Theophany and Cosmopoesis: Instructions

I just want to start by summarizing very briefly some of what we've emphasized in the imaginal practice, and then open a door from that, build on that, elaborate some possibilities that come out of that in a particular direction, or begin to open a door in a particular direction.

So we've said and we've emphasized already that when we sustain attention meditatively on an image, sensitive to the resonance and all the richness there that we were talking about, (1) we will notice effects with that image, from that image, on the emotional field, the emotions, (2) and on the energetic field, the energy body. (3) And also, thirdly, on the perception and sense of self, of other, of things, and of world. So effects on the emotional field, on the energy body, and also on the perception, sense, and sense of self, others, things, and world. Now, these three are not separate. But it's good to delineate them that way for clarity.

Also, again, just to point out, to repeat, that when we focus on the energy body and tune to perhaps pleasant energy there, or a sense of well-being, or comfort, or ease, etc., this can lead the energy body and the consciousness into the whole range of states of samādhi, by tuning to what is pleasant there in the energy body. If, in the emotions and the field of emotions, there is a pleasant emotion -- for instance, happiness or peace or joy -- focusing on that pleasant emotion can also lead into deeper samādhi, and the whole being kind of coalesces, harmonizes in that state of samādhi, that emotional, energetic state.

If what's happening emotionally and energetically is unpleasant and difficult, then focusing on either can, it may lead to -- if we bring the right qualities into that focusing, into that attention -- it may calm the emotions and calm the energy body. So we've said all that.

We also said that this third aspect of the effects that we notice, the sense of the self, the perception of the self, of other, of things and world, within that, it may include an awareness of the resonances, within the resonances, a mirroring or echoing of the image or the imaginal figure in one's personal life. All kinds of examples given: wrathful deity, or warrior, or wanderer, or whatever it is. Not to be taken literally, usually. But there's this echoing in the personal life. So we talked about daimons, and there's a sense of this echoing, this mirroring, the recognition of that and the feeling of that, as part of what brings soulfulness into the sense of my life and my journey and the events in my life. It adds soulfulness, or I recognize, I come to resonate more fully with the soulfulness that's there and nourish the soulfulness. The sense of archetypal necessity and destiny, if you like, or telos, they're all part of that, in terms of one's personal life.

But with this third field of effects of the resonances of the images -- perception, sense of self, other, things, world -- with regard to that, we may also notice that there's a sense of holiness, we could say, sacredness or divinity, even, in the image. What do we actually mean by those words, 'sacred,' 'holy,' 'divine,' etc.? Maybe we'll come back to that, if that's not too cheeky, to throw these words out and let them resonate without defining them too much for now. Maybe that's part of what we sense, and part of the perception in the image. This sense itself of holiness or divinity in the image is something we can tune into and, in a way, let's say, 'use' in different ways. Now, this is a huge, huge subject. Massive. So I'm just going to highlight a few of the possibilities, a few of the directions here.

One possibility is to allow that sense of holiness or divinity in the image, let it spread to the surroundings, and in that way, to allow what I call 'cosmopoesis.' It's a word I thought of but I don't like the sound of it and I can't think of another word. [laughs] What I mean by that is -- or to explain what that word might point to -- cosmopoesis, 'cosmo' for 'cosmos.' 'Cosmos' is a word like 'world' or 'universe,' but has more the implication of the order or the structure of the universe. We talk about cosmology in the West, what is the nature and origin of the universe, etc. The 'poiesis' part, 'poiesis' is a word that means really the artistic creation, if you like, like making poetry. The poem-writing, if you like. Cosmos as poem that we write as meditators. The meditator as artist, if you like, creating a sense, a palpable vision, an experience of a cosmos, and actually, like an artist, being able to create different cosmoses, if you like. That creative aspect of meditation, that malleability of perception that actually can -- with enough understanding, enough skill -- help us to, if you like, enter into or inhabit different cosmos, cosmoses. It's like art, as I've explained at other times. This is a huge subject. Maybe I'll find a better word at some point. But that's what I'm using for now, cosmopoesis. Huge, huge subject -- easily a long retreat on its own. Let's start, a little bit, exploring opening that door.

Sometimes, as I said, there's a sense of holiness or divinity in the image, and that can spread. It spreads to the surroundings, the environment, the world that we're in, around us, as we're practising. We feel that, through that, we are inhabiting, if you like, a different world. There's a creation of the cosmos through the perception, through the way of looking in the moment. Sometimes it spreads by itself -- the sense from the image, the divinity, or the holiness, the sacredness of the image just spreads by itself. Sometimes it's already spread in the image itself, or the image is already mixed with perception -- in other words, it's not an image that's separate to the perception of the world in the moment. This is one possibility.

Related to that, or a part of that, is just -- again, here's another word we've used already -- the theophanic sense in the image, the image as theophany. Theophany, 'theo' meaning 'divine' or 'God'; 'phany,' 'phanic,' is a word that means something like 'showing through,' or 'shining through,' or 'appearance of.' So it's an appearance of a face of the divine, or the divine shows through or shines through it. So sometimes we have a sense of an image, which could be a separate image, separate from the perception -- I have my eyes shut, and this imaginal figures comes -- or it could be that the perception of the world is appearing to us as a theophany in different ways.

