Transcription
Anybody have anything they want to ...?
Q1: concepts of body, energy body, astral body, chakras; working with difficult energy
Yogi: I've got a question about the distinction between energy body and gross physical body, and then sort of wondering about ideas like breath body and maybe -- it doesn't feel necessary to my question, but I've heard of astral body and [inaudible]. There's a subtle sense of what I've come to understand as energy body when there are less hindrances, and when I'm moving more slowly, and cultivating appreciation and things like that. In general, the practices we're doing feel like they're giving a lot more energy to the system. There's a lot more restlessness. That's an aside, but the main point of the question is: I've seen quite a few times where the sense of breath body or energy body -- I'm not sure the distinction -- seems pretty large and subtle and lovely, and the physical body is like "ughhhh," contracted. Maybe I'd call it pīti, but it feels kind of sensed as unpleasant rather than pleasant, quite intense. So kind of feelings like a drowning feeling. The physical breath is very shallow and stuttery and jerky. There is a sense of pīti around, but I'm sensing that as unpleasant at the same time I'm sensing the energy body breath as being very pleasant. I think probably if the retreat was longer, and I wasn't so engrossed in all the talks, and I just had a lot of quiet time, I'd probably work a way around it, but as it is, I guess ... do I have a question? [laughter]
Rob: That was going to be my question. [laughter] You don't have to, but is there a question?
Yogi: What are the useful distinctions around physical, gross body, and energy body [inaudible]?
Rob: And perhaps what to do with this funny mixture of feelings that's going on? Okay. So Laurence is saying -- correct me if I'm wrong -- there's this thing called the energy body, which sometimes you experience as kind of light and pleasant, and then there's the physical body and more gross sensations, and then also you've heard of things like the astral body and things like that. What's the distinction there? Is there a distinction? That's part of one question. And then secondly, practically speaking, sometimes it feels like out here, you said, the energy body feels really nice. How far out are we talking?
Yogi: In the hall yesterday like 8-10 feet.
Rob: Oh, quite wide, yeah, okay.
Yogi: And yesterday, looking out the window, it was kind of like having a go at trying to get it to reach the tree. [laughter]
Rob: How did that go?
Yogi: It's just a concept [inaudible]. [laughter]
Rob: We're talking quite wide. But there's a sense of out there somehow it's really quite nice and rarefied and subtle and pleasant. And something in here -- and you're not quite sure what -- feels difficult.
Yogi: Yes, particularly around breathing, and sometimes jerky sensations.
Rob: Is the body actually moving in the jerky sensations?
Yogi: Yeah, playing around with the tree, yeah, the body was ... It was kind of like, "Okay, you could call this pleasant?" [laughter]
Rob: Yeah, yeah. Okay. So in terms of the conceptual distinctions, I don't know the answer. In a way, I'm not sure how much it matters. I, again, feel like, "Oh, now we're a little bit stuck with this word 'energy body,'" which maybe if I could go back a few years I would come up with a different [term], because it's more a way of seeing, like everything else, a way of relating. So sometimes this space feels more like a field of energy, and light and pleasant, and maybe that's where it got its name. But that partly comes from a way of paying attention to it, okay? It partly comes as a reflection of what's going on emotionally and energetically, etc. But at other times it can be very dense -- dense in a problematic way, and dense also in a lovely way, you know? So I think we touched on this, you and I, last retreat. It's like, there's a whole spectrum to what it can feel like in terms of density or insubstantiality. All of that's energy body; it's just the way I'm relating to it that gives it that whole ... Energy body is more a way of relating, a way of seeing, a way of sensing. Does that make sense? It's not confining -- maybe that's a way of putting it -- it's not confining my experience to just the range of the usual kind of sensations we have or the usual ideas of the body, yeah? Maybe that's a better way of saying it. It's a way of perceiving, a way of looking.
Astral body and all that -- yeah, I mean, you can have all kinds of experiences. What the 'truth' is about that, I'm more inclined to say the truth depends on how I'm looking at it and the divisions I make. It's interesting, when you get and kind of see different people's systems: this system has four chakras, that system has seven, that system has nine, that system has eight, this one's red, no, no, it's purple ... [laughter] It kind of goes to show that the way I'm looking at the body, what's going on conceptually, what's going on in my relationship to it fabricates, constructs what's happening to it. Is that a problem? No. It doesn't matter. So I don't know the answers, if there even are any, other than it's a dependent arising. This is the first part of the question. Do you feel like you need to know the answers to that? What's behind the question?
