In the last class,
I talked about the concept of piercing the veil,
Of moving closer to perceiving reality clearly,
To perceiving the underlying unity that is behind all the superficial appearances of duality of form.
For today,
I thought I would talk about a related concept,
That of returning to the source,
Especially given that the winter solstice is in two days for those of us in the Northern Hemisphere,
And so it's a significant pivot.
I'll start with a quote from the Tao Te Ching,
Chapter 16,
Which is often translated as the classic of virtue,
Or the path of virtue,
And is one of the core texts of Taoism.
Empty your mind of all thoughts.
Let your heart be at peace.
Watch the turmoil of all beings,
But contemplate their return.
Each separate being in the universe returns to the common source.
Returning to the source is serenity.
If you don't realize the source,
You stumble in confusion and sorrow.
When you realize where you come from,
You naturally become tolerant,
Disinterested,
Amused,
Kind-hearted as a grandmother,
Dignified as a king.
Immersed in the wonder of the Tao,
You can deal with whatever life brings you,
And when death comes,
You are ready.
Returning to the source is similar to the metaphor of the ocean and waves.
Each individuated wave is always a part of the ocean.
It arises out of it and eventually crashes back into it,
But it is always inherently the ocean.
Just as we,
As individuated beings,
Arise from the source,
The unity,
The underlying oneness,
And appear for a while as individuated beings,
And eventually we return to the source.
When we focus on the waves,
It is the same as getting caught by appearances by the outer reality of form that is continually changing.
This leads us to stumble in confusion and sorrow,
As it says in the Tao Te Ching.
In other words,
We get caught by the appearance of seeming turmoil in the outer world.
When we learn to direct and focus our consciousness to the source,
It is like sinking deep into the stillness that is always there in the depths of the ocean,
Regardless of how much tumult and turmoil there might be on the waves at the surface.
With practice,
We can become so grounded in this source that there can be a huge storm raging on the surface of the ocean,
What seems to be incredible turmoil in the world around us,
And we will retain that peace,
That stillness,
Because we know where we come from,
And we know to what we will return.
And we see that all that appears in the outer world is like a dream.
It's the illusion of the ever-shifting play of form,
Of life,
All the myriad expressions of the underlying oneness that allow us to experience life in this way,
Because we can only experience it in this way as individuated beings that have a sense of self and other.
And yet,
The more we can ground in that source within,
The easier it becomes to fully enjoy all of the myriad expressions of life.
We no longer become attached to seeking comfort or pleasure or wanting only enjoyable experiences.
From that source,
We can learn to appreciate the pain,
The sorrow,
The challenges that are inevitable in being alive in this way.
Returning to the source is a way of describing this connection to that oneness,
And there are myriad ways that we can accomplish that.
As we do so,
We begin to perceive reality more as it is,
And we become grounded in the stillness in our being.
We move towards the natural state where we experience each moment fully as it is,
And ourselves as we are,
Without attachment.
As I said,
The winter solstice is in two days,
And this is often a very auspicious time to go within deeply,
To connect to that source within,
In the depths of our being,
Because even in this outer world of form of life,
There are these cycles,
And there are times when it's easier to connect to that source,
And times when it might be more challenging.
And so if we look at the cycle of the seasons and the trees,
We can see how they express this natural movement of energy,
How in winter the deciduous trees lose their leaves,
And the energy moves inward to the center,
The trunk,
And down into the roots,
The source from where they come,
The ground.
And then spring comes,
And they begin to bud out as the energy arises from that source,
Being to express itself,
And then in summer it hits the peak of full expression.
And then fall comes,
And the leaves begin to change colors and eventually fall,
And the energy moves back in.
And so part of the play of life is this continual movement of arising from the source,
Expressing this individuated form fully,
And then returning to the source.
And this happens on a yearly cycle through the seasons.
It happens on a daily cycle,
You know,
In the middle of the night we're deep within,
And then morning comes,
We awake,
And we begin to become aware and interact with the world around us,
Which meets its full expression throughout the day.