So these two words are very related, cosmopoesis and theophany. But it could be that an imaginal figure appears to us as a divine being. There's that theophanic sense of the image; the image is a theophany. For example, Avalokiteśvara, the bodhisattva of compassion, or Tārā, or Christ, or whatever. And then we can use that image, that imaginal figure, with all the theophany that it's imbued with, and use it, as we've said, for cultivating different brahmavihāras, mettā or compassion or joy or whatever. But this figure may also not be a classical divine figure. It may be just some other human being, or a teacher, or a lover, or a friend. Many possibilities, but they can become, for us, a theophany. This figure, this imaginal figure, or this person that I know or know of, becomes for us, through the imagination and through imaginal practice, they become a theophany. Then we can use either this theophanic sense or the cosmopoesis, the sense of cosmopoesis, in different ways.

When we do that, when that is one of the effects that happens in the perception of, the sense of self/other/things/world, we never lose touch, in practice, with the feeling of the emotional field and the sensitivity to that, or the energy body. So that's just reiterating something we've emphasized all through the retreat. But certain openings in the third field of effects (the perception and the sense of self, other, things, and the world), and particularly the sense of holiness or divinity, and within that the theophanic sense of the image, the image as theophany, or this wider cosmopoesis, or both, that I want to explore a little bit and look at some practice possibilities there.

Setting that in a context of sort of wider Dharma understanding -- and again, this is something that we've touched on before, but it's so important to, I think, have a wider view of understanding Dharma practice that supports opening, rather than closes things down and keeps them boxed in. So putting all this in a wider Dharma context, we said there are -- broadly speaking -- three avenues of practice that we can explore as practitioners. We have available to us and we can develop all of them.

(1) The first might be what often gets called bare attention or simple mindfulness, the sort of presence or mindfulness of presence to what is 'real.' There's usually an assumption that what we're present to then is real. There's the simple attention, for instance to the sensual detail of the moment, this taste, this touch, and how it (quote) "actually feels," or the presence to the moment, etc. Most people in the Insight Meditation tradition are very familiar with that bare attention or simple mindfulness. So that would be one mode, if you like, one gear of practising, one way of looking.

(2) Then there's a second kind of camp or collection, which involves a lot of practices, rather than one simple practice, that have in common that they undo fabrication. They unfabricate the perception, the appearances of self/other/world, to a much greater extent than simple bare attention or mindfulness practice, so-called. All the range of emptiness practices, and samādhi practices, and mettā when it goes deeply -- all these practices, and all those avenues, fabricate less perception. They fabricate less experience and appearance of self, other, things, dukkha, etc. So that's a whole, as I said, avenue, within which there's a range of practices -- this second camp of fabricating less, much less than regular perception, much less than simple mindfulness or bare attention.

Now, actually, most traditional Theravādan practices in the Dharma have that quality in common, that they fabricate less to different degrees. In a way, you can understand the thrust, the movement of traditional Theravādan practices, for the most part, most of them are moving in the direction of the Unfabricated. All these different practices, even mindfulness, or the samādhi, or the mettā, or looking at impermanence, or whatever it is, seeing things as not-self -- they have this characteristic to them that they unfabricate. They tend, as modes of looking, ways of looking, they fabricate less, to different degrees. And they fabricate less and less, until eventually one develops that skill to fabricate nothing at all. Nothing at all is being fabricated, and there's the opening to the Unfabricated, as we talked about a little bit the other day. So that's the second group of practices, second range, is this learning how to fabricate less, a little bit more and really radically less.

(3) Then the third group of practices would include -- what could we say? -- skilful fabrication. So one is actually deliberately engaged in fabrication, knowing that there's fabrication going on, but in the service of something. It's skilful, rather than unconscious or problematic. That camp, this third camp, of practices that fabricate, includes very much using the imagination, imaginal practice, or tantric practices, that fabricate the appearance, the perception, of self/other/world in different ways.

So there's first this bare attention or simple mindfulness. The second is practices that actually fabricate much less and tend towards a dissolution, a disappearing of appearances, a non-fabrication of appearances. They tend towards an emptying out of self and of appearance. The third group of practices actually fabricates skilfully in different ways, in different directions, if you like, and particularly what we're interested in, using the imagination, incorporating imaginal practice as being part of that, this skilful range of fabrication of the perceptions of self, other, and world.

Now, of those three camps or directions, not everyone, but eventually, I would say, most people, if they're practising a lot and diligently and widely and deeply, and reflecting on all these things, and if they really get into all this stuff, most people will eventually, I think, come to a position or understanding where they actually see the second and the third of those directions as more important than the first.

So more important than this kind of elevation of the idea of presence or simple mindfulness or bare attention, and the whole technology, if you like, of stress reduction that's involved in that, important as it is, and valuable and necessary as it is as an aspect, a platform, as part of our path, a stepping-stone, most people will come to regard the whole direction and movement of learning to fabricate much less and opening to that dissolution and that emptying, that non-fabricating, the Unfabricated, and also the skilful fabricating, the beautiful fabricating using the imagination, tantric practices and all that kind of thing, of the perception of self/other/world -- most people will regard them as much more important and fruitful and richer directions in practice than the first one, the bare attention or simple mindfulness or so-called 'presence.' Because especially with the last one, the skilful fabrication, it feeds the soul, if you like. It gives the soul, if we use that language again, what it wants. It's something that directly nourishes, deepens, opens, heightens and sparks the soulfulness. Not that the others can't, but there's more range to that, and more depth to the soulfulness in that third camp. Very much it serves what we're talking about, this opening of the range of perception. We learn to fabricate skilfully through different ways of looking, and see how perceptions open and shift and change. This is really moving in that direction of serving this opening of the range of perception, which I've stressed several times on this retreat, in a way that may be one of the most important things and one of the most central ingredients of a different way of understanding what Dharma is, what practice is, and the whole movement of the Dharma.