Yogi: It feels more like exploration, and noticing particularly, "Okay, this sense of the body is moving quite a lot with the breath, and very subtle, while simultaneously there's something going on here." [inaudible]
Rob: We'll come back to that in just a second, the problem thing, and how we can relate to it and work with it. You said something very lovely -- it's like, it's an exploration. What you're exploring is experience. Now, with that, there will be certain conceptions of what the energy body is. But explore, you know? What I would feel wary of is getting too stuck in one kind of experience: I'm always dense, and I'm always focused on dukkha, or I'm always really wide, because that's the cosmic consciousness or whatever. It's like, all these ranges of experiences are available, yeah? Can it be related to the breath? Absolutely. So there's breath, and they talk about subtle breath. I could use those words interchangeably -- breath body and energy body, subtle body; it's all good. Or you can have an experience where the experience of the energy body and the perception of the energy body doesn't seem to have anything to do with the breath. Maybe you stop breathing, and still there's all the vitality, and you're alive. So I tend to be more fluid with these kind of divisions. Divisions, delineations, concepts, they're only useful insofar as they're useful. And they're not realities. You can pick up a delineation, create a delineation, and if it's helpful for you, go for it, but just don't get locked into it. If it's not helpful, leave it. But if you view the whole thing as an exploration of experience -- which means perception, yeah? And all 'reality' is in the realm of experience and perception, which is bound up with ways of looking, dependent on ways of looking. You understand? So if you view it that way, then ... Do you understand what I'm getting at? The conceptions are not kind of realities outside of you. The whole thing is just in the service of exploration of experience, either what's helpful, what eases dukkha, or what's soulmaking, or both. Yeah?
So in terms of this thing that you're feeling, I don't know. Maybe if we have time together we can do a little bit, you know. What I will say is sometimes what happens is -- let me work the other way around. If it's pleasant out here -- it depends on your intention, okay? If you want, if my intention is to have some samādhi, some well-being, then the first port of call will be: go to where it's pleasant, okay? In the stream of that intention, that's not the time to get entangled in the difficult. So it's not that the difficult is -- you're not ignoring it, but you give more attention and nuzzle up and enjoy the pleasant. Most people have a habit of getting pulled into the unpleasant in ways that are not that helpful. So first port of call: what you'll often find is that inclining the attention towards the pleasant, and just again and again enjoying it, enjoying it, it goes back to nyuuuh [the difficult], so just, "Okay, let's just find the pleasant," again and again. What can happen then is the pleasant begins to wash over the unpleasant. It's the subtly unskilful attention to the unpleasant that's keeping generating the unpleasant sometimes. You understand? So there's one kind of -- if you can incline the mind that way again and again in the moment, just very relaxed. Your job is just to find the pleasure, and just subtly enjoy it, and keep doing that. Sometimes you don't need to bother about this; it will blend over if the intention is towards samādhi.
Sometimes, still within the intention towards samādhi, that doesn't help, so then you can see: does this thing want to move in any way? You mentioned restlessness, and it seemed like it was a bit ... So then you might get the sense that somehow it wants to -- it could be -- go out the top of the head, or out the throat, or this way. It's like, what does it want to do? And kind of allow it to do that. So the energy body is dependent on perception. It's a fabrication. You can either imagine it do that, or just kind of open it, open the energy body to allow it to move how it wants to move. Do you understand?
Yogi: Yeah. I was just doing that.
Rob: Do it as we're speaking?
Yogi: Yeah.
Rob: Okay. [laughter] If you want, we can -- because we're meeting anyway. It would be better one-on-one. That's fine. But as a principle, and I'm talking to everyone, as well, it's like, sometimes contraction, pain, these things are, in energetic terms, they're just stuck energy. They want to move in a certain way, and we just need to help to allow them to move. You can use your imagination, whatever. You can use the breath. If it's here, maybe it wants to breathe in and out this way, or in and out the back, or up and down and out through the head, or in through the head, or out through your perineum. Whatever. There's some way of bringing the dynamism of the felt and imagined breath energy into play with this, and including it, and that allows it to move more. Yeah? So the thing I say about samādhi is anything goes, anything. If it works, great! [laughs] It doesn't matter. We're just in the business of: here's this field. Let's try and get some well-being, without argggh, struggling too much. So if it's the imagination, great. If it's a kind of more energetic thing, fantastic.
