Emptiness and the Vastness of Awareness

Did you play a little bit with the approach from this morning? Yeah? Good. So this is what I want to expand a little bit on. Let's backtrack a little bit. It might have occurred to you from time to time on this retreat, "What is the point of all this?" [laughter] The point is less dukkha, less dukkha. That's where we're heading. You can translate that how you like -- less unnecessary suffering, less difficulty, less dis-ease, less disconnection, all of that. That's the point. So everything, everything is in the service of that. The point of the teachings of emptiness, again, are for that, in the service of that, and I would say -- and partly, again, why we have the candle here is -- the hope that that's what starts to manifest in us, starts to open in us, and frees up our capacity to offer in the world.

So far, mostly -- if we go right back, one of the first talks, we said there's, just pedagogically speaking, we can divide emptiness into two: emptiness of persons, of personal selves, and emptiness of phenomena. So far, not exclusively but mostly, we've dwelt on the emptiness of the personal self. That's important. So it may be getting clearer and clearer that suffering, dukkha, needs the self as a kind of centre of gravity. In a way, suffering orbits and is in relationship to a sense of self. Right? And what have we seen so far meditatively? And hopefully this gets clearer and clearer, and one sees it over and over. When, through whichever practice we've been going about this, the sense of self gets quieter, moves down on that spectrum we've been talking about, when that happens, the suffering, the experience of suffering, dukkha, also goes down. Can we ...? Is that much really clear? Yeah?

So that's an important insight. Suffering goes with the sense of self, and we can actually see that. When we do the 'not me, not mine' as well, to the degree that we are able to unhook the habitual identification with experience, with phenomena, with that which we usually identify with, to that degree, again, the suffering goes out of the experience. You may have found exceptions to that. Sometimes it's because there's hidden identification. So, for instance, you have a pain in the knee and you're 'not me, not mine,' you're sure you're not identified with it, but there's identification with awareness that we've touched on, and that identification is enough to solidify the suffering. And if we had a bit more practice, a bit more skill, more able to unhook that identification, too, we would notice that release.

So we've heard this a lot in the teachings, and you've certainly heard what I just said, or much of it, on retreats before, before you arrived here. It's in a lot of teachings, about the self being the problem and the centre of the problem. And you've probably seen that before, as well. Now, beginning to expand, beginning to expand, and moving more into the emptiness of phenomena, the emptiness of all things, all things. You know, there's different ways of teaching this, and different ways of going about, and I think, again, going back to one of the first talks, we can talk about, "Does the chair inherently exist? Does a table inherently exist? Does a chariot inherently exist?" -- a danger, a potential pitfall, is it just stays at a kind of intellectual, sophist level of philosophical games. Not that it must, but that's a potential danger.

And I think I said in one of the first talks, it seems to me that we get more fruit in investigating emptiness when we try to find the emptiness of what we're actually having a difficulty with. We feel the difficulty of something, and because it's present in that way, because it feels relevant in that way, it's actually easier to go that way -- and we're suffering because we're not seeing the emptiness of it. So that, again, horses for courses, but to me that seems like a helpful approach: actually go with what, in the moment, feels gripping, because we haven't seen the emptiness of it. And that emptiness is actually, funnily enough, often easier to see in what we're actually suffering with in the moment than, say, in a table or a chair, which can feel a bit abstract.

What do we suffer with? In the course of a day here, we suffer with body. We suffer with the sense of self, or self-image, or what's my image in relationship to other people. Suffer with anger and aversion. Frustration, fear. All this is going on for people. We suffer also in a way with craving. You can see that. When there's craving, we're not always conscious of the suffering, but when there's craving, that's also a good place to look, to start looking for the emptiness, when we notice craving. When we notice suffering, sure, but also when we notice craving. Whatever it is -- tasty food, this or that experience, this or that kind of relationship. And again, this goes back to, I think, the first talk -- looking at the situation: do I feel stuck in a retreat? Is there a 'retreat,' really, that I'm stuck in? Stuck in a relationship, or a terrible situation, or whatever it is, in a painful body? Those are the experiences that we move through, we suffer with, and they feel alive for us. Those are the good ones to look at.

We talked about a lot of this, how countries were empty, etc. And it can get very subtle. All this is review. On one level, it should be blatantly obvious that a country is empty of inherent existence, and yet humanity -- seems quite difficult for humanity to get that, and all the bloodshed, and all the war, and all that comes out of that, the belief in the inherent existence of countries. And as we've touched on, it gets very, very subtle. Talking about space and time and awareness. These things we take so for granted, so for granted, the basic facets of our existence. And they, too, are empty. There's that spectrum of subtlety. And we are learning in practice, as I said last night and repeated many times last night, we're learning to see in different ways, ways that bring freedom, and we're learning to see emptiness, the emptiness of these things that cause difficulty, that we feel difficulty with. We're learning to see their emptiness in different ways. And that process takes time. I've never met anyone that it doesn't take time with. We're learning to see in whole different ways, pierce this veil of what seems to obvious, the inherent existence of things, and learning to see in ways that go through that.

So I'm going to make a statement which I've kind of -- I'm not sure if I said it outright before, but I've probably said it or at least implied it. It is the mind, or you could say delusion, that gives phenomena solidity, substantiality, concreteness. It's the mind or delusion that gives phenomena a solidity, a substantiality, a concreteness which they don't inherently have by themselves. And then the mind suffers over that, either grasps for it or wants to get rid of it. A person can think, "Well, I mean, I don't know. I really do have this pain in my knee, and it's really there, and it really hurts. And you're saying that it doesn't exist? What are you saying?" The mind and the delusion, deluded mind, in any moment, gives solidity, etc., substantiality, concreteness, to experience.

This meditation we did this morning, and that kind of approach, we're actually learning, again, a way of looking, a way of relating, that gives less substantiality to experience. Did you get a little bit of a sense of that? Yeah? Good. Now, there are many approaches too. The substantiality of something is empty, it's a dependent arising. So when something's a dependent arising, it always depends on more than one thing. So that means there's always more than one approach. Sometimes I say it's like suffering and the world of experience is like a house of cards. And that means I can pull this card out, and I can pull this card out, or I can pull this card out. Some of the cards I pull out won't make much difference. But there are quite a few cards I can pull out of this house of cards and something crumbles. Either the whole thing crumbles, or some degree of crumbling.

That's, in a way, what we're engaged in here. It will become clearer over the days. So there are lots of approaches. Today we just talked about one. I think I said, again, it's not obvious, I don't think it's obvious at all to human beings or even practitioners of long standing, even, that we suffer because we don't see emptiness of things but we see the inherent existence instead. We see substantiality of things. I'm not sure, but it seems to me that that takes a long time to become clear, that that's why we suffer.

Later, as the retreat goes on, I'm going to really, really fill this out, this house of cards image that I just talked about, and really see how it's not just that mind and delusion give substantiality to phenomenal experience, but they also build. They build phenomenal experience in the first place. They 'fabricate' it and 'concoct' it, to translate the Buddha's words. That's a translation of saṅkhāra. To saṅkhāra something, to 'fabricate' or 'concoct.' We're going to go into that in much more detail. This goes very, very deep. So any experience of anything, for it to be an experience, the mind has to fabricate it and concoct it. So whatever it is -- physical pain, tiredness, fear, anger, sadness, the things that appear to us of the world -- as experiences, they are fabricated, concocted by the deluded mind. We're going to explain that much more; I'm just putting that out there as a bit of a preview.

So three things are connected, or three ways of looking, states of being are connected. The more we see things with the lenses of the three characteristics (we've touched on this), the more suffering goes out, the more the reactivity goes out of experience. Right? When we see in terms of the three characteristics, we're actually -- however we're approaching it, we're letting go of this tussle, this clinging that we usually have with experience. So three characteristics bring less tussle, less push and pull. Another word for that is 'equanimity.' Equanimity, almost by definition, is the quietening of the push and pull with experience. So three characteristics bring equanimity. And they also will lead -- what we did this morning, you will find that, given time, and some of you may have already felt this, "Well, that was kind of where I was going anyway with the three characteristics." Did some of you get that sense? That the space of the guided meditation this morning was kind of where you were headed anyway a little bit with the three characteristics?