The second avenue, this unfabricating, is also in the service (eventually, eventually) not only of opening to this Unfabricated, and the mystical, transcendent beauty of knowing that, what is Deathless, as I talked about in another talk the other day -- not only that, but also through that, through deepening in that way and then emerging out of that depth of non-fabrication, then also understanding emptiness through that, and giving us more license, more permission, and also more skill and ability, to shape perception, to enjoy the malleability of perception, and to open up the range of perception. Again, everything hinging around perception, and with that, needing a wider view of the Dharma, or a different view of the Dharma, than may be common or familiar to many people. Needing a wider view of the Dharma, a conceptual framework of the Dharma that can actually hold all that, accommodate it, wherein all this makes sense. There's a slightly different conception of what the direction and the aspiration of the whole of Dharma practice is.

When we make that delineation between these three sort of avenues there, it immediately, as far as practice is concerned, brings up the question, "Well, what is it that takes a practitioner, in any moment, in one direction or another?" And, "How, as a practitioner, how can I steer and navigate and move between these different modes, these different avenues or directions?" So most people, as I said, will be already quite familiar with that practice of bare attention, or simple mindfulness, or presence, or whatever we want to call it. But in trying to understand better this whole question of navigation and steering and moving between these practices, it's worth knowing, too, that clinging, even unconsciously, to a concept of 'actuality' -- that when I'm mindful or when I'm practising bare attention, this is the actuality of things, this is 'things as they are,' to misappropriate a phrase of the Buddha -- implicitly clinging to that concept, that when I'm mindful I'm with the actuality of things, that will lock this avenue of bare attention (so-called) in place. It will keep it in place as a perception, as a way of looking, because I believe this is reality. In a way, just that subtle belief, unconsciously, in the conceptual framework, as I'm practising bare attention -- it doesn't even need to be a conscious thought -- it locks the perception in place, and the way of looking in place, and then the appearance in place. So it actually cannot evolve too much, or change, or develop too much.

I'm throwing this out as an aside, but it would be worth, if you want to explore this kind of thing -- what's the difference if I'm practising just simple mindfulness (so-called), and I have a subtle view that I'm being with what is 'real' (say, materiality or this or that), and just shifting that view -- same practice, but just shifting the view -- just seeing, "This is appearance. This is an appearance, and that's what I'm giving mindfulness to"? There's a difference between appearance, and appearance assumed to be reality or physical reality or materiality. These are subtle views, woven into the mindfulness; subtle conceptual views, usually unconscious, woven into the mindfulness. We can make them conscious, and then play with practising with this subtle view, and with this subtle view, and see what happens, how they change the experience -- because it will. If I'm clinging, unconsciously usually, to a concept of "This is the actuality that I'm being mindful of," that will prevent the experience deepening and opening, and will limit it, in a way, and will also limit the understanding. It will limit the possible understanding of deeper emptiness, etc.

Most people are familiar already with that simple mode of bare attention or mindfulness, whatever we call it. The second avenue or group of practices, the ones that tend to fabricate much less, with that whole range of less and less fabrication (emptiness practices, samādhi practices, mettā practices, those kind of things, compassion practices), it's really just a matter of learning those practices and developing one's skill with them. It's just a matter of finding the right ways to practise and developing them, and then sustaining them as ways of looking. So I need to learn this particular emptiness practice -- let's say, regarding things as anattā, as not-self; all phenomena that arise, I slowly, gradually learn, develop the skill, to regard them as anattā, as an example, as not-self. Then I sustain that way of looking, moment to moment, as a deliberate practice. A lot of skill, a lot of subtlety involved in developing that as a practice. It's a tremendously powerful and beautiful practice. But doing that, and sustaining that way of looking, will, as an example, tend to fabricate less and less self, and perception of things, world, and phenomena. So steering that way is just a matter of having an understanding of what one's doing in those particular practices, developing them, and then just sustaining them as a way of looking.

In the third camp, the avenue that actually engages and sustains this skilful fabrication of self/other/world, and the perception of self/other/world, we need to recognize when that is present for us, when there is, if you like, to use a Buddhist word, a 'skilful' perception of self/other/world, a different perception that's actually there. Recognize when it's there, and tune to it. So this is recognizing this, for example, holiness or divinity. Recognizing the theophany. Recognizing that there's a cosmopoesis there. So recognizing that quality, recognizing that perception, and tuning to that, and actually sustaining a focus on that, on that perception, on that way of looking. Whatever it is that one's doing, whatever it is that the mind and the heart are doing to look that way, that needs to be recognized and sustained gently.

Often, what happens in this avenue is that something sparks or triggers a different way of looking, a way of seeing the world through the imagination, and then seeing self/other/world, seeing, perceiving them, as theophany, or with this wider cosmopoetic sense imbuing the perception. Something sparks that, and something in us, if you like, assents to that mode of being, that way of looking, by picking up that spark and tuning into that perception. One could definitely engage, say, a tantric practice, deliberately -- to see one's food as divine nectar, as I mentioned at one point, deliberately try and taste it that way and see it that way and smell it that way. So I'm very clear what I'm trying to do, and I'm sustaining that as a sort of gentle way of looking, as much as I can. Or it might happen more spontaneously. As I said, something sparks in the mind, or triggers, maybe a poetic idea. It may actually be a line of poetry, or a fragment of music, or an image, or someone that we remember or think of or see who is alive for us as an image (in the sense that I'm using the word 'image'). They can function, any of that can function as a spark, a trigger, and become a kind of portal, if you like, to this different perception, this more holy or divine perception and sense of self/other/world. There's something that's sparking this cosmopoesis, sparking a theophanic sense, if we use that word.