And then as evening comes,
We begin the journey back inward,
Preparing to move back to the source.
And so besides the daily and the yearly cycles,
There are so many ways in which this plays out,
Even throughout the course of our lives.
When we are born,
We are coming from that source of oneness,
And we are born into this world,
And the umbilical cord is cut,
And we become a separate individuated being that is here to experience and express the fullness of life in our own unique way.
Then we move through our lives,
And we peak in our expression at some point,
And then eventually we start moving back to return to that source.
And so in winter,
It is the time to move inward more deeply,
And we have an opportunity to connect to that source within,
To return to that source,
So that when spring comes,
We can be reborn as we bring forth new aspects of ourselves and our experiences into the world.
Just as the trees bring their energy down into the ground,
Into the roots,
Into their source,
We can learn to return to the source and ground within the true nature of our very being.
This can be considered at one level a metaphorical death.
It is an opportunity to let ourselves die at a certain level,
That we may be reborn in the light.
Death is often associated with darkness,
With the unknown,
And the solstice is the longest night of the year.
And so this is not a death of the physical body,
But of the ego,
Of our mistaken sense of self-identity.
In Sufism,
They call this Fana,
The annihilation of the ego.
It is a process of humbling and softening,
Of letting go of resistance to life as it is,
And losing ourselves in the underlying truth of unity,
Of God,
Of the Tao.
As I mentioned in the last class,
There are many words given to try to describe this underlying unity that is always inherently present right here,
Right now.
And so often we get caught by the work of words,
Because words themselves are inherently dualistic.
They're creating definitions and boxes to try to encapsulate something,
And in this case it is something that cannot be encapsulated,
Because it is the totality of all.
And so these words that we use to try to gesture towards this experience of being,
Of the All,
Of the Source,
Are merely just references.
You know,
In Zen they use the analogy of the finger pointing to the moon.
The finger is the word that we're using to try to gesture towards something that is so much bigger,
And yet often we get caught looking at the finger,
And we get attached to the finger,
And we think that that is the thing itself,
Rather than something that is just meant to guide us beyond that word.
I'd like to share a quote from Hazrat Anaya Khan that relates to this concept of Fana.
It is the annihilation of the false self which gives rise to the true self.
Seemingly it is a renunciation,
An annihilation,
But in truth it is a mastery.
The real meaning of crucifixion is to crucify this false self,
And so resurrect the true self.
As long as the false self is not crucified,
The true self is still not realized.
By Sufis it is called Fana,
Annihilation.
All the attempts made by true sages and seekers after real truth are for the one aim of attaining to everlasting life.
When we connect to this source within,
And we realize that these bodies are temporary,
That they are not us,
They are merely vehicles for the all to experience the all itself in all of its myriad forms and ways of being.
When we learn to see that more deeply,
We grow in wisdom.
We start to take things less personally.
We are less attached to the experiences that we have,
And have less aversion to the experiences that we don't want to have.
We realize that the whole purpose of life is to be fully present and alive to each moment,
To each experience,
To all of the pain,
All of the sorrow,
All of the pleasure,
All of the joy,
All of the connection that occurs when we open to life.
And it is natural being human to be caught by the ego at times,
To get caught by attachment and aversion,
By insecurity,
By fear,
By guilt.
All of this is part of it.
And so it is a continual practice to become aware of when we are speaking and acting from a place of ego or attachment to our sense of self-identity,
And to try to soften and let that fall away.
In this process,
It is of the utmost importance to have self-compassion,
To forgive ourselves for the times when we sin in word or action through attachment to the ego.
It doesn't do us any good to judge ourselves or feel guilty when we become cognizant that we've been acting from a place of separation from the ego.
For this too,
The judgment and the guilt is actually an expression itself of ego,
And so it reinforces it.
What we can do is to make space for it,
To acknowledge it,
And to allow ourselves to be humbled by it,
To realize how much we still have to learn.
For as long as we are alive,
There is always more to learn.