Yogi 1: It's the letting go. It's the allowing.

Rob: It's the letting go, and when we let go via the three characteristics, it tends to happen that the mind opens up in a more spacious way.

Yogi 1: One of those three characteristics is the way ...

Rob: Yes, and when we let go, what tends to then happen in the mind is a sense of spaciousness and opening up like that. So you've got three things. You've got three characteristics, equanimity, and this kind of spacious awareness. They all feed each other, in a way. The more the three characteristics, as we just said, the more the equanimity, and the more the equanimity, the more the space opens up. The more the equanimity, the easier we see the three characteristics. In a space of equanimity, the three characteristics start to become obvious, and obvious ways to relate to experience. The more the equanimity, the more the space of awareness opens up. Or the more the three characteristics, the more the space of awareness opens up. The more the space of awareness opens up, again, the easier it is certainly to feel equanimous in relationship to experience, and the more obvious it is that the three characteristics open up.

So everything is -- again, this mutual dependency. I said this before, but oftentimes when the causality seems to go one way, it goes the other way too. It goes in the reverse direction. And that's something that can end up being very, very useful to us as meditators.

Yogi 2: I didn't understand that.

Rob: Well, for instance, if I want -- let's say I want to feel more equanimous. Well, I could contemplate with the three characteristics. Let's say another day I can't find my way into the three characteristics. I could try establishing more of this space. I'll start again. If I want to open up into that space, I can practise the three characteristics, and it will lead there. Another day, I might have trouble finding my way into three characteristics practice or seeing the three characteristics. I might find my way into that space and just open up a sense of space, and then the three characteristics become more visible. Works both ways.

And this is how we want to use it. We want to take advantage of that. That's what I mean, useful for a meditator, that we use it like that and really take advantage of it like that. So just in terms of review of what we did this morning, you can start with listening. And in a way, the listening is very helpful in that it allows the space to open up. Because sounds come from all different directions and all different distances, it naturally lends the consciousness a sense of openness and opening out to receive the sound. So it will naturally tend to open up. And as I said at the end this morning, you can do this with your eyes open or the eyes closed; it actually makes very little difference.

Somehow, going via the sound or via the body also that we did this morning, beginning to establish a kind of what we could call a 'global awareness,' an awareness of the totality of experience. So including the body, including sound, including thoughts that come through. It's almost like the space is open to everything and includes everything. It's global awareness, total awareness. And beginning to almost tune into or -- 'focus' is too strong a word, but -- get a sense of that space. So this morning in the guided meditation, the leaning there was to get a sense of the space. So rather than just the three characteristics, actually tuning in more to the space as a subjective factor or experience.

And then -- again, this is just review of the guided meditation -- getting this sense that all phenomena are kind of held within that space of awareness. All phenomena are kind of effortlessly embraced and held in that. And, even more, all phenomena, all experience, seem to or can be seen to appear out of that space of awareness and disappear back into it. Were you getting that sense a little bit at times today? Some of you? Yeah? Great, great. And we can kind of encourage that and let everything belong to awareness. It all just -- like it's coming out and it's fading back in, and kind of letting it fade back there, letting it fade back there; that's where it belongs. It belongs to awareness, belongs to the space. Practising ways of looking.

Yogi 3: Are you equating awareness and space?

Rob: At this point, yes. In other words -- I'll touch on this more in the talk, but at this point, yes. The space is the space of awareness. But I'll qualify this in several different ways tonight and also later on the retreat. So where does this come from? We've already said it comes from letting go. The more I let go, in whatever way, the more this space and this sense of the space as a kind of backdrop and something that holds everything will open up. The more I let go, the more that opens up. And once you've got a sense of space, did you notice how then it was helping to let go? Yeah? So it aids letting go in relationship to what? To experiences and phenomena.

This backdrop or kind of ground, this kind of ground, background or 'ground of being,' sometimes people call it, it begins to get more prominent. Instead of just experience and phenomenal experience that arises, passes, I like it, I don't like it, this or that sensation or thought or whatever, instead of that, the mind always being occupied and entangled and preoccupied with phenomenal experience arising and passing, it begins to be that the kind of more steady ground begins to become more prominent to awareness. Again, just pointing, suggesting in the guided meditation, to get that sense of that ground and the kind of peace of it, the undisturbable, unshakeable peace of it. As I said, it can't be disturbed, just like the space in this room cannot be disturbed by anything that is in it. A rhinoceros could come barging through the door, do a little twirly dance -- space unaffected. It doesn't affect the space. The space just holds everything effortlessly, unblemished, unperturbed.

Sometimes when it goes really deep you can actually give more and more attention to the qualities of the space. It actually has a sense of unfathomable peace to it. It's almost like you can't even plumb the depths of that peace.

Yogi 4: Do you mean that in the physical sense?

Rob: Of what?

Yogi 4: Space in a physical sense?

Rob: Well, both -- I'm making an analogy, if you like, with the actual physical space and the way that is unperturbed by whatever events happen in it, I'm making an analogy of that and the space of awareness being unperturbed by what events happen, what mental events or impressions or experience happen in that space.

Yogi 4: I'm not sure I kind of agree with that all.

Rob: Okay. Which bit do you not agree with?

Yogi 4: Well, I'm just aware -- maybe I'm being pedantic, but -- in terms of science, science says that physical, actual space is affected by mass and it's distorted by ...

Rob: Okay, yeah. Good, good, good. Yes, like general relativity, theories of gravity, yeah. Does everyone know what this is about? [laughter] Do we really want to go into general relativity tonight? It's important, though, because the point is, that's right, apparently. You know, so says Einstein, and I'm sure he was right. Our actual experience of space is what I'm talking about. So the talk tonight, and in fact most of the talks, are practical experience-related. So when I say, "That's like space," I'm talking about our experience of space. Our experience of space outside of ourselves is like that. We see a rhinoceros come in, and we don't see the fabric of the space-time continuum slightly curve because there's a rhinoceros in the room. I'm sure it does that, according to the equations. But our experience is it basically doesn't make any difference.

Similarly, our phenomenal experience -- which is where I'm going, especially with this talk; I'm talking about phenomenal experience as a meditator -- is that we can also get a sense that whatever happens in the internal, whatever you call it, the space of awareness, also does not affect the mind. So again, I'll touch on this more. There's lots we can quibble with here. But what I'm really wanting to point to is a way of practising that's probably going to be very, very helpful for most people in this room.

Yogi 4: Yeah, it was just a nagging...

Rob: Sure. And that's good. But I'm not going to get too much into the intellectuality, especially tonight. Later on in the retreat, we will get much more sophisticated and subtle with this, but yeah. Okay. And then at one point in the guided meditation, I used this phrase, is it possible to get a sense of everything, all phenomena, as 'just impressions in awareness'? I was really just throwing out different kind of ways that different people might find helpful. But the important point here is can everything be included? Can everything be included in that way of looking? So, as I said towards the end, it's like even the sense of self can be experienced as just an impression in awareness. It begins to get kind of washed over by the water or swallowed in that sense.

Sometimes one can sit in meditation, and actually the sense of self is you're still there as a meditator very much. What happens if one turns this way of looking on that sense of the self? I'm sitting there and, if you're visual, you have an image of yourself sitting. And then that, too, is just an impression in awareness, just an impression. How much can be included? How total can it be? How much can this sense expand to include everything? I'm not sure what happened today in your meditations, but sometimes doing this there can arise quite -- either a lot or just a little -- a sense of freedom. Did anyone experience ...? Yeah? Good. Sense of freedom. Sense of even, occasionally, bliss, joy, happiness, clarity, etc. May have happened today, some people. This is the sort of thing that can arise at times. But that, too, can get included. So you have two options. One is just to enjoy it, which is great, and I always would recommend that. And the second one is actually, again, to turn the same way of looking at even that. So there's a sense of freedom or lightness, whatever -- that, too, is an impression in awareness.