So many possibilities here. But what's characteristic to any cosmopoesis or practice of cosmopoesis is that it includes the surroundings. I'm not just dwelling, focusing on just this imaginal figure, divorced from the surroundings around me. Whether deliberately or spontaneously, the surroundings get included. Where I'm practising, if I'm outside, or in the meditation hall or whatever, the sights, the sounds, the appearance of the world around me as I'm practising is included, whether deliberately or spontaneously. That may mean the eyes are open. But they can also be closed, and one still is really including a sense of the surroundings, an awareness of the surroundings.

The cosmopoesis can be fed or triggered or born from an emptiness practice, from the practice of samādhi. Different states of samādhi naturally bring with them what I call 'after-effects' on perception. Either emptiness practices, or mettā, or compassion, or samādhi, naturally bring with them this cosmopoesis. They actually alter the perception of the world. Through that, we can actually understand more about emptiness and fabrication of perception.

Kinds of cosmopoesis can come through all kinds of practices, all kinds of states. There are so many possibilities there. We could say it's infinite. The possibilities for cosmopoetic perception are, perhaps, infinite. The range is infinite. So we could come from emptiness practices, or samādhi, or mettā, or compassion. It could come from some poetic image or idea that we're practising with and resonating with. We tune, we notice the sense of holiness or divinity within that image, with that image, and we tune to that and let that spread. It becomes a kind of tantric practice. One can, for instance, see one's surroundings, sense one's surroundings, feel them as a Buddha-realm, to use a certain phrase, or sense them as theophany, to use that word. So many possibilities, just to give a few examples here.

I'm going to read to you an email that a student sent me, because it highlights some of the possibilities here, and some of the possible directions. It was quite a long email. She was talking about emptiness practices that she was exploring with some friends as a group, going through different emptiness practices together, and saying that was all going really well. Then she says, "I have been working with the imaginal quite a bit since we last spoke at Gaia. The naughty child image has not returned, nor the indulgent aunt. But the sexual image is morphing and changing and feeding me more and more as I experiment with receiving it more fully."

I'm going to slow down and just comment on a few things. This is actually the same person you may remember from early on in the retreat when I mentioned that she had written me a letter while on retreat. She had this experience as she was walking through the corridor, feeling like someone was kissing her, and then was a bit like, "This is strange," but began exploring it in practice, and it opened up samādhi, etc., if you remember that. Here she says, "The naughty child image has not returned, nor the indulgent aunt. But the sexual image is morphing and changing and feeding me more and more as I experiment with receiving it more fully."

Just to say something about that. Sometimes the images that have their roots in, or their obvious correlation with, our biographical history and our childhood, are really important for us -- the naughty child or the indulgent aunt. But it's the other images, that seem to have less obvious biographical correlation or roots in our personal history, that actually may last longer and be more fertile, seem to go deeper. It's almost like they come from a different dimension, if we use that language.

She says, regarding the more sexual image that we described before, "The eros is less hard now, but still very powerful. I've observed that it seems to come when the samādhi is deepening. Occasionally it comes when I call it, like it is rescuing me when I feel overwhelmed by heaviness or pressure in the body." That's very much what we talked about already in the retreat, using images in relationship for the sake of samādhi, and helping to shape and develop what's happening in the energy body for the sake of samādhi.

She continues, "It usually begins with that sensation of being kissed, and it took quite a while for me to allow myself to be kissed and to enjoy it, which feels unbelievably nourishing. Each time this image comes, or occasionally when I bring it up myself, I learn more. One part of the image involves the being that is kissing me joining me in meditation, fusing or melting into my body. I can feel changes in the body's texture, and there is a sense of succumbing to one with greater experience." So this actually isn't relevant to what I want to talk about this morning, but I'm just mentioning that because, again, it's so common, this joining, being joined in the meditation, fusing with or melting into my body some imaginal other, that could be sometimes the teacher, or some divine personage or something, and that affecting the whole sense of the experience.

But it's really this next paragraph that I want to draw attention to for our purposes today.

She continues, "During my meditation last night, I was imagining everything was made up of silence and holiness -- another favourite practice at the moment," she says. So just to say about that, there are practices -- I would probably put them in the group of emptiness practices -- where one, if you like, listens to silence, listens to the silence in the mind, the silence between thoughts, the silence that pervades thoughts and pervades the body sensations, the silence that is around sounds, and even, as one deepens in that kind of practice, the silence that seems like it pervades sounds as well as thoughts. This is a whole practice in itself, attuning more and more, listening to silence. Very, very beautiful practice, deepens and deepens and deepens. That silence becomes deeper and richer and more mystically pregnant with a sense of holiness. Very, very beautiful practice in itself.

She puts, "I was imagining everything was made up of silence." What will happen, if you do that practice of listening to silence and you develop it, one will actually have the perception of everything being made up of silence and holiness. It will come very organically, naturally, out of that practice deepening. She's using the word 'imagining.' One can have a little taste of that, and kind of trigger it through the imagination, which may be what she's referring to.

Then she continues, "I was really feeling the spaciousness of looking in this way, and everything was very soft. Then the sexual image came, and also feeling behind the eyes tears at several points. The emotion in the tears was of being moved, and of touching something sacred." So it's not tears of sadness or something like that, or grief. It's of being moved. There's a difference. "Touching something sacred." "This fusing of the sexual with the sacred is new. Usually I work with them both, but separately."