Third possibility, still in the realm of the intention of samādhi, is: okay, those two didn't work, and then it's like, to go to this stuck place, contacted place, difficult place, and actually move into a mode of kind of hyper-allowing. So it's unpleasant, and then this moment, I just completely open to that unpleasantness. I completely open. There's this kind of 'open, open, open.' Yeah? Does that make sense? What's happening then is I'm entering into a way of looking that is minimal aversion. You understand? So I have to go 120 per cent opening, allowing, welcoming to this thing. Because what's keeping it in place is the aversion. There's a subtle aversion to it.
Yogi: And also the concept of drowning.
Rob: Yeah. That's part. I've never had something like that, but it's like, maybe there's actual -- if you drown, there's quite a fearful sensation, I'm presuming. Is that caught up in it? Or do you actually feel like you're drowning in something or other?
Yogi: It's similar to [?] practising with you a few years ago, and it did shift then. Actually, then it was hearing another teacher's voice, so that's an imaginal influence. But yeah, it kind of, it's like ... okay, there's very little oxygen moving, and there's lots of jerking around, contraction, and the body doesn't really like this, but it's what's happening, and simultaneously there's loveliness elsewhere.
Rob: Yeah. There are so many different kind of responses and things you could try. Two more things we could say: caring for the being who feels like they're drowning. It's like, drop the "I'm trying for samādhi" stuff; something needs care there. There's vulnerability. And breath is so primary, if you feel like you can't get your breath. You're not going to asphyxiate; I can tell you that. But still, that might not be enough, so something needs some care there in terms of that experience. In that way of approaching, you would more gently focus in on that and want to hold it. It's not just the sensations, because you can kind of laser-beam those unpleasant sensations with mindfulness, but we want also to care about the person who feels like they're drowning. You understand? So it's not just sensations reduced from a person. It's sensations with the person, with the self.
Maybe that's good. There are a lot of different things we could say. But how does that sound?
Yogi: I've got a lot to work with. [inaudible]
Rob: Okay, yeah. And then we'll hopefully meet, and we can actually play with it a little bit. Yeah. Okay.
Yogi 2: I don't want to step on what you just said, but I get similar kinds of feelings sometimes, and like what you said, I just kind of remind myself I'm not dying, and that sort of helps. I get very short of breath sometimes, and it kind of jerks, and it's very shallow. It's unpleasant, but I just figure I'm going to survive, so it's ... [laughter]
Rob: Yeah, thank you. I mean, you can also use the breath to smooth the breath and soothe. There are so many different possibilities here. It's endless, and from many different angles, and moving in many different directions. But sometimes you can actually, as well as what Andrew said, you can actually use the breath to smooth it out, smooth that out. You have to be very gentle. You're not forcing anything. And if I'm coming from "come on, change this ..." It's really like you would stroke a cat or something that's wounded, just really, really -- you're just easing something with the breath, with kindness and with the breath. Sometimes that can really shift the energy, keel it, calm it, open it, all that. So there are a lot of possibilities.
Andrea, yeah?
Q2: aspects of the imaginal, ways of relating to images to move towards the imaginal
Yogi: My question's kind of related to Sampo's the other day about [inaudible] the practice or leaning in a particular direction. So I've been noticing that I might be taking a breath that feels rather lovely. It's not necessarily desire, but I've been perceiving it as desire in the moment, which leads to more breaths or more currents that feel like eros, not necessarily with an image attached to them. And then sometimes an image does come up as a result of perceiving in that way. So the question is more around if there are ways of looking that allow more imaginal to come through. [inaudible] with mettā, sometimes you feel the sun on your face, and suddenly feeling that that's mettā coming to you helped me lean into mettā. The question was, can you do that with desire, this perceiving lovely sensations that may not have that relationship as desire?
Rob: I get the thing about the mettā and the sun. Can you say the thing about the breath and the desire? I'm not quite sure what the connection is.
Yogi: So you might suddenly take a breath, and the whole bit goes from the nostrils all the way down to the perineum, and feels wide and open and lovely. There isn't an image in your mind at that moment; it's just the body opening. But the next breath, the head's tilted back, and there's more sensuousness with the breath. It could be just words that you or Catherine uttered that suddenly sends the body into a little bit of "ooo," and not necessarily an image but a leaning into that sort of "ooo," having a momentum, propelling.
