Transcription
A few more things here. So we're talking about balance, sustainability, fertility in the practice; ensuring, guarding, supporting, encouraging these things through the art and the artfulness of our practice. And one aspect of this that it's really worth mentioning is the sort of navigation between or the emphasis of attention in imaginal practice, and noticing what captivates or captures the attention. So what's my personal tendency, or your personal tendency, if there is one? My personal pattern, your personal pattern or habit for the attention to keep getting captivated by this element or that aspect of the whole soulmaking constellation or movement.
This is really, really important, because again, what can happen is the attention gets captivated by something and all the energy funnels along there, and all the growth funnels along there, and it can be lopsided. So if you have an image of more like a sphere expanding, or -- let's put it in two dimensions -- a circle kind of wanting to expand in all directions and get bigger, and instead, for different reasons, it's only expanding in one direction, and the whole thing tips. That's not sustainable. There's not balance there. And it won't be fertile.
I was working with someone the other day, in fact. Here we're talking about where the attention might get funnelled, for instance, or captured, or undue emphasis, imbalanced emphasis towards, let's say, the heart or the energy around the heart, constellating in the heart with the eros and with the love or whatever, at the expense of the imaginal. Now, we've talked about the other imbalance, where one is lost in the image, without the awareness of the emotional resonances and the energy body resonance. Here it was an example of the other. And again, it was, I think, her tendency. So pointing it out, and just offering the possibility that, "Ah, do you see what's happening here with the attention being captured, so to speak, by all the fire and heat and energy coming up into the heart area in the energy body?" That very attention was intensifying -- the constriction of the attention was intensifying the energy there until the whole thing felt like it was getting overexcited, like a flame, or a circuit when you blow a fuse, [that] kind of thing, or it was going to dissipate in that way, or become way out of balance, or just disperse.
One option is to open up the energy body awareness and have the whole body involved. We'll return to that. Or -- and in this case, what I just gently guided towards was -- not taking the attention off what was happening in the heart and in the whole energy body, but actually just redressing the balance a little bit, giving a little bit more attention to the image. It's almost like the image tended to get lost there with all the sort of captivation of the attention in the heart area and the energy. So just giving a little bit more attention to the image, letting that become more alive and prominent, still aware of the heart and the energy body. And also taking care to balance, in this case, not just the self -- sort of what's happening with me, "I am becoming this in the image," and the sort of captivation with that at the expense of the other. In the example, that was also a little bit imbalanced in an unusual way towards the self, and forgetting the other a little bit.
So still aware of the heart and the energy body, taking care of the balance between self and other, but giving a little more attention to the image. Then the kind of over-intensity that was gathering in the heart and feeling too uncomfortable and like it was going to blow, that could kind of calm a little bit. And actually, there was less intensity, but more potency. This is a really important distinction, the distinction between intensity and potency. When we worked that way, instead of a fuse just being blown because it was too much intensity, or instead of it just being really intense, and being like "Wow, that was amazing," and then actually not much happening from the point of view of soulmaking and shifts or openings of the psyche and of the perception of the world, etc., actually the spreading of the intensity and the opening so that all that energy could kind of go into other domains like the imaginal, etc. The whole experience became richer, deeper, and more potent. In other words, it made a difference to the soul.
This is a general point now: don't confuse intensity and potency. Intensity is very, you know, attention-grabbing, and looks very impressive, and feels very impressive. It doesn't always translate as potency. Sometimes what is intense can be potent, and sometimes what is potent is really not that intense, okay? So there's a more general point there, but there's also this question of the relative emphasis of attention -- in this case, we're talking between the heart and the energy body on one hand, and the image on the other. So all this has to do with balancing and kind of leaning one way, responding to what's happening.
As we're talking about energy, let's talk about sexual energy. Now, of course, fantasies, images that come into the mind can bring sexual energy with them -- lost in a sexual daydream, even, something like that -- and bring sexual energy, sexual arousal. And the other way around: we can feel sexual arousal, and it constellates some kind of fantasy or daydream or image. When that's the case, one option is to give some attention to the sexual energy. Oftentimes, what happens when we're not mindful is either (or both) we get lost in the image in a not-mindful way -- this is not really imaginal then -- and the sexual energy has just kind of contracted, perhaps genitally or in some area of the body. So give some emphasis of attention to the sexual energy, but in the whole energy body. So again, really emphasize the whole energy body.
And really, what happens if I allow that sexual energy, really allow it in the body, and open to it, and let it open? Oftentimes it will then spread. If we allow it and open to it and open the space for it, it will spread like a gas to fill that space, fill the whole energy body. Really feel it, and let yourself enjoy that energy. Let yourself enjoy the sexual energy, opening to it, feeling it, mindful of it in the body. One of the things that can happen is that the sexual energy transubstantiates, if you like, or transforms into bliss. It just becomes kind of rapturous energy or something like that, pīti or something. So there's a close connection between sexual energy and pīti. Opening to it that way, and feeling it, and really letting yourself feel it. We're talking about an open, skilful mindfulness of the sexual energy in the whole energy body, and it can transform to bliss, and then you can do all kinds of different things with the bliss if you want -- go into samādhi or whatever.