So that was her report. And it sounds like, from that email -- I didn't get the chance to talk with her after this, unfortunately -- but it sounds like there's the possibility from this place of the sexual and the sacred fusing in her experience, there's the possibility very much like a threshold for that to evolve so that this erotic-image that she's been working with so skilfully and developing can actually expand to a wider sense of, a wider perception of sacredness in the world, and maybe also eros in the world. This is a whole huge subject. That would be different than just the perception of silence as holiness that she was alluding to before and I described. Here it's through an image, a particularly erotic-image, and that opening up, widening into a cosmopoesis, where it starts to imbue the whole perception of the world as sacred in a very particular way. This is such a huge subject, that one in itself, but that would be one possibility.

Just to offer a few more possibilities, give you a sense of the range of what's possible here, or the beginnings of what's possible, at least. Some people practise mantra meditation, the repeating inwardly of certain holy syllables or mantras or phrases. So hear, perhaps, practising at first hearing the mantra internally as a theophany. The mantra itself, hearing it internally, but hearing it as, if you like, divine speech, or the cosmic primordial sound or whatever. Implicit in hearing it as a theophany inside, internally, so to speak, implicit in that is there's usually a conceptual framework of what is sacred, but it's usually vague. This is something that I will return to later. Implicit in the practice of hearing internally as theophany is a vague conceptual framework of the sacredness of it. Practising hearing the mantra that way internally, with this sense of sacredness, of theophany, and then letting it spread. Again, it might spread naturally. But letting it spread, so it feels like it's not just coming from within, but it's pervading the world, pervading the air, pervading the cosmos, pervading nature. Then one has a kind of cosmopoesis where the mantra is, again, imbuing the whole world, the whole cosmos.

Sometimes, amazingly -- we've touched on this before -- even something that happens in meditation that is a distraction can end up taking a turn or, in a way, we can notice something in a distracted thought, for example, that has a theophanic sense within it. We notice that, "Oh, I thought I was distracted, but actually it's got another quality to it when I notice and I pay attention to it in a different way." So even within distraction, sometimes we can notice a gold, a treasure there. In this case, particularly, what I want to emphasize is the theophanic sense, the expression of divinity, if you like, in the very distracted thought or idea or whatever. That's something, then, we can notice, tune to, and allow and open to.

An example of this. It may be for some people a strange example, but because I was a jazz musician for some years, and I used to play jazz electric guitar, working so much at that in the past, sometimes -- I mean, it happened a lot in the past when I was actually a musician -- it's as if part of the mind is just improvising music all the time. Improvising these melodies and jazz lines, and because one knows the guitar, one is actually seeing, if you like, the image of the guitar, and where the fingers would go. All this is happening kind of spontaneously, by itself, in the mind. Sometimes it's very creative; sometimes it's just a sort of thing that's going on. So I was meditating, and I noticed that that was going on. It felt a little sticky as a distraction. It's like, "Oh, I'll let go of it," but it still was there. Let go of it, still was there. Then I was noticing, "Oh, I can actually hear those musical lines being improvised. I can actually hear it right now, in a certain way, or play with hearing it a certain way," as if that music that the mind was creating or the mind was hearing inside, I could hear it as mirroring or as an analogue of the endlessly creative musical cosmos.

So there's a whole world of idea, quite vague, wrapped up in that way of hearing: the vague idea of somehow the essence of the cosmos is somehow, or at some level, a kind of music, and the vague idea that the different human musical laws (and there are different systems in different cultures), those laws of music somehow mirror the cosmic or divine laws. This is all very vague and subtle ideation. So I know there are those ideas out there in the world. In the meditation, it felt really not like a rigid or a clunky idea; there was something very subtle about this hearing, and this loose, vague ideation that was also very subtle. It was quite fluid, and not some clunky metaphysical system.

What I'm talking about here is that the shift in the hearing of what was initially a distraction in the meditation opened a really subtle meditative sense. Part of what was involved with that was a kind of relaxing of the mind's clinging or aversion to or narrow focus on the music that was in the mind, and the attention kind of suffusing a little wider, including the energy body (as we keep stressing), including this sense and attuning to this sense of the wider cosmic theophany that was with this hearing of this music in this subtle way. And also the attention was with the very subtle and vague idea of this music of the cosmos and the way that human music echoes or mirrors or expresses the divine and the cosmos. I may come back to this image later, because in different ways it might illustrate something. So we'll see. That would be, maybe to some people, a quite strange example -- I don't know -- of a way you can pick up on something even in a distraction, and tune to the sense of the theophany there, and the implicit cosmopoesis that can sometimes open up with that. And actually what was distraction becomes a very beautiful, subtle meditation that one then sustains the attention on. Very fruitful in that respect, very beautiful.

It's possible that a person who we, if you like, see imaginally, can become for us a theophany, a face of the divine. They become, if you like, an angel. Corbin talks about "the angelic function of beings." This is very possible, especially when there's eros. I don't just mean sexual attraction; I include that, but I mean more. Especially when there's eros in the relating to and way of seeing that person, and especially where there's imaginal practice and imagination imbuing that perception, and the logos, the conceptual framework, supports it, very possible for a person that we love to become for us a theophany, an angel, to fulfil a kind of angelic function for our soul, for the psyche. Then there's a seeing of divinity in that person. But this is a different kind of sensing of divinity; it's a different mode than, say, seeing all beings as one, or partaking of the oneness of things, whether that oneness is the mystical silence, or oneness of cosmic love, or the oneness of awareness, or whatever it is. Different kinds of oneness share in that they erase or dissolve the particularity of the personhood, the unique personhood. That's wonderful, that kind of sense of a divine oneness that includes all beings -- that's absolutely wonderful, and it will come out of standard mettā practice if you do it long enough, in certain ways; it will come out of different ways of practising with awareness and with silence as we talked about.