Rob: I'm not sure I -- let my try, if I understand. If we go back to the sunlight on the face, and sometimes one can feel that warmth and that light or perceive it, but essentially it's an imaginal perception of the sun that's fused with mettā. All that's an imaginal constellation: sun, skin, warmth, mettā. These things, again, if you go to Newton Abbot high street and say, "Do you know that the sun radiates loving-kindness?" [laughter] It's not a usual perception, so it's an imaginal perception. You understand? So there's something that arises in a moment, and then you can gently kind of encourage that, or deliberately return to it at a different time. So the same with the experience of body and breath -- actually, the experience of anything. So this is, you know, I was wondering -- it's actually quite hard to articulate what is it that -- when we talk about intrapsychic images, for most people that's relatively easy to understand. Some people say, "I don't get any," because that's a different kind of thing. But when we talk about -- like the other day, I said this is an imaginal hat. It's not an imaginary hat. Actually, it's not imaginal, but it could be imaginal. It's not imaginary, in the sense that there is a thing here. But it can be an imaginal hat. It's quite hard to articulate what is it that moves the, if you like, material perception of anything, what is it that infuses it with the imaginal, and how do we make ourselves available to that, and how do we support that, you know?
So a lot of the time what happens is actually what you're describing already: we catch things on the breeze. We're in a receptive mode, relatively speaking, and something, a current just comes, and a perception begins to open, and we just ride it. In time that gets more -- and dependent on a lot of conditions -- that kind of receptivity and sensitivity gets more and more encouraged, yeah? But apart from that, it's actually quite hard to pinpoint: what can we do in the moment to encourage that? So I think part of it is the listening to the poetry, like something Catherine said or whatever. It's like ideas and words and other images function as kind of poetic drops, some kind of poetic potion that goes into the mix, and it just sparks an imaginal perception, yeah?
Yogi: Sometimes sound?
Rob: Yeah, yeah. It could be absolutely anything, exactly. But something starts to function as a poetic sort of alchemical elixir thing. What else is happening there? I haven't quite ... but I'll say a few things. There's a loosening that's happening. What's loosened? My ideas of what things are are loosened, of how things are. This is the logos. That doesn't have to be a big deal, but it's just I've relaxed the idea that the sun is only a massive ball of hydrogen in fission or fusion or whatever nuclear process is going on. It is that, but I've kind of relaxed my conceptual grip. Also, to a certain extent, there's a bit more looseness in the perception so that the images can move. There's an inclusion of the energy body again. This is another aspect. The more the energy body is total and involved, the more openness there will be to catching those currents, you know? Other aspects: there's this sense of something being bigger than. Sometimes that's hard to pinpoint: what is it that's bigger? But there's this quality of humility and reverence, and the heart is involved with that. So all these aspects, they arise together. I think I said this the other day. But what it also means is that we can kind of loosen some of them, or take care of some of them, or come into an attitude of heartful humility and reverence, and that will support that. Sometimes what can happen, just practically, is you've had that experience before, and you just gently remember it, and open and loosen in this way, and it comes back, and you can ride it again or open to it again, or whatever words.
I would be, again, wary of formularizing it and coming up with "step one ..." like that, although I think there's something to that, because there are certain things that go on that open that. But related to what Catherine was talking about and what we're saying, to me that's a principal direction that we're going in. Sometimes people say, "I want an image," or they hear about someone else's image, some fantastical monster that arose in the meditation, and all this stuff happened with a sense somebody's got nine heads and it's purple and this green flame comes out of its mouth, and it's like, "That's an image!" [laughter] And yeah, great. It might be really meaningful; the test is in the soulmaking. But even more important than that, for me, I think where we're going -- and some people will start there -- is in the world being imaginally alive, imaginally perceived, having this dimensionality, opening up the sacredness. What you're asking is really important. It's like, how to support that. Does that ...? Okay. Thank you.
Yes, Rachel.
Q3: sustaining and working with images after they deliver an insight, not reducing images to one meaning
Yogi: So working with some images, what I've noticed has been that if I'm in sort of a receptive mode, it feels like the image is very beautiful, and it feels like I'm in the realm of the imaginal. And then it sort of, after some time, delivers its message, in a way. It feels like it sort of delivers an insight or delivers something important to me, and then it feels like it goes quickly, and flickering quickly comes the next image. In a receptive mode, it feels like it's quite flickery and quite jittery. So in a way, I'm feeling like there's more to find in each image, but if I go there ...
Rob: If you go where?
Yogi: If I sort of try to stay with an image, or stay with this a bit longer, it feels like [inaudible]. It's offered [inaudible], and if I receive that, then the next thing's coming.
Rob: So if I'm understanding -- correct me if I'm wrong. Rachel's asking that sometimes images come up, and definitely get the feeling that it's very lovely, and there's the quality of the imaginal, and you recognize all that. And then sometimes what happens is an image delivers its message?
Yogi: Yeah. [inaudible] its importance.