What we notice is, as we do that, and as we get kind of, we could say more skilled at looking this way or opening this way, things start to get less substantial. They start to feel less substantial and appear less substantial. And as that deepens -- and I also put this in the guided meditation, and I don't know if maybe it's too early to say this, but maybe not -- it begins to seem not only that they get less substantial, but to seem also that they're, so to speak, made of the same stuff as that space, made of the same substance as awareness, so to speak. So doesn't matter if that happened today or not; I'm just kind of outlining. I mean, it's great if it did, and that's where we're heading, but I'm just outlining the way something may unfold, and it's actually quite important that it unfolds this way, for this practice, eventually, at whatever pace one goes at.

Yogi 5: How can something have a substance if it's empty?

Rob: Okay, but in the way that you could say the substance of space. It might be the very substance of emptiness. You could say that, if that makes sense. It's like there's nothing there. That's what I mean. When we usually think of space, we say, "Well, that cushion is solid, but the space around it is different texture." It's like, I think in the guided meditation, talking about if you really listen, if you really open to sounds and silence, eventually you get a sense of the silence around sounds. And you just stay with that, and you keep opening to it, and eventually it's almost like the silence permeates sound. Beautiful. Same thing with this. The sense of awareness as emptiness or space, whatever, begins to permeate the phenomenal appearances. Yeah? In time.

Another lovely thing happens, another beautiful thing can happen, eventually will happen with this: love comes. Love comes. I don't know, maybe some of you touched it today, maybe it's too early. It's fine. But naturally and without effort, quite organically, out of this way of looking, love will come. Why is that? Why is that? It's because in this way of looking, and in this way that we're not getting so dragged into, "This experience, I like it. This experience, I don't like it. That experience, I'm not sure. This experience, I definitely don't want that one. This, that, this, that," not so drawn into that and the world of separate things and separations, not so drawn into that, but more in a sense of totality and something embracing everything, and then, even deeper, the sense of all things being of one substance. Where there's a sense of oneness, non-separation, there's going to be love. It's going to open up love organically, organically. A sense of unity there. We could also say where there's space for everything, there's no conflict between things. There doesn't need to be any conflict. This thing, that thing, may like it, may not like it, but there's space for everything. Non-conflict. Even deeper, sometimes you get a sense with this space of awareness: it's like it's not your vast awareness and my vast awareness. It's almost a sense of there is just vast awareness.

Yogi 6: Is it right to think of this kind of spaciousness not as something absolute and the truth but just a mind state?

Rob: Yeah. I'll get to that.

Yogi 6: But a very beneficial one?

Rob: I'm going to -- exactly what I'm getting onto right now.

Yogi 6: Okay. The space is empty too?

Rob: Yes. Yes, but. Okay? And it comes right now. It's a curious thing teaching this business because some of you, if you take this up, some of you will fall in love with this space. And I used to think that everyone needed to fall in love with this space, that it seems such a natural part of consciousness deepening and opening that we really need to fall in love with the beauty of it -- eventually. Takes time. And this doesn't, as a meditation, belong just to the Buddhist tradition. Plenty of other traditions, most mystic paths, will lead to this either as a final point or as a stepping-stone. And you get different names that people call it: the ground of being -- that one's from Paul Tillich, a very important German theologian. Some people will call it the Unconditioned, as opposed to the conditions which arise within that. Cosmic consciousness, Awareness with a capital A, Big Mind, One Mind, God -- all names that people give it based on their experience.

So I'm picking up on Bill's thing a little bit, tonight a little bit and in future talks a lot, okay? What's also interesting about this space is that, for a dedicated meditator, it can have different colours. I don't mean visual colours -- well, actually visual colours, too, but it's usually black, eventually, if you've got your eyes closed. But I don't mean that so much as flavours of quality. So it can have the quality of silence. It's silence. It's that silence that holds everything. It can actually have the quality of just space. It can, as we were emphasizing this morning, have the quality of awareness. It feels like it's awareness. It can, as I think I mentioned last night in the talk, have a quality of love, that actually what's permeating everything vastly and universally is love, a kind of universal, cosmic love woven into the fabric of the universe. It can have that flavour. So I'm talking about very palpable senses that a meditator may come across in meditation, and even get very, very familiar with -- compassion ...

Yogi 7: Do you mean different people, different time, [?] have different tendencies ...

Rob: Both. So it will mostly depend -- there may be some karmic predisposition for a person to go one way versus another, but it will mostly actually depend on what practice one's doing and how one's orienting it. So I would expect someone doing a lot of mettā practice or compassion practice to more go into a perception of universal compassion that's actually holding everything. And in fact, this retreat, before, in its earlier incarnation, it was a three-week Lovingkindness and Compassion As a Path to Awakening retreat that we did with John and Catherine. As people went on, that was quite a common experience. Just compassion holding all the suffering. It's very palpable, very beautiful, very transforming. Joy. Can also be joy. It's like the texture of the universe is joy. Peace. Nothingness. Can have all these different flavours and textures. And wonderfully, beautifully, a dedicated meditator can know them all. You can taste all those flavours. You can get to know them all. What we're emphasizing today and this morning was the flavour of awareness, that it's got this -- it's awareness that holds everything, it's awareness that pervades, so to speak.

However, I feel, important as that is, very important, if it feels like this is helpful, to pursue this and open and maybe get even different flavours, etc., on this retreat or other retreats or whatever it is, in one's life. However, the very fact that it can be coloured different ways points to the fact that it's still a fabricated perception. It's still a perception that's being conditioned. You understand? So what to do with that? What to do with that?

Yogi 8: I guess I've had a teacher who talks about these different flavours of true nature, that compassion can arise. Compassion is an aspect of true nature. So I don't know -- if you want to say something to that.

Rob: I think the way I would, again -- and I talked yesterday about precision or poetic language -- strictly speaking, the way I would feel more comfortable with putting it, just for myself, is flavours, perceptions, things arise as dependent arisings, and when there is more openness, less clinging, less self, etc., more wisdom and less ignorance, the tendency of flavours will be more in terms of love and oneness and vastness, etc. So you could say they're expressions of wisdom mind, you could say something like that, and if you want to say true nature, it's okay. So I can see that, but it's almost like, we have to be careful not to reify true nature. It has to do with what I was saying last night.

Partly what I'm saying, as well, and I will repeat this later in this talk, is -- you know, like I said at the beginning of this talk, there are so many styles of teaching this stuff. I don't have a problem if you fall in love with this. I don't have a problem if you call it God. I don't have a problem if you -- any of that -- if you call it true nature, etc. What's important is that it's a platform that's bringing you a lot more freedom and a lot more sense of connection, love, etc. And eventually, one will go deeper than that. One will see beyond that. I'll revisit that.

But we get -- if I just said what I said, you already get the sense it's a conditioned perception, because I can colour it this way, I can colour it this way. And, even, a skilled meditator can colour, in the same sitting, can choose to colour it -- eeny, meeny, miny, moe -- and move between. Just knows how, is skilled in fabricating. Not very far-fetched. Actually can perceive this for a few minutes, and then choose to perceive this, and then choose to perceive that. We get a sense this is a conditioned perception still. Might not seem like it. In other words, sometimes when a meditator stumbles on this, it really does feel like, "Wow, this is really something ultimately real." It can have, for some people, that sense of impact. But still in the realm of conditioned perception.

So we're going to talk a lot about this later on in the retreat, a lot about this. And how would I go beyond that? If it's still a conditioned perception, so deep, so beautiful, so freeing, how will I go beyond that to what might be less fabricated or not fabricated, more true?