But right now I'm after something different: a way of sensing divinity, sensing another person, as theophany, as angel, but in a way that includes or retains their personhood, their particularities, and their uniqueness -- even though each person might appear to us as not just one kind of theophany, but multiple. So one person, when the imaginal practice is really rich in regard to a person that we love, and when there's the eros there, and when there's the conceptual framework opening and supporting it, one person can be different angels to us. They appear as different theophanies. All of them retain their personhood, their particular uniqueness; it's not this dissolution into oneness. But then that particular theophany can spread to the world as well. That's a huge subject, and again, something that one could easily spend a long retreat on, or write a book on. I'm just mentioning it now as a possibility.

So some of the possibilities can be very, very simple. A retreatant a while ago told me he was enjoying reading a little poetry on his retreat, and was reading a Hafiz poem. I can't remember the exact line from the poem that triggered it, but it was something about Hafiz saying all things are gifts from the divine, or gifts of the divine, or the beloved -- using the word 'beloved' as a synonym for the divine. Note, also, again, that when there's the word 'beloved,' there's the inclusion of the erotic component, in regard to the divine. Calling the divine 'the beloved' introduces, allows, supports, the eros in relation to the sense of the divine.

So this poem said all things are gifts from the beloved, the divine, and that line touched his heart and opened his heart. It became, if you like, a poetic eidos, a poetic idea which became a poetic way of looking. That's what we're in the business of here. We're in the business of cultivating these different ways of looking. So the heart was touched, was opened, and the idea there -- that all things are gifts from the beloved, from the divine -- entered and transformed the way of looking, so that things were perceived that way. It wasn't just a cute line of poetry; it became a meditation, became a perception. He was seeing and sensing things that way.

We were talking about gently encouraging a sustaining of that way of looking. So the heart connected, and perhaps just dropping in like a whisper now and then, the memory of that line of poetry, and letting it transform the way of looking, and then sustaining that way of looking, very gently, very lightly, without clinging too tightly to it. Doing that, joy comes. In this case, joy came for him, rapture came, physical bliss, definitely a sense of beauty and depth in the sense of the things of the world. There was cosmopoesis happening. He was, at that point, experiencing, inhabiting, a different cosmos than the regular one that he felt he inhabited. So that would be a very simple way of triggering, if you like, or encouraging this kind of cosmopoetic perception.

Or it might be that organically one is practising meditation, and some kind of poetic idea that has a cosmopoesis implicit in it just arises spontaneously in one's mind. I remember some months ago, doing standing meditation outside in the early morning sun, beneath the beautiful trees we have here at Gaia House, and really opening to the sense of the surroundings and everything. This phrase, "I am prayer," came to me. "I am prayer." What does that mean? "I am prayer." It came out of the sensibility in the moment, and it also fed a sense of self in the moment. "I am prayer." What am I? I am prayer. What does that mean? I don't know. It's a poetic idea. It has all kinds of resonances; I could probably say a lot about it. That phrase definitely didn't mean "I am prayer" as in supplication, as in asking God for this or that favour, sorting this or that out in my life. "Prayer" as something much deeper, much wider, and mysterious in the range of its meanings. "Prayer" as praise, rather than supplication or asking for wishes to be fulfilled, my wishes to be fulfilled. Even wider than "praise." I cannot get to the bottom of what that means, "prayer," and certainly not to the bottom of what it means to entertain the poetic idea "I am prayer." Letting that be there in the consciousness, and letting it have its effect, the effects of this poetic idea on the perception, on the way of looking, and the beauty, and the depth that that opened up. That opened up the sense of the cosmos and the earth, the very earth and the trees, the ground and the sunlight, as prayer. Not just "I am prayer," but "all this is prayer," somehow. What does it mean? I don't know. I don't have to figure out what it means. I have to open to that cosmopoesis.

Another possibility would be to practise, say, with the breath meditation. Practice feeling or conceiving or imagining the breath as the breath of God, or a god, or a goddess. So what is this breath that comes in and out, either in the anatomical way of air, or the whole energy breath that we were talking about earlier, at the beginning of the retreat? What would it be to play with conceiving of that, imagining it, feeling it, as the breath of God, or the breath of the goddess? Or perhaps what is it to breathe with the beloved? Breathing together. Who is that beloved? It's an imaginal figure. It may be a lover in one's human life. It may be some other figure that there is this deep love for. It may be the divine, in some face, some form. Again, if there's eros there, it's really okay. It might be a very, in some sense, erotic motion, and way of relating, to breathe with the beloved in the imagination. Maybe with that, there's a real sense of blessedness that comes. Probably because it involves the breath, and that kind of opening, it's probable that that kind of imaginal work like that -- feeling, conceiving of the breath that way -- probably will invite the possibility of a kind of surrender. Surrendering to being breathed by the beloved, or breathing with; a kind of opening, abandoning. All of which are, if you like, aspects of the energy body, but also aspects of the whole being, the emotionality, the whole psyche, the whole consciousness. We can gently introduce some imaginal idea or concept, or just the image there, and play with, kind of navigate, ride it. What does it feel like it wants to open and do in the energy body, in the emotion, but also in the perception?