There is always more edges that we can soften.
As we continually work with this,
As we work with letting go of that part of ourselves that has a sense of separateness and self-identity,
We allow ourselves to surrender to the All,
To the Tao,
And we learn to trust that whatever we might be experiencing,
We are always being carried by the current of the ocean,
Even when we feel separate from it.
The more we are able to return to this source,
To pierce the veil,
It allows us the space and the ability to act more and more from a place of unconditional love.
Unconditional love can only come from a place that is beyond the ego,
Beyond a sense of separateness,
And when we move towards this place,
We move from being selfish to selfless.
We begin to have more compassion for all beings because we understand that at the relative level of duality,
As long as individuated beings see themselves as separate,
They are always suffering.
Sometimes this will be easier,
As I said,
And sometimes it will be more difficult.
There are cycles within life,
And it is through these cycles that we grow and change and have the opportunity to cultivate greater wisdom and compassion and love.
It is through these continually changing cycles that we are able to become more alive and to evolve spiritually,
And it all begins with our intention to move towards it.
This can be terrifying at times because it's moving towards darkness and the unknown,
And yet it's also one of the most worthwhile things we can do in life because it opens us to life.
So often it is easy for the challenges and the pain that we experience in life to close down our heart,
To make us defensive,
To want to have greater control over our experiences in the world around us.
But the more we give into that,
The more separate we become,
And the more we have unnecessary suffering.
And so it takes trust and faith to soften when we want to harden,
To make space for all of the experiences of life,
And to trust that we are being carried by that current.
The more regularly we return to that source within and ground our consciousness in that awareness,
The easier it becomes to trust when things in the outer world do not go the way that we want them to or think they should.
We can step back and see a bigger picture of life,
And we can see how all of these experiences and occurrences weave together in the fabric of life,
And that things that might seem horrible in the moment can sometimes give rise to the greatest blessings and the most incredible growth that allow us to experience so much more.
You know,
I often share the Rumi quote,
The wound is where the light enters,
Because it's such a simple reminder that often is those difficult experiences in life that open us to so much more beauty and life.
These cycles within life of which the winter solstice is a pivot and a reminder of are what create all of manifest reality.
Without these cycles of light and dark,
Death and rebirth,
Yin and yang,
Life could not exist in this form.
It is only because we experience sorrow and pain that we can have the experience of pleasure and joy.
There are these polarities in life that are what create life and also bring meaning to life,
And usually it's when it reaches one extreme that it begins to shift and move in the opposite direction.
You know the saying,
It's always darkest before the dawn,
And same with the winter solstice.
It is the longest night of the year,
The darkest,
And yet as soon as it moves into the next day,
The light begins to come back and the days get longer and longer until we reach the peak of light at the summer solstice,
And then it shifts again.
To learn to ride these waves of the cycles and the polarities of life is a skill.
It takes practice,
And while surfing these waves,
We will fall many times.
That's the nature of any meaningful skill is that we fail and fail and fail,
But as we're failing,
We're learning and we're growing in our capacity and in our skill,
And so we have to have dedication and commitment to persevere.
And as we do so,
We begin to perceive reality more clearly as it is,
And to understand the ephemeral,
Impermanent nature of all that is manifest,
And we begin to have less unnecessary suffering.
For today's practice,
I would like to use a Daoist meditation called the central channel meditation.
In this,
We will first ground our awareness in the lower dantian,
The energetic center in the middle of the lower abdomen,
And we'll focus our awareness there for several minutes.
Then we will begin to move the awareness up through the central channel that runs from the perineum all the way up to the crown of the head,
But we'll start slowly moving it up and then returning to the source of the lower dantian,
Then moving up further and coming back down and eventually bringing it all the way up to the center of the brain,
The upper dantian,
And from there we can open to connect with the source of all that is,
Because the body is a microcosm of the macrocosm of the all,
And so within the energetic anatomy,
The lower dantian is the source within us.
