifty or sixty and you've had fifty or sixty years like I am of things that have happened to you,

Doesn't it feel like this exact same presence of you though is here?

The radiance of your being is always here.

And it's unchanging.

It's the same radiant being you were born with.

So,

Doesn't that give you a kind of knowingness?

Ah,

Nothing can take this away from me.

No hurt.

No pain.

No relationship.

No person that's mad at me or whether the country has inflation or not inflation or there's a war or there's not a war.

And all of that doesn't change who you really are.

None of it.

None of it will change who you really are.

Which means you are not any of the thoughts that you have.

You are not any of the feelings that arise.

You are not any of the sensations or tastes.

Think of all the tastes that have come into your mouth over your lifetime.

Thousands of meals.

But none of that changes who you really are.

It colors your,

It's like a coloring of the palette but underneath,

There's this unchanging being.

And it's not a thing you're a being.

So,

You can't see it.

You can't look for it in the way we look for other things.

But you can just relax.

And let yourself feel sink into this subtle aliveness.

This subtle knowingness.

You might let the center of your being drop into your heart.

Just because it's a nice place to reside.

Not because there's a true center to awareness.

Noticing that there's no real inside or outside of you.

It's what it means to be unlimited.

Can you find a place where you end and I begin?

Notice that.

I'm bringing to mind all of you in this meditation now.

And all of you are just in me.

As I am in you.

We're all in each other.

It's one awareness.

The eyes of source or god or the divine.

Manifesting through you to have this human experience.

Because if god couldn't source,

Couldn't manifest through you,

There would be no world.

See if you can find a place where now stops and then begins.

Right,

There's just one now.

There never will be a then.

It's just a figment of your imagination,

Your mind.

It's a creation in the mind.

Can you find a place where the past was or starts?

And now ends?

It's all one.

The past,

The future,

Now.

It's all one.

Beautiful moment.

It's really not a moment.

It's just the everlasting now.

There's no reason to wait for anything.

It's never going to get here.

Can you find a place where here ends and there begins?

I can't find that either.

So you really can't lose awareness.

And you can't find it either.

It's just what's here now.

And you're knowing of it.

And there's this kind of gentle,

Soft,

Relaxing opening.

Life flowing through.

Everything is effortlessly known.

Sounds,

Thoughts.

And we stop telling stories about the past.

And we stop creating a story about what might happen in the future.

And just relax into what's here.

Relax into what's here.

As Locke Kelly says,

What's here now when there's no problem to solve?

Just see what's here.

And what you'll find is that when the mind stops creating stories about the past and the future,

What's here is really,

Really beautiful and precious.

My brother was over yesterday and we were having breakfast.

And he's very disabled and he was crying.

And there was a beauty in it,

Like to just realize the preciousness of our being together,

Having breakfast.

I don't need to fix his pain.

Just need to be with it.

And this subtle beauty,

This love for him and the world just arose all on its own.

And then I mirrored that back to him of how beautiful he was.

And that's all he needed.

That's all any of us needs.

This reminder of how beautiful and precious life is and how loved we are.

Do you need anything else but that?

I don't.

Isn't that what this is all about?

Isn't that what's true?

And can you feel how that's here right now?

No need to find awareness,

Find anything.

You're all ready,

All of it.

Every moment is a moment of truth.

No need to find awareness,

Find anything.

You're all ready,

All of it.

Everything you want,

You already are,

Said Rumi.

That's what he meant.

If you feel that now,

That's what he meant.

I send each and every one of you so many blessings for your day.

May you receive the grace of just being with your beautiful being and sending that out into the world wherever you are,

Whomever you touch,

Wherever you go.

You don't need to do anything but that.

That's your gift to everything and everyone.

Namaste,

Blessings,

Love,

Light.