Another example. One might hear, for instance, the birdsong, or the wind, or some other element of sound, in the natural world or around us, hear that as mantra. So that is the mantra. What does 'mantra' mean? It could be divine speech. It could be sacred vocalization. It might have some other meaning. There's no real formula for any of this; it's very improvised. What kind of way of conceiving, very loosely, usually quite vague, way of hearing birdsong and wind gives it or imbues it with that sense of holiness? We're just gently supporting, inclining the attention and also the way of looking, the way of relating, the way of conceiving, so that it opens up this cosmopoesis, or a cosmopoesis. Or what would it be to hear the birdsong, hear the wind, as love, as mettā, as the compassion of the bodhisattvas, the compassion of the cosmic Buddha, the compassion of the cosmic Christ? Or hear the birdsong, the wind, or whatever it is as the devas, the angelic beings, praising, singing joy? These angelic beings, they're imaginal figures. I may not see them. Their being and what they actually are and what they constitute, that may remain quite vague to me. No problem. The specificity that's important there is the shift in perception, the hearing in a certain way. It may not be the actual imaginal figure that gets clear, this angelic being or deva or whatever.

So either spontaneously these things arise, these shifts in perception arise, and then we can cultivate them, or deliberately. But it's possible that the self, our selves, or the human beings around us, or the animals, or the birds, or the surroundings, the trees, the grass, the land, the light, the nature -- actually, even, with practice, or when it goes very deep, even the plastic artefacts that may be around us, man-made, plastic things that may seem to conventional perception very unholy -- even that can, even those things, they can become theophany, too, or part of a wider cosmopoesis. But it's possible that all this (self, humans, nature, surroundings, or specific trees for instance, specific animals or whatever) can be perceived, seen, sensed, as, if you like, angelic. Again, keeping that word quite open, not really filling out what it means. Maybe later we'll do that, fill it out a bit more. But maybe just to say now, it means they're not just one-dimensional material. There is a verticality being introduced, other dimensions, if you like, into the cosmology.

It's interesting. One could, I suppose, with a lot of practice, do a little exercise and practise sustaining different ways of looking at, say, self and other. So just in terms of human beings, what is it to see someone, one's own self or another, as a biological machine? Their consciousness, my consciousness, as just an epiphenomenon -- something that arises out of the right combination of matter; over time, consciousness emerges. That's quite a popular view these days. Sometimes it's consciously articulated. Sometimes it's a subliminal view. That itself could be seen as amazing. There's a wonder in that, just possible in that view. Or it could be more a bit nihilistic. Compare that, or add to that sometimes, Joanna Macy talks about 'deep time,' this sense of this biological machine evolving over all this time, aeons -- not aeons, but billions of years, in fact. The evolution of life on earth, and how we share roots, our biology shares roots. In a way, what we are now is connected through all that time with everything that we have evolved through. For some, there's a kind of holiness in that way of looking, introducing that idea of deep time.

Or what would it be to look at the self or the other and see in terms of the classical Buddhist elements, either the four elements (earth, air, fire, water) or the six elements (those four, plus adding space and consciousness)? As I said, I think near the beginning of the retreat, this as a way of looking actually is not one way of looking, because in itself it can be directed, as all of these, it can be directed with different flavourings. One can look at oneself or another in those terms, and it's purely a kind of deconstructive way of looking. It's taking apart, seeing there isn't much self there, and a way of letting go of clinging to a person or their body or lust or whatever. Or one may look, in terms of these four or six elements, and see the interconnectedness of this person, this self, or that person, with nature, and with each other. These elements flow porously between person, self, and world.

Or again, same concept but given a different spin: one actually sees through a lens that feels the holiness of the elements. There are quite different ways of looking within that. Or with the aggregates, the five aggregates that Buddhism sets up as ways of looking (body, feeling, perception, mental formations, and consciousness). Again, that can be taken, or rather, using that as a conceptual framework, it's not one way of looking, but actually several different ways of looking, depending on how one's flavouring it. It can be directed or work as a kind of deconstructing of the self or the person, so that we don't cling so much to the self or to other selves. It can also be seen in terms of seeing the interconnectedness of these aggregates, saying the aggregates that I have here are not really that different from the aggregates that you have there. Consciousness is consciousness. Body is body. Moments of vedanā are moments of vedanā. What's the difference? There's a way of breaking down the sense of separation, giving more of a sense of interconnectedness. That takes that conceptual framework with the elements and it creates a different way of looking than just a kind of deconstructive tool.

Or again, if you've done a lot of emptiness practices, what is it to see in terms of the aggregates, but know that those aggregates themselves are empty, they are fabrications? Or even further, to see them as divine? They are empty, divine phenomena, if you like. The aggregates are empty and divine. These are all different ways of looking, within a conceptual framework that allows actually within it slightly different conceptual frameworks that form ways of looking.

But apart from that very last one, where there's a sort of awareness that the aggregates themselves are empty or divine, or perhaps the elements as holy, this idea that we're talking about today of actually seeing self or seeing other as angel, as theophany, as an emanation of the divine, and everything that's implied there about perhaps a vertical dimension that we mentioned (we haven't talked about too much), or the different levels of being -- that would be different than seeing more in terms of interconnectedness or just the pure materiality of things. It's different. There is, with any way of looking, a kind of cosmopoesis that's going on here, and involved in any way of looking of these that I've delineated is a conception (usually unconscious) of what matter is and what the cosmos is. I don't know if anyone would actually do that as an exercise. You could play with it, and there's no reason why not, but I'm really trying to point out: there are different ways of conceiving, and some of them allow more of a sense of holiness and divinity. That's different than purely interconnectedness, purely a sense of interconnectedness, which is a more horizontal connection between things.