Yogi 9: I don't know why you'd want to go beyond it. [laughter]

Rob: Yeah, good, good. What if -- okay, this thing has a degree of beauty, which is probably, for most people, probably about the most beautiful and most freeing that one has come across, and opens the most love that one has come across in one's life. But what if there was something that did that even more? Released the sense of existence even more than that, had even more of a long-term, deeper cut in terms of one's suffering, one's delusion, one's tendency to build problems and self and all that, even deeper, and was even more remarkable to the point where you can barely put it into language in terms of the freedom that it brought?

Yogi 10: Is it fair to say that this experience can be had in meditation, but it doesn't free you from saṃsāra, necessarily?

Rob: Okay. So technically speaking, it won't free you from saṃsāra, this. So if you're talking technically, it won't free you. I would put it -- because people have problems with "What does saṃsāra actually mean?", and I'm definitely not going to get into that tonight, but -- we could say that if I just have an experience of this, it's not going to bring much freedom. If I have a one-off experience, what's going to happen, probably, is I'll cling to it. "How did that happen? I want to get back there." We've touched on this before. If I have enough experiences, it will affect the being very deeply. The important thing, though, and I've said this before, is to suck the insight out of this, which I'm going to get to in this talk, as well as being touched and kind of cellularly transformed by that experience. But it doesn't cut at a deep enough level in the long run. Because in that space one hasn't actually -- as I said, we need to explicitly see through the inherent existence of things, including this space, eventually. And if there's something remaining that I haven't seen [through] the inherent existence of, it's a bit like -- gruesome image, excuse me, but -- if someone has a cancer, and they do an operation to remove it, but they leave some cells there. It's a bit like that. Something else will grow. You understand?

So we're going to talk a lot about how would one, how would a dedicated meditator, actually even go beyond that and see the emptiness of this later. We'll get to it. Maybe you've picked up on it already, but the style of teaching that I feel most helpful is go by stages, go by stepping-stones. You can't jump all the way. However, I'm going to throw out a little trick, a cheap trick. [laughter] Has anyone heard of Jean Klein? He's an Advaita teacher. He's probably dead now. I don't know. He has a book called Who Am I?, which is quite an interesting book to read. He has some, I think -- well, that book I really like. I haven't read it for years, but I liked it at the time, and some other books which I wasn't so keen on. But anyway. Jean Klein. And similar sort of approach. And everything is happening in awareness, everything is happening in this space.

But that sense of awareness is not awareness itself. It's a kind of sense of awareness. It's an image of awareness. Do you understand? It's like we can almost have -- some people, if they're very visual, almost get a visual sense of space in which things are happening. So we have a sense of awareness, but that's not awareness itself. What if I then went one step further and said this sense of awareness is also just an impression, is also just happening? Play with it. Try it.

Yogi 11: [?]

Rob: If you're doing this and letting everything belong to the awareness and letting everything have this sense of 'everything's in awareness,' so to speak, in this space of awareness, sometimes what can happen is we get a sense of this awareness. That's what I was kind of encouraging this morning. But that sense of awareness -- it can't be awareness itself, because I have a sense of it. It's almost like, what if I then said, okay, this sense that I have of awareness is not awareness itself -- that, too, is something in awareness, and I kind of saw the sense of awareness in that way. Play with it. Play with it if you want. It's not as deep as some of the ways we'll see to expose the emptiness of it, as we'll go in later, but can be very, very helpful. So you see that that global sense is also in awareness, see it also as in awareness.

Okay. I want to touch on a slight variation of this approach, a slight variation which I didn't really go near tonight. It's a second kind of way of doing it. It's slightly different, but it has some overlap. There is a school of Buddhist philosophy that's not really -- well, officially it's not around much any more, but actually it's very healthy and alive. But officially it's not. And it's called Cittamātra. Citta means 'mind' or 'heart,' and one of the translations of mātra is 'only.' So it translates as 'Mind Only.' Another almost synonymous kind of term for that sort of school in Dharma teachings, not quite but almost, is Yogācāra. That translates as something like 'the practice of yoga,' or 'the practice of meditation,' you could say. But they're a similar sort of stream of philosophy in Buddhist teachings that arose prominently -- early Mahāyāna kind of thing.

Yogācāra is interesting. Sometimes a way of thinking about what Yogācāra actually is is it's a school of philosophy that arose from hardcore meditators, from yogis, rather than from philosophers. So it was people meditating a lot and having a lot of experiences, and then trying, led by their practice and led by these openings in practice, actually trying to -- or just finding themselves -- interpreting their experiences in a certain way, rather than coming from a sort of philosophical point of view, an intellectual point of view, and saying, "That has to be like this, da-da-da-da." But in a way, all those flavours that I was talking about before and the different names -- ground of being, or God, or cosmic consciousness -- in a way, there are also, in other traditions, yogis, meditators, interpreting their -- what feels like very deep meditation experiences, interpreting them in a certain way. Because actually, this space, I would say, is a relatively common opening for a dedicated meditator. Some of you may have come across it well before today, just in your practice. It won't feel that new, I know, to many of you. It's actually quite a common, natural opening of consciousness for a meditator. Why? Going back to the beginning, it comes from letting go. It's a natural opening of consciousness the more we let go.

And then, of course, the mind wants to interpret it in a certain way and call it this, or give it this or that meaning or significance. So, in a way, Cittamātra philosophy, this Mind Only philosophy, is a theory to interpret meditation experiences that people were having. And 'Mind Only,' you can hear what it means -- it's saying there is only mind, 'mind' meaning 'awareness,' equating mind and awareness. Everything is just awareness. Are you following this? Yeah? Okay.

So this second way of going about it is slightly different. It says this. It starts with some reflection. This moment of consciousness, there's actually no proof that the outer perceived aspect, the so-called object that appears, exists independently of the inner perceiving aspect. The inner perceiving aspect of a moment of consciousness can't arise without the outer perceived aspect. We touched on this before. We said consciousness and its object are like two sides of the same coin. Where there's a knowing of something, there's something that's known. And vice versa -- you can't have an outer perceived aspect without an inner perceiving aspect of consciousness. Both simultaneously have to be there. Okay?

A perceiving consciousness without an object of perception is actually a contradiction in terms. How can you have a perceiving consciousness that doesn't perceive anything, doesn't perceive an object? It's a contradiction in terms -- as is an object of perception with no perceiving consciousness. One does not arise before another in that moment. Again, we could say they don't have an independent existence of each other. So often, some Cittamātra philosophy uses the analogy of a dream. Dream appearances don't exist independent of the dreaming mind. I'm dreaming of a tiger, being chased by a tiger -- that tiger appearance does not exist independently of the dreaming mind. A moment of dream mind arises together with the dream object. The dream object does not appear before or after that dream moment of consciousness. And vice versa -- the dream moment of consciousness does not arise before or after the moment of the object of that dream consciousness.

So that's a sort of very crude summary of a way of reflecting. And again, similar to what we were talking about, it's like, reflecting on that view, and actually reaching some conviction in that view: "Actually, you know ... Yeah, okay." In other words, that the idea of a separate, truly existing object, either outer (so-called) or inner, is an unnecessary invention of the mind. And then one reflects on that and kind of sustains that view. So you're kind of looking at an object, if you've got your eyes open, and actually seeing, in a way, they're of the same substance. There's no actual necessary difference in material substance there. So resting in that meditation, the focus in that meditation is on -- what 'emptiness' means in this case is emptiness of any mind/matter dichotomy or mind/experience dichotomy, awareness/experience dichotomy.

So in this slightly different approach, the focus is not so much on the mind or awareness as it was in the first approach, really getting the sense of awareness as such. But the focus is more kind of sharp, in a way, more gathered, that the focus of each moment, one's focusing on there not being a difference in substance between awareness and experience. Does that ...?

Yogi 12: Could you repeat what you said about the dichotomy?