It is associated with the uterus in women,
Which is the source of life,
And in the energetic anatomy of Chinese medicine,
It is from the lower dantian that everything arises from.
It is the seat of the essence,
And is the seat of where all of the energetic channels arise from.
So that source within the physicality of the body is a reflection of the greater source of the all.
After we move that awareness up to connect with the source,
The macro source,
We will then spend a few minutes bringing it all the way back down and focusing in the lower dantian,
And if any of you practice this on your own after I lead it,
It is important to know that it is necessary to spend several minutes grounding your awareness back in the source within your body.
Otherwise we can be left too open,
And it's harder to interact with the world around us.
If you can,
It's recommended to be seated with your spine upright for this practice.
If that is not accessible for you,
That is fine.
You can lay down or find another posture.
So if you will,
Please find a comfortable and stable posture for meditation.
You can close your eyes,
Feel your stable base,
Allow your spine to rise with its natural curves up towards heaven.
Make sure that the head is stable over the shoulders,
Which for some people we might have to move our chin back half an inch or an inch.
Allow the shoulders to relax back and down,
And begin to bring awareness to the breath.
Begin abdominal breathing with each inhalation,
Allowing the abdomen to gently expand with each exhalation,
Allowing the abdomen to gently contract.
As you continue abdominal breathing,
Gently guide your awareness to ground in the space of the lower dantian.
Become aware of any sensations you might experience in the lower dantian.
Could be a fullness or an emptiness,
Tension,
Spaciousness.
Could be a warmth.
And as you focus your awareness in the lower dantian,
Use the exhalation to consciously release any unnecessary tension from the rest of your physical body,
Letting all the awareness travel to the lower dantian.
Now begin to imagine a ball of light in your lower dantian,
Like your own miniature sun.
Once you have clear awareness of this ball of light resting in the lower dantian,
Allow it to gently travel up through the central channel,
Maybe a couple of inches,
And then back down to the lower dantian.
If it is helpful for you,
You can use the breath,
Allowing it to rise through the central channel on each inhalation and descend back to the lower dantian on each exhalation,
With each breath allowing to travel a little further up the central channel before returning to the lower dantian.
Eventually allowing it to reach the level of the heart before descending to the lower dantian,
And then continuing higher.
When you eventually bring that awareness of the light all the way up through the central channel to the upper dantian,
Allow it to rise and fall between the lower and upper dantian several times.
Check in to make sure that no unnecessary tension has come through.
Let it stream into the physical body,
And the next time the ball of light reaches the upper dantian,
Allow it to rest in the upper dantian.
Become aware of the stillness within.
And once you have allowed the ball of light to rest in the upper dantian,
Imagine the crown of your head opening,
Allowing you to connect with the Tao.
Tao.
Rest in the stillness and light.
Rest in the source.
Now bring the light and the awareness back to the upper dantian.
Energetically close your crown.
Feel the outline of your physical body.
And allow the ball of light to pour down through the central channel to return to your source within the lower dantian.
Allow it to cascade like a waterfall of energy down through the central channel,
Bringing all of the awareness to rest in the lower dantian.
Ground yourself in the lower dantian.
Rest in the stillness.
Become aware of the felt sense of the body as a whole.
Feel the stability beneath you,
Supporting you and holding you up.
Become aware of the air around you in which you are immersed like a fish in the ocean of being.
And when you are ready,
Maintain a connection to the source,
To the stillness,
To the light.
As you gently and slowly begin to open your eyes,
With a soft gaze,
Taking in all that you see,
Realizing how you are immersed in it,
Not separate.
Let your hearts be at peace,
Resting in this awareness of the source,
Of the underlying unity that we are all a part of,
In all expressions of.
The source from which we come,
And to which we will all one day return.
And which,
In the interim,
We are always inherently connected to and a part of.
And throughout your day,
And throughout this coming week,
Try to return to this source within your being.
And observe the play of life with detachment,
With amusement,
With joy of the myriad expressions of life.
Thank you all for joining me today.