Basically, what we're doing, again, in practising something like this, or opening to this cosmopoesis, is we're playing with eidos. We're playing with the imagination and ideas, loosely, to create ways of looking. We're playing with ways of looking. It's worth mentioning, as part of that, one will notice that the perception of the world or of another through these different lenses, or when one's playing with this kind of theophanic sense or cosmopoesis, the perception will appear at different registers. We've talked about this before. It might be, for instance, very ethereal. The whole world might seem very ethereal and insubstantial and luminous. Or it might just look like it ordinarily looks, kind of more solid. Just mentioning that as something to notice. One can sometimes feel, "Oh, yeah, it wants to be at this register. The perception wants to be at this register." Just allow it to be at that register. When we talk about a more angelic or theophanic perception, it's not necessarily the case that that sees everything and perceives a more ethereal substance, or perceives at a higher register. It's not necessarily the case.

To say again, we're playing with ways of looking. We're playing with eidos. And the sacredness here, we recognize this is not independent of the mind and the heart. The sacredness that we perceive and that we feel so deeply sometimes is not independent of the mind and heart. The citta, the mind/heart, the conceptual framework, the way of looking, gives sacredness to the perception. It gives sacredness to appearances, gives sacredness to things. It sacralizes things, if that's the right word.

If we say that, and if one hasn't perhaps explored emptiness enough or something, one immediately thinks, "Oh, so what that really implies is that they're not sacred really." One tends to think that way. But no, it does not imply that, because we are not buying into the usual Cartesian split of mind and matter, subject or object. There's a different understanding underpinning all this. We understand that nothing, no thing, has independent existence, has an existence independent of the way of looking. That gives a different status to the perception of holiness. The holiness is not separate from the citta. That doesn't mean that it's not real.

There are parallels here with the primordial wisdom awareness, the Buddha-nature, and that awareness itself, that primordial wisdom awareness itself, being something that's holy and empty, and also not separate from the divinity that it sees, the objects that it sees. So here, too, the objects of awareness, and the awareness, and the sense of sacredness -- none are separate. Objects, awareness, sacredness are not separate, and all of them are empty. It's the understanding of emptiness that's part of what allows the sacredness and the validity of the sacredness.

So in practice with this theophanic sense, or the sense of theophany in an image, or an image as theophany, or theophany in the perception of the world, just to point out a few things regarding practice. A lot of this is actually intuitive, but it's good to spell it out in case we get a bit lost, and just to be a bit clearer.

(1) In a way, what it rests on is an openness, at least to that experience being a possibility for us. And also an openness to the whole thing conceptually. So some degree of openness and receptivity to these kinds of experiences and these kinds of ideas may be necessary. So that's one.

(2) Second is the recognition of that theophanic sense in an image, or in the perception of another or of the world. We need to recognize it when it's there. That's second.

(3) The third, we need to tune to it. This has to do, as I said, with what is the specificity that's important to any image. Remember when we talked about imaginal practice and the instructions there? So we're tuning to the theophanic sense, because that's something quite specific -- it has a certain flavour, a certain tone, a certain character or expression. It's a certain kind of theophany, and we tune to it. Remember we talked about tuning being one of the aspects of attention? This tuning to the theophanic sense, the theophany. And that tuning to allows the theophany, the sense of the theophany, the flavour of it, to filter out, and stabilize it, and also amplifies it within the larger perception, within the wider perception. It may still be quite subtle, but the tuning to it makes it stronger and stabilizes it.

(4) Then, in a way, fourth, we're assenting to this theophany, this theophanic sense. That doesn't necessarily mean I literally believe it concretely. I don't literally believe that birdsong is sacred text. I don't literally believe that my lover is God or whatever it is, in a very literal sense, in a literal, concrete sense of what God might be. But there's an assenting to something. There's an assenting to the view, the experience, and the idea within it.

(5) And then focusing on that, and opening to this sense of theophany. Focusing on the theophanic sense in the image and opening to it and its resonances, and often, sometimes, letting it spread. Letting it spread to become a cosmopoesis. Letting it spread to the sense of the world, the perception of one's surroundings, and the cosmos. So one feels, one senses oneself, in a different cosmos, if you like. Or rather: this cosmos, transubstantiated. Again, a literal believing of that is not necessary. We're not really talking about belief here. It's difficult for some people to understand that.

So an openness to the whole notion and the possibility of the experience; a recognizing of the theophany; and tuning to it; an assenting to it; focusing on it, opening to it and its resonances, and then letting it spread. When there's distraction, if there is distraction, which there usually will be, we can perhaps lightly remember the original image, and again, open to the theophany there, and just do the same thing, do the same steps, if you like. Maybe the original image disappears, and there's just the wider sense of theophany, the wider sense of cosmopoesis, if it's coming originally from a sort of separate image. Or maybe the original image stays, and that stays at the same time that there's this wider cosmopoesis, this wider theophanic sense.

Let's stop here for now, as I'm just really wanting to give examples of and point in the direction of what we're talking about here, and give an idea of some of the possibilities. There are so many. We've given an idea of some of the possibilities, and we'll talk more about this whole area and direction later.