But let's be clear: if I'm caught up in an image, whether it's sexual or not, that's not the imaginal, okay? And if I'm not aware of the energy body, that's also not so imaginal. And it's not eros, then, because it won't be stimulating the soulmaking there. It's just craving. But even if something arises that way, as what seems like just a kind of fantasy, or sexual craving, or whatever, or agitating sexual image, there's a possibility to work with the image of it to allow it to become imaginal. So just an 'image' in the way we're not using [the word], in the cheap sense, can actually become, I can enter into a relationship with this image that makes it imaginal, allows it to become imaginal, and then the soulmaking and the eros-psyche-logos dynamic can get involved and start to expand in relation to that image.
But imaginal practice for us includes not just that, the dimensionality and all that with the image and the sensitivity, but also the mindfulness, as we said, of the energy body and the soulmaking resonances. There's the possibility of navigating, if you like, responding, no matter how something starts -- just feel this agitated sexual energy, uncomfortable, or I just feel this image that looks like it's just a sexual daydream or whatever. The possibilities of navigating, we can really develop our skill, our art here with all this.
Let's just amplify something I mentioned before, take it out again for the sake of an important point. We talked about sometimes the image may want to, or we can incline it towards, here's this image with this erotic beloved, the beloved other, some erotic object, and there's a movement or an inclination towards merging or melting together into union. One possibility is we just allow that to go towards union. Really fine. Or we even navigate that way, so that there is this melting together into oneness, and there is, as I said, technically speaking, less fabrication at that point -- less fabrication of the perception of forms, etc. We can really kind of dissolve into that oneness to a deep degree.
Or, again, talking about navigation, steering, inclination, etc., choices in the imaginal practice, an alternative is to actually keep the eros in the way that it constellates and retains the twoness that we talked about several times, and keeps the images alive. In other words, the images don't just melt into light or whatever, or diffuse kind of love; you're actually sustaining the erotic tension, and sustaining the twoness, and the otherness, and the particulars of the images, etc. Why? Not to say that's always the best, but other doorways and other dimensions are opened through retaining that erotic tension, and the twoness, the otherness, and the image, and the particularities of the image. Because in that, in that erotic constellation that doesn't dissolve into oneness, we actually experience something: a different kind of holiness, different kinds of holiness.
We can experience and have the perception, the imaginal perception, of participation, participation in the dimensions of divinity of the cosmos, if you like. And that's different than oneness, just a oneness of essence, just a melting into that -- which is wonderful, and different kinds of oneness. But participation, if you like, is something different. It's actually richer. There are infinite varieties and infinite depths and dimensions and facets of participation. Onenesses tend to be simpler and more limited. There are dimensions and beauty to the perception, the deep, almost endlessly infinite perceptions of participation, mystical participation of this image, and my participation in this image echoing something, and participating through echoing or mirroring something more cosmic or divine. We'll come back to this.
For that echoing and for that participation, uniqueness is necessary. So it's not just a oneness of essence, a kind of dissolving of the particularities in this one universal substance of love or awareness or whatever it is, or light or something, being. It's actually my uniqueness, or the uniqueness that pertains to the self and the other, and this kind of love, and this kind of eros or whatever it is in the image. The uniquenesses in the image are necessary to participation in a way that they're not in a sense of oneness. There's a whole different sort of direction and dimensionality of sense of holiness, etc.
But there's always the question of balance and the possibilities here in this kind of infinitely gradated shift of emphasis and inclination and navigation. So an image may go towards melting, and then there's a sense of the energy body melting. I could take that into samādhi if I like, and actually let the image go. That's possible. Or the image goes towards the melting and the union, and I feel that in the energy body, but I choose to modulate it, as we mentioned before. I kind of linger at some point, or just stop it at some point, perhaps at the edge of where there is the imaginal form and the formless. Just lingering around that edge, very insubstantial. All kinds of possibilities here, all kinds of possibilities. But there is something that we get through the retaining of the twoness, the retaining of the erotic other and the otherness and the particularities, that we don't get in more commonly described or conveyed teachings, mystical experiences and directions.
Another kind of way of putting, partly, what we've just been through, another way of dividing it up, is we could say that, in everything that we've talked about -- I think in everything -- we can think about or play with the shifting of the relative weight or the emphasis of the attention, for example, on the desire itself, on the energy of the desire, or on the inquiry into the desire -- this deep "what am I really wanting here?" We can put the weight of the attention on the energy of the desire, or the weight of the attention on the image, and include the image of the other, of the self, of the world in the cosmopoesis, of the eros itself, or equally between those, and this opens up the sense of dimensionality and divinity. Or what's the relative weight with those compared with the energy body? If it's the energy body, is it a particular centre I'm working on -- the heart, or the throat, or the lower belly, or whatever, or the whole energy body?