Rob: That what is actually empty in this case is any real dichotomy between mind or awareness and matter, or you could say awareness and experience. We tend to think, most human beings tend to think they're different things, of course. You've got the world out there and the mind somewhere in here. And actually beginning to see that, in terms of experience, it's all the same stuff. You can't actually prove that there's something out there that arises independent of the mind, or the actual experience has an inner perceiving aspect, this consciousness, and an outer perceiving aspect, the object that we feel we're looking at. And just sustaining that sense of they're actually not split, so to speak. Okay?

Yogi 13: So, say a candle that you're seeing it in your mind, it's not actually separate from a candle you're seeing, as it were -- you think you're seeing out there?

Rob: The candle you're seeing out there -- what this is moving towards is actually, and one does this and kind of stays steady with that reflection over and over, and could be visual, could be auditory, could be -- people have maybe different senses that will be easier. But what's happening is one's getting a sense of everything, in a way, being of the substance of mind or the manifestation of mind. It's not actually something that's separatable from mind. What I'm actually looking at, what I'm actually experiencing, is inseparable from the mind, inseparable from the awareness.

Yogi 14: Is that any different from the fifth aggregate, consciousness always arising with an object?

Rob: The difference is -- well, people can hear that, "consciousness always arises with an object," as two separate things arising together, or you can hear it as it's actually one thing, or you can hear it as things that are neither separate nor one. That last one is the ultimately true meaning. They're not separate things and they're not one thing. I'll say a bit more about this. If you're feeling uncomfortable at this point, I agree. Okay? I don't feel totally comfortable with this. What it's basically saying is -- or this is a crude version; there's many different types of Cittamātra philosophy, and the crudest version is that there's nothing out there at all. There's nothing actual, material, that really exists, and it's all the play of mind; it's all the substance of mind.

Yogi 15: Well, if there's nothing that exists, the mind doesn't exist, either.

Rob: We will get to that. Basic Cittamātra says all that exists is the mind, and that really exists, but nothing else. Later in the retreat, we will come back and say, "Does the mind exist?" And the answer is no. Not inherently. But stages, stages, okay?

Yogi 16: Can I just say something? Especially experiencing difficult emotional states like fear, for example, I mean, but normally you kind of often are looking at things and judging them through memories of what something has meant to you, and then you do experience yourself as "I am experiencing fear," etc. And when somehow, perhaps by the grace of God or whatever, it feels like you slip into the fear, and it feels like dying, but you become exactly what you were just talking about, totally one with it, and then you're unified. So I just think this is an enormously important route through, but it takes courage, because you do feel like you're dying, you're losing your grip on yourself, literally. But I just think it's like a highway into emptiness, you know?

Rob: Yeah. That's what I'm saying, yeah. That's what I'm saying. And of course, Bruce -- one can do it -- if one takes this up as a meditation, it's not just on the difficult things. You can do it with everything.

Yogi 16: I suppose in the resistance and looking through the lens of how things used to be, I mean, that's the sort of major stance of the sense of 'I,' isn't it, you know?

Rob: What is?

Yogi 16: That when you resist something, avoiding something, and you're looking at it through the lens of who you take yourself to be from the past. So there are moments, they must happen to all of us when you're meditating, when you're on the edge, there's a kind of crumbling in, and it's like crumbling which is, I think, such an opportunity.

Rob: Yeah, sure. All I'm adding is you don't have to wait for a difficulty. You can kind of sustain this view and actually just all experience, I look at it this way, look at it this way. So it's like each moment, we say, is empty of a difference in nature of perceiver, of awareness, and perceived.

Yogi 17: So you just want us to take that message from the Mind Only school? And sort of just with that ... because I've studied the Mind Only school ...

Rob: Okay, yes.

Yogi 17: And I know that it takes you ...

Rob: Oh, it's way beyond this. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yogi 17: So you just want us to take that ...

Rob: For now, yes. I'll fill this out a bit more. So in a way, then, awareness is also the kind of content of experience. You could say in this view that one's getting into then, all experience is basically a manifestation of mind, of awareness, of mental energy. You can do that in a very narrow way -- in other words, focusing on one object. A very small way, like this thing that I'm looking at, or this pain in the body or whatever, or in a much more spacious way, as we did before. So it's slightly different from the first approach in that one's actually regarding the mind as a stream of moments of consciousness with a knowing and a known aspect, and then questioning the sense of a world out there, that they're actually separate, okay?

Now, as April was pointing out, actual Cittamātra philosophy is incredibly complex, and it's enormously rich and very subtle and sophisticated. This, what I've outlined, is actually the crudest possible version of it, rudest even version of it. "All is mind, all is awareness, everything is the manifestation, play of mind, awareness, consciousness, there's nothing out there" -- you may feel uncomfortable with that. I don't know. Do people feel uncomfortable with it? Or is it okay? That there's nothing actual material really?

Yogi 18: If you say so. [laughter]

Rob: That's what I like. No! [laughter] Really? That's interesting. I feel quite uncomfortable with it, to say that nothing actually exists materially at all. It feels like a step too far. I don't know, I'm just curious.

Yogi 19: [?]

Rob: You don't think you can take it in? Okay. Yeah. It's not important. I'm just curious.

Yogi 20: Does it mean that everything is just ... [yogi talking over each other]

Yogi 21: Well, to me, it does feel too far, because if I sit on the tracks of a train, for instance, and I look at it, and I say, "It's only my mind," what happens?

Rob: Yeah, okay. Anyway. I just -- to me, I feel uncomfortable with it. But, as I said, it's the crudest, rudest version. I guess I just want to say there's a lot more to Cittamātra philosophy. It's quite sophisticated and, like everything else, has all degrees of subtlety and complexity, etc. So in this one, it's slightly different to this ground of being opening up in that way that was from the first meditation. Slight difference. It's more like the stream of momentary consciousness, and there's not a separation, there's not a separation, there's not a separation. Slightly different approach.

So both these, as we said before, are provisional. They're provisional meditations. They're provisional understandings. Some people stop here. Many people stop here. Many, many, many, many, many, many people stop here.

Yogi 22: Why would you say 'provisional'?

Rob: 'Provisional' means not final, not a final resting place, not a final truth, not an ultimate truth, similar to what Bill was asking before. I see it as a stepping-stone for many people. In other words, like I said, many people, this is going to be really, really helpful for the unfolding of their understanding and their freedom, and leads, as I think Bill was asking, it can lead to a full understanding of emptiness, full realization, etc., and all of that. There is an enormous amount of letting go here, and maybe you can even sense it today. The potential for depth of letting go with these approaches is enormous, absolutely enormous, for freedom, for peace, for love, for insight as well, okay?

But they're not it, or it is not it, okay? This space is not it. It's not the Unconditioned. Sometimes you will hear teachers calling it the Unconditioned or the Deathless. It's extremely popular as a place of -- because it's quite accessible and it's so striking to the heart and so impactful on the heart, it's extremely popular as a kind of, "I'll hang my hat there." Very, very popular. But as we said, going right back to the first talk, emptiness is not space. Emptiness is also not awareness. It's not even -- we'll get into this much later in the retreat -- that the true nature of awareness is vastness. It's not actually that the nature of awareness is vast. You read that a lot in texts, but it actually has a subtlety of translation there. It's not actually that awareness is vast; it's just very, very helpful to see it that way. Very helpful.

But this is really tricky, and it's tricky teaching it, because -- I don't know, I'm not sure any more; I used to feel very uncertain with people, and especially one-on-one, if they were on long-term retreat and this was really opening for them, and thinking, "Should I burst the bubble now or wait until later?" [laughs] And almost wondering. They need to fall in love with it, they really need to let it permeate the heart and saturate the being and the eyes, and feel the freedom, and feel the heart opening, be transformed by it. And if someone comes along and says, "Well, actually, that's not the Buddha's teaching on emptiness, and that's not right, and da-da-da-da-da," or someone like me bursts the bubble too easily, one can very easily just kind of dismiss it too early. And what will happen? I'll just go back to my default views, the normal views I have of life -- "I'm here, you're there, we're separate, there's this, awareness is somehow in here or here or whatever" -- all that, the default views, including inherent existence and self and all the rest of it, they don't really get shaken up. We just go back to that, because all we've done is said something intellectually. It hasn't really had the chance to shake something up and free the being and move us in a certain direction.