And again, what's the relative emphasis on the sense of love and the kinds of love? Or the emotional difficulty that one might be feeling. There doesn't have to be at all any difficulty there, but it might be a sense of lack, or the desire itself is difficult, or some other emotion there. So we can think about this kind of relative emphasis of the weights of the attention. It's all in the field, but what are we kind of emphasizing more or less at any time in that balance there? Another way to sort of approach the whole question of balance, another kind of way in or way to divide it up, is we could also ask ourselves or check -- at any time, or just more in general -- are my three centres (my belly, my heart, and my head -- sometimes people talk about three centres: belly, heart, and head), are all three centres involved? Here's this desire. Here's this eros with the imaginal, whether it's an actual person or an intrapsychic image. Are my three centres involved? Are they all open? And are they connected with each other? So is my belly and my, if you like, centre of sexuality, is that connected with my heart? Is my heart connected with my head?
But really, that's fine as a way of talking, but really what we're talking about there, for me, I would say, when we talk about the belly centre, it's really the body, the energy body. So again, it's like saying, is my energy body involved? Is it open? Is it connected with the other dimensions of my being? Is it connected with and do I feel the sympathy and the resonance with the heart? 'Heart' has two meanings metaphorically. It's not just that place in the middle of your chest, although it includes that, of course. It's also my emotions. Is my emotional awareness and sensitivity and care involved? Is it open? Are my emotions open? Are they connected, these different aspects or dimensions of our being? 'Heart' has a second meaning in some traditions -- I think I mentioned this -- as actually more equivalent to the organ of the soul's perception, the organ of imaginal perception. So in other words, have I forgotten about the image? Or is that involved, included? Is it open? Am I opening to it? Is it connecting with the energy body and all that? Is the energy body connecting with the imaginal and all that?
And then the head, for me, that really refers to the logos. Am I aware of what conceptions are operating, what logoi? And what's the conceptual framework that is actually in play? So this doesn't necessarily need a huge amount of cogitation and thinking and all that stuff. But there is conception operating, as I said, all the time. It's part of soulmaking. It's part of imaginal practice. It's part of eros. Is that included? Is what's going on there in -- if we call it the mind, it's not only the brain located in the head; the head centre doesn't just mean the head centre for me. Is the conceptuality included? Is there wise conceptuality? Am I aware of it? Am I including it? Can I shape it, etc., respond with it? Is it connected? Is it open? Is it involved?
One very basic thing, if we talk about concept, and what part that has, the conceptual framework, in all this, am I clear -- for instance, in relation to navigation -- am I clear about the distinction between, and am I clear in how I'm navigating between the sort of three degrees of fabrication, if you like? Remember this from the last retreat or the retreat before? In other words, we can navigate towards, steer towards (1) a lessening of fabrication into samādhi or mettā or different kinds of oneness, or towards the Unfabricated. Beautiful, really important steering. We can just approach things with (2) a kind of mindfulness or bare attention, which is just a little bit less fabrication than a usual state of consciousness. That's really helpful, really skilful at times as part of our practice. Heaven forbid that it become the whole of the practice, but it's an option, and it's helpful for some things. Or (3) we're engaging in the art of fabrication, if you like -- the more tantric practice of skilful fabrication, soulmaking fabrication. So there are three degrees: towards the Unfabricated, so-called bare attention or mindfulness (a sort of midpoint, if you like), and there's the skilful fabrication of the imaginal and soulmaking. So just to be clear about that, and clear what we're doing at any point, where we're headed, and is it deliberate, and is that where we want to go right now?
Just to say right now, and this is what I want to pick up in the next talk, that the conceptual framework -- I was talking about belly, heart, and head, and 'head,' really, for me is conceptual framework. Just to say how important that is, that actually the conceptual framework that's operating at any time -- and there will always be one, even if you don't know what it is, and it's vague or it's unclear, even if it's confused -- the conceptual framework operating at any time can potentially be really, really supportive. It can be something that supports the movement of the eros and the opening of the imaginal practice and the soulmaking. It contains something. If we go back to the image of the vessel, the vessel is containment. One of the ways this whole practice is contained, in a good way that allows it to be soulmaking, allows the fire to heat up the material, etc., in the alchemical analogy, is that the conceptual framework contains and creates, is part of creating a vessel. The conceptual framework works as a map to guide. And out of all this, it allows trust, because I have a conceptual framework. I have a sense of orientation, containment, support, guidance. It brings trust, balance, stability. Yes, there is this breaking of the vessels that can happen at certain points, and the stretching of the vessels, and the shattering of the vessels from the Kabbalistic mythology. That has its important place. But generally speaking, conceptual frameworks are really helpful, and this is what I want to -- we're still talking about navigation and vessels -- this is what I want to go into in the next talk, that whole aspect of things.