But you get, certainly what you get is people stopping here. A lot, a lot of people in Buddhist traditions, different Buddhist traditions, in different other traditions, etc. It's so compelling and so beautiful, so freeing that, as Juliet said, "Why would I even want to go any more? This must be it." Very common. But you also get very strongly teachers and the tradition saying, "It's not it. It's not it." So it's not it; it's not the Unconditioned, this space. It's also not true that only the mind exists and nothing else, etc. So Nāgārjuna, from his essay on the mind of enlightenment, bodhicitta, it says:

The teaching by the Subduer [that's the Buddha, the teaching by the Buddha] that all these [phenomena] are mind-only is in order to get rid of [or to allay] the fears of the childish. It is not suchness. [It is not emptiness.]^[1]

In other words, it's a helpful stepping-stone because it's very difficult to go all the way and see awareness has no inherent existence, time has no inherent existence, space has no inherent [existence] -- it's very difficult. And oftentimes people will feel, if you say too much like that, it goes towards nihilism. That's people's tendency of association, they get afraid. So very, very helpful stepping-stone. That was Nāgārjuna. Did you ...? It's okay, I'm aware I was too quick. No? Okay.

Yogi 23: It's very wonderful. Are there are any pitfalls? And one might be that some very persuasive teacher has these experiences and identifies themselves as God and then does a lot of damage, practical damage.

Rob: Can be. It can be, absolutely. What I see more is people just stopping there and thinking they've discovered the ultimate truth of things. That tends to be the more common pitfall that I would see. But I guess that could happen, too.

Yogi 23: I think it must happen. Would you say, do people discuss the benefits not just as a stepping-stone, but for your relationship with others and yourself and your life and the world?

Rob: Yeah, most definitely. So there are benefits here. It's just a teaching modality, but I really want to draw this out. It's like, don't throw this out too early. If it feels like it's helpful for you, do not throw it out too early. Is it the ultimate truth? No. In the past, I used to wait to break that news to people [laughter], but now I've seen it actually doesn't matter too much. Maybe for some. I don't know. But I would still say, can you just put that aside, that it's not the ultimate truth, and just keep going with this and keep playing with it? Because it will bring love, it will bring connection, it will bring a deep cutting of identification and contraction, etc. Definitely, definitely. But I found it tricky teaching this. I wondered, do I have to wean a person off it slowly or what, you know?

Yogi 24: Can I ask two very quick questions?

Rob: Yeah.

Yogi 24: What's the difference between samādhi and this? And then the other one, once you have realized ultimate emptiness, can you still get back to this?

Rob: Yes. [laughs] The second one, yes, most definitely. What's that?

Yogi 25: Would you want to?

Rob: Would you want to? Um, it's fun. [laughter] Even this stage, like I said, with those different colours, there are different flavours of it. You could experience it this way or that way or that way, you know. And a person might want to just keep the mind malleable, etc., and experience a certain way of seeing. Yeah. You would not be so drawn to it, certainly. If you've tasted something deeper, you would not be so drawn. You might have to think, well, that's, you know, whatever. But yeah, you could; there's nothing blocking it, certainly not.

I was just going to share a story. I had a student who was here over quite a while on different retreats, and really building at his practice very deeply, and then came for a year retreat. And he was one of the only people I've worked with who didn't go via this to get to deeper kind of understandings and realizations. And then I gave a talk at one point and approached this from a different angle, and he was there, and he wrote me a note, said, "I really appreciate that. It made me practise in this way," which we hadn't talked about before. And I said, "Well, go explore that." And a couple of days later I got another note saying something like, "Whatever one might say about the Cittamātrans, they sure know how to have a good time!" [laughter]

So the texts are split on this. If you read a lot of Mahāyāna texts, you will encounter different opinions, and even in the same sūtra. It gets quite confusing. I view it as a provisional teaching, a stepping-stone teaching, that one might even use in the same breath or same paragraph as a higher teaching. So we've talked about, and John has talked about, and I've talked about, and even in one sūtra called the Daśabhūmikā Sūtra -- it means Ten Grounds of Awakening Sūtra -- the Cittamātrans claim that the Buddha denied the existence of a material world and said it's all mind, it's all the stuff of an inherently existing awareness. But in that very same sūtra, they say that consciousness, awareness, mind or whatever, arises -- guess what -- dependent on ignorance and saṅkhāras. So it's skilful means.

Now, I'm going to repeat this, but it's really, really important: you don't have to use this. You don't have to go this way if it feels like it's not helpful. You absolutely don't have to. But don't object to it just on intellectual grounds, that, "Well, such-and-such ..." If that's the case, or we just have one or two experiences, it won't be enough for it to transform the heart. It won't be enough, and we will resort to our default views.

I didn't answer your first question yet, sorry. I'll get to it right now. We might hold certain intellectual views, but deep down in the heart, in the driving seat of our life, the default views of inherent existence will still be unchallenged, or not challenged very deeply. This is a way to really begin getting hold of those views and really shaking the foundations of them. It doesn't uproot them, but it really starts shaking them. If you feel it's working, especially, don't just object to it on intellectual grounds.

April's question: what's the difference between samādhi and this state? *Samādhi'*s an interesting word. I probably use it sloppily. So there are different -- you could equate samādhi just with what's called the eight jhānas. But even then, there are some jhānas that relate very much to this experience. They're kind of -- you get, as I said, a whole texture of flavours that kind of revolve around more of the formless jhānas. I sometimes use the word samādhi, as when I talked on samādhi, it's just a state of being, to some degree, where there's a unification, where there's settledness. It could feel like it's on one object. It could feel like it's really in the body. Or it could even open up in this way and include phenomena. But because of the unification and the steadiness and the well-being, it's still a state of samādhi. So you can talk about samādhi states that come out of concentration, and samādhi that comes out of open insight. And when you're in this kind of space and it feels like, "Boom!", sometimes people do this, and they just keep letting go, and it's lovely, lovely, lovely. You can sit for a long time, you know, longer than one's used to. That's a kind of insight samādhi, you could say. So it is a state of mind, ultimately speaking. It's a state of mind.

Remember I quoted a Dzogchen aphorism or whatever it's called: "Trust your experience, but keep refining your view." So much wisdom in that. Trust your experience, but keep refining your view. So trusting the meditative experience, and what -- even if it's singing to you very poetically and you want to use the language, trust your experience, but keep refining it, letting it refine. What I see is a lot of people not refining the view, and then other people not trusting the experience. Somewhere in there, to me, it feels like, is a very skilful way of letting things really deepen and organically transform the being.

Yogi 26: When we did that meditation this morning, I was having difficulty experiencing things arising in that space. They would dissolve into the space, but there was a strong feeling that they were arising more sort of within me. And then the sort of sense of my body started growing and growing and growing. It was kind of like basically sort of becoming one with the awareness. But my thinking was, "Oh, this is just kind of somehow my ego getting bigger," or "I'm not sort of letting go"; it seemed like somehow because it was associated with my self that I shouldn't be going there. So I didn't sort of follow it and I don't even know whether I should or I shouldn't.

Rob: Interesting. Well, that's interesting. I never heard that before. I'm sure it happens. I wonder, again, letting the sense of relief or release lead you. In other words, if it feels like the body and the self, so to speak, is growing and more a kind of oneness that way, and with it is a sense of relief and release, they are the indicators of insight doing its work. So if that was there ...

Yogi 26: Yeah, it was, but I kind of squashed it.

Rob: I hear you, yeah.

Yogi 26: [?]

Rob: So I would trust it. I would trust it. Because we use this word 'self,' but it wasn't the personality expanding. It was more a sense of something expanding, and there was still some identification with it. Someone else brought this up in an interview today. It's still okay. It's still going to work as a stepping-stone, as long as that relief and release are there. And eventually one will be able to look at that remaining identification and kind of dissolve that too. But I would say that's very helpful, so go for it. Part of trusting experience, if it feels like it's freeing, trust it, follow it, and let it deepen. And maybe -- I'm not sure if this is right -- but sometimes actually doing this, the sense of things dissolving into the space actually at one point becomes more prominent than the sense of things arising. And when things dissolve, there's also more of a tendency to let go. It's like you let them go, you let them go. And that's actually very helpful for the whole thing unfolding. So you could also just lean the attention a bit more into the dissolving into the space too.

Yogi 26: It was dissolving into the space, but it wasn't arising ...

Rob: I hear you. I'm just saying you could not worry so much about the arising, and just tune a bit more -- that's another option. Yeah? Okay.

Yogi 27: Can you just clarify, the meditation this morning, does that only take us up to this platform, or does that take us beyond where we consider awareness itself to be an impression, where we consider the sense of self the impression in awareness. Does it take us beyond that?

Rob: If you consider the sense of self to be just an impression in awareness, it won't take you beyond this platform. But the sense of awareness, if that's what you meant to say, because there's two things I can -- let me talk and see if I ...

Yogi 27: Is the sense of self part of the awareness [?] ...

Rob: Yes, but that thing I threw out and I called a cheap trick, if I see the sense of awareness as 'in awareness,' there's a degree to which it can move -- and quite an important degree -- beyond this. I wouldn't say that way of doing it will expose the full understanding of dependent arising and emptiness, but it can certainly take the whole thing to another level. It is a bit -- it's maybe not respectful to say cheap trick, but it doesn't expose that whole fullness of the understanding of emptiness and dependent arising. But it can lead you beyond this sense of awareness as some 'thing,' so to speak, that kind of ... See, the thing about this big awareness, and we'll get to this later in the retreat, is that it appears to be continuous and permanent in time. In other words, things are happening, but this stays steady. And because it's still something, so to speak, with space and with time, it hasn't gone beyond space and time. Okay? [laughs] The thing that's liberating about this stage of seeing is the very steadiness and permanence, seeming permanence of it in time. It's like anything can happen, as I said, and the space stays like the space. Anything can happen, and the space of awareness stays. And it seems like, "Pfff, it's permanent!" That's why people start thinking, "This must be the Unconditioned. This must be the Deathless." Because the word 'Deathless' seems to imply permanence. Actually, 'Deathless' implies 'beyond time,' not permanent, not impermanent. We'll get to this later.

Yogi 28: Are there people then that go about their daily affairs, and they're constantly in this state of love and unification? That seems implausible.

Rob: There are people who say that they are. I think that it's something that's fairly easy to practise to have more and more and more of one's time, and really quite a lot of the time. It's still, I would say, an impermanent state. But there are people who say they are, and yeah, maybe, who knows? But the important thing to me is not so much whether it's possible to hang out with it permanently, because as we -- I think it was a couple of nights ago or whenever, I don't know when -- more importantly, it's the fact that it's still a fabricated perception rather than that it's permanent. That's actually the thing that just goes ...

Yogi 28: The reason I ask is that even if, when you're in it, it seems permanent, you surely will notice when it's gone, and notice the difference, and kind of tricking yourself, like, "Well, I thought it was permanent, but here I am a crabby old man." [laughter]

Rob: Yeah, yeah, really important. And, you know what? People lie as well. People lie and don't always share the truth about their experience. And people deceive themselves as well. So that happens too. I'm not saying -- it may well be possible for someone to abide in this permanently. And, you know, either karmic predispositions, certainly. I would say it's probably possible.

Yogi 28: Or sincerely persuade themselves...

Rob: Yeah, either way, but let's say even the first one, genuinely abiding in it permanently in this lifetime, I would still say it's not the fullness of understanding or liberation, because it's still on the level of fabricated perception. And that's actually the significant thing. But we will get to all this. I'm trying to walk this tightrope between saying, "It's not it, but go for it," kind of thing.

Eventually, this view of this spacious awareness or this non-separation, either one, actually becomes something you can turn on and off at will. You can just kind of click the mind into it -- with a lot of practice -- and click it out. And in that, as we said, things appear less substantial and more empty. 'Empty,' though, in this sense really means 'empty of existing as something other than the play of awareness, the substance of awareness.' For instance, like the example of seeing it as a dream tiger. However, I still say that this is relevant in the fuller understanding of dependent arising and emptiness. Why? So actually let's just backtrack and talk about this whole practice. A person could say, "You know, this morning in the guided meditation you were using pretty suggestive language, and you were kind of prompting our experience in a certain direction" -- which I will admit to. [laughs] And a person could say, "Well, I'm imagining this space. I'm imagining it, or I'm suggesting it to myself." But again, it's a skilful means. It's a way of looking that brings freedom. And insights come out of it, and that's really why not to dismiss it, as well.

What are the insights? And this has to do with dependent arising. The more I let go, the more I let go in relation to experience, the less substantiality the perception of that experience has. That is very significant in terms of dependent arising. It may not seem it right now. Do you understand? The more I let go, the less substantial things appear. They appear less solid and substantial. And in terms of understanding the dependent arising of perception, that's very significant. It's a very significant part of that journey. And the more I let go, the less separateness I feel. That's also part of understanding dependent arising. And the more I let go, the less self-sense, the quieter the self-sense. Also very important in understanding emptiness and dependent arising.

And all of that happening actually, and the whole practice of letting go and all this happening, leads to more letting go. And with more letting go, deeper insights that I haven't talked about tonight begin opening within this space. All this stuff, talking about these tunnels, these avenues that we just -- that's why I said, "Develop this practice, develop this practice," because it will go beyond what it seems to be telling us right now. Other insights will unfold from it. And all that is part of understanding dependent arising and emptiness deeper and deeper, gradually.

So there is a lot of beauty here and a lot of deep freedom. You don't have to, as I said, but if it feels like it's, "Mm, could be something here for me. I feel a little bit of something," play with it. Go for it. Incorporate it.

Yogi 29: Where is this taken from?

Rob: Uh ... everywhere. I mean, the strict Cittamātra, the second version, that would be strictly Cittamātra.

Yogi 29: [?] Just synthesized.

Rob: Yeah, yeah. Like I said, it's so much the natural way that consciousness would open anyway in time, with letting go, that I was more just synthesizing a lot of ways that would kind of encourage that movement, yeah. Okey-doke. Yeah?

Yogi 30: Is there a way -- I know we're making a tape, a copy of this. Is there a way for the guided meditation -- is there a copy of it?

Rob: Yeah, there's a copy from last year -- quite similar, not exactly the same -- in the library. But it's called "Guided Meditation on Cittamātra," okay?^[2] And you know how the library works. There's folders of different teachers, so it's in there.

Yogi 30: Because it seems to me that, for me anyway, it was a very powerful experience.

Rob: Good, good, yeah.

Yogi 30: And now with all of the content you've given us tonight, I would like to do it again.

Rob: Yeah, go for it. Get the tape. Get the tape, and do it as much as you want. But begin to kind of, in time, wean yourself off it so you can just really get a sense of, "Oh, this is how I'm going about it."

Yogi 30: I'm not going to get stuck on it, I just ...

Rob: I'm not worried about that, yeah. Go for it.

Yogi 30: What's it called again?

Rob: "Guided Meditation on Cittamātra" or something like that. Yeah.

Yogi 31: Could I just ask a question about the phrase you used, which I wasn't quite sure I was getting the right meaning of it? It was "impression on ..."

Rob: "Impressions in awareness," yeah.

Yogi 31: "Impression on awareness," or ...?

Rob: I think I said "impressions in awareness."

Yogi 31: Yeah. So what was it for?

Rob: I think what I said this morning in the guided meditation was -- is it possible, in that space, to sense or to see or to feel that everything that arises, all experience that arises, is 'just an impression in awareness,' like reflections on the surface of a lake? And so even as one's sitting and one has a sense of self, or if you've got a visual mind, you see your body sitting there, and you think, "Oh, that's my self" -- even that is also an impression in awareness. Even that, too, is just like a reflection in the surface of the lake.

Yogi 31: I can't quite get my head around those two ... Impressions ... What comes into my mind when you say "an impression on awareness," it's like something [?] impression, but then a reflection on a lake is like, reflecting off the lake, so they're kind of ...

Rob: When you look at a reflection on the lake, the actual experience of it looks like it's like a painting painted on the surface of a lake, right? So it's almost like the substance, then, of the impression is something that's in the substance of the lake. That's more the sense that I wanted to convey. Yeah? As I said, I just threw out a lot of suggestive terms this morning. And someone else said, I can't remember who it was, that that phrase didn't particularly work for them. For someone else, that one would have been very helpful, and another one wouldn't have worked. Fine. Doesn't really matter. More -- if you understand what I said tonight and what I was trying to convey, what helps you move towards that sense of relating to things? And if that little phrase doesn't work, leave it. Yeah?

Yogi 32: One moment. When you talk about the two elements having the same substance, is that the Cittamātra sort of -- that's the view?

Rob: Yes. That's, like I said, I don't actually know that much about all the complexities of Cittamātra, but that would be a very crude version of it that's based on that. It's actually much more complicated, but that's a starting point that you can use as a meditation, yeah. So Cittamātra literally means 'Mind Only'; in other words, that there is only mind.

Yogi 33: [?] And it's the bit where you said -- and I asked you, "Well, why would you want to stop here?" I don't know if there's anything you can say that's reassuring. Like, what is beyond that?

Rob: We'll get to it. All I can say, as I said before, is emptiness is not a teaching of disappointment. It's really, really not, and I know sometimes people convey it that way. It's like, "You might have an idea of God, but that's empty. Get over it," kind of thing, "Deal with it." All I can say is that, for a practitioner who experiences emptiness, there may at times be experiences of fear or grief or bereftness, at times, but generally the tenor of it is joy, beauty, openness, loveliness, love, all of that, peace. It's that it's going somewhere even more lovely. Hands down more lovely, hands down more lovely. And hard to put into words, which is why I said that thing -- when I said that thing about I could talk precisely or poetically, I was really saying that for the future, because we're going to get very subtle and sophisticated with dependent arising and where this goes later.

But the thing just to know, that it doesn't cut off devotion, absolutely, and I said last night, to me, the deeper one goes into emptiness, the more the sense of devotion, the more the sense of love, the more the sense of wanting to give and being free to give and having the capacity to give, and the desire in the being moving to want to give, and the aspirations crystallizing deeply in the being, more love, more connection, more freedom, more peace, all of that. That's where emptiness is going. In the fear of the self, we fear the exact opposite, and that's the natural, deluded fear of the self, but it's mistaken. It's mistaken. Yeah? Okay. Last one, yeah.

Yogi 34: Can you just say a little more about the substance, when you talk about the substance being the same?

Rob: Yeah. So this relates to what Diana asked. 'Substance' is a funny word. All these words are funny. They're all poetic suggestions, that's all. At one point I said, "It's water. It's all water." Obviously I don't mean real water, otherwise we'd all need scuba equipment, you know? [laughter] So obviously it's not that. But they're something to suggest. Usually we have a sense of solidity of things, that things are made of something, and maybe awareness is not. And there's a world out there that's separate things. So this feeling of 'it's all the same texture, it's all the same stuff,' even if that stuff feels, as Diana was saying, it's actually not a stuff, it's actually an emptiness, it's a space, it's a non-thing, so to speak. But that emptiness, spacious texture pervades things in the same way as silence can feel to pervade sound sometimes. That's really -- I'm just throwing out different words that might encourage that sense of things. Does that make sense? Okay, good.

It will come anyway in time. It's like, if you just hang out in however much that space is established, and just keep letting go, and just keep getting a sense of the space, it will naturally, in its own time, sometimes you'll get a sense of things being, we could say, the same substance, the same stuff, the same emptiness, the same whatever. It's the natural way the mind will move. It's the natural way, the more we let go, that the consciousness unfolds -- that the perception, rather, unfolds. So it'll come anyway. And it could come via the silence and the sound; it could come lots of different ways. Yeah?

Yogi 35: [?] During the day, there's a million and one little moments, but they all seem so mundane. I mean, they're insights, but they -- I don't know that I'm dissolving my self in them. They seem so mundane. They just seem like, "Okay. There's another one," you know? But I don't see that it's leading me to some big "Aha!" I mean, they're good. If I weren't here and they were happening on Broadway in Cambridge, I'd be very happy. But here I'm thinking, "Well, maybe there's more that's supposed to happen."

Rob: Are you talking about meditation experiences you're having? Yeah? Okay.

Yogi 35: And not just meditation, just walking down the hall, doing my laundry, making the bed, having a little bubble of insight, which wouldn't happen that frequently in normal life because we're so busy.

Rob: Sure.

Yogi 35: And I keep trying to breach that and say, "So where's the self in this? Where's the emptiness that ...?" I'm trying to make a connection.

Rob: Okay. Make a connection between the teachings that we're giving and ...?

Yogi 35: Yeah, yeah, all these wonderful little insights and awarenesses and ... I'll save it for when I meet with you in two weeks.

Rob: Okay. [laughter] Two weeks. It won't be that long! [laughter] I'm not quite sure what you're asking. That there doesn't seem to be a sense of the insights -- the insights that are unfolding don't seem to have much to do with emptiness and what we're talking about?

Yogi 35: Yeah, yeah.

Rob: Okay, okay. If we go back right -- something I said, there's understanding, there's meditation, and there's life, we could say. Artificial division, but let's make that division. So we're talking about emptiness, and you're taking notes, and you're asking questions. The understanding is beginning to happen. You're working on that. The meditation, the specific meditations that we're doing, are in line with emptiness, etc. And I said right at the beginning of the retreat, what we want also is to begin finding ways to use the emptiness to see, in moving in the day, I feel, "Oh, I don't like what they're serving for lunch today," or "I really hope they serve whatever it is that I enjoyed last week" -- right there, it's time to see emptiness. Remember in the first talk, talked about the dot-to-dot? That's emptiness. That's beginning to look at emptiness. So kick that in.

Yogi 35: It does kick in, but I didn't call it that.

Rob: Okay, good. What I'm doing in this whole retreat is I'm taking this concept of emptiness and I'm just going like this, and just getting deeper, gradually deeper and deeper and deeper with it. But we can always go back to basics, always, and I really, really want you to. I don't want for anyone -- you know, it's all very well coming in here and talking about "Awareness doesn't have inherent existence" and then grumbling about what you have for lunch. It kind of doesn't go together. [laughs] You know? So right there when I'm grumbling, can I bring the reflections in? If I can't bring the emptiness reflections in, can I bring something else in? So dot-to-dot we talked about. We talked about how the mind gets sucked into seeing what's negative in a way that it has no space and doesn't see the space around things. We talked about how the mood colours things. All this, it's all emptiness. It's all to do with emptiness, mindfulness and its relationship to emptiness. So understanding deepens, meditation deepens, and we're using the stuff in life. It would be a shame not to bring it into the retreat life, and all the things that we find difficult or grasp at or whatever on retreat.

Yogi 35: That's really helpful, because I didn't know how to label those other than, "Ah," you know, "I'm seeing this," but I couldn't find a connection, or I couldn't label it. Thank you.

Rob: Yeah, okay, good. Good. So, we should stop. Let's have a quiet moment together.