Rob: Okay. So it feels like at some point the image has conveyed or communicated whatever it was, however it did that, and then what happens is it just goes away, and then another image comes. Is this process happening super quickly, or it could take any kind of rhythm?
Yogi: Yeah, not necessarily quickly.
Rob: Okay. And then when you feel like you try and hang on to the image, it feels a little what, forced, contracted?
Yogi: Yeah. It feels like the sacredness is falling away.
Rob: So Rachel's saying when she tries to hold on to it, it feels like the sacredness is falling away. I wonder if I'm trying to hold on to this image because either I think I should, or because there might be something else it has to tell me. In other words, why am I trying to hold on to it? It might be that the intention is making the difference and draining the sacredness out of it. I don't know, but it might be. Is it possible to actually start with the sense of sacredness, and that the sense of sacredness is not exhausted by the message that you've already got? This is what happens: if you think of an image like a person, then the person could rightfully feel insulted and not respected if you just view them as, "They're there to give me this, and then when that's done they can ... ", you know? [laughter] It's like, if there's a way of entertaining a sense that the image is inexhaustible. That message was important and part of it, but it doesn't exhaust the image, and the sacredness is always bigger than that message. Yeah? I don't know if this is possible, if there's a way of, like, kind of just -- really what's happening is we're granting an image its sacredness. We're just entering into that posture, that relationship with it, and seeing what that does, which is a different thing than trying to make it stay. You understand? So maybe if that's possible, that's different. And if it goes, it goes. If it doesn't, it doesn't. But I'm not entering into sort of a -- what's the word? Catherine says I get my English wrong. Utalitarian? Utilitarian. 'Utalitarian' is like a religion, isn't it? [laughter] Whatever! I'm not just like, "What can this give [me]?" If I reduce an image to one meaning or one communication, it dies. So it's like just entering into a kind of relationship and an attitude that doesn't do that. Is this potentially relevant or not? You don't look ...
Yogi: Yeah. I mean, I feel like on some level I get that, and in a way, that's why I'm sort of opening, wanting to open to it, because I don't want to reduce it to one message, like "give me a message and go." [inaudible]
Rob: Okay. But maybe it's like getting away from the whole 'message' idea. Is that part of it? It's like more just being in relationship. What about just loving it? What about just hanging out? What does relationship mean? What can relationship mean? It's a different relationship with the relationship. Part of that might be a sense of -- someone asked the other day; I can't remember -- actually there's a kind of obvious thing there, and then there's maybe more subtle, let's call them 'communications,' but they might not be messages or instructions or insights or whatever. There's a rapport back and forth, communication in the broadest sense of the word, from the image to you, from you to the image, and some of that stuff is really much more subtle. So it might be a matter of just kind of quietening, and taking the pressure off, and just attuning more, you know?
Having said all that, some images do just come and go. Sometimes it's just the restless mind. Sometimes it's just the nature of things. And it depends on a lot, you know? So sometimes you're skidding around, and images are moving very fast, and you're, "Is this significant? I'm not sure," and then one becomes meaningful or more kind of long-lived. But it might be a matter of if I grant it that sacredness and that moreness, then maybe it's a matter of being a little -- if I can ease myself into more sensitivity without grasping at it. I feel like I'm not ...
Yogi: Yeah, I think there's something about the rapport, the relationship.
Rob: Yeah. Maybe that's just -- I think it's in that ballpark. And just see what comes with that.
Q4: images in relation to aversion and blocks in the energy body
Yogi: On this retreat and the last one, all the images that come up for me tend to be violently compassionate towards particular blocks in the energy body ...
Rob: Violently compassionate?
Yogi: It's either very violent or compassionate; it's always a mixture of the two. It's almost some sort of violent compassion. I'm just wondering whether this is aversion dressed up as a god. [laughter]
Rob: I don't know. Again, it's like, how does it feel?
Yogi: There's some release. There's some pīti sometimes. But it doesn't completely unblock that block.
Rob: How do you feel when it doesn't unblock the blockage?
Yogi: I suppose there's still a yearning. [inaudible]
Rob: "Help me"?
Yogi: Yeah.
Rob: Yeah. Beautiful. So let me just try and repeat that. Andy's saying both on this retreat and the last retreat, a lot of the images that come up are in relation to what feels blocked in the body, and a kind of violent compassion that comes up as an image in relation to that, a mixture of violence and compassion, and you're wondering whether that's actually aversion dressed up as a god, so to speak. Asking how do you feel, you say it doesn't actually unblock. So there are two parts to your answer, but one part was how does it feel, and the answer you gave was what happened to the block, which isn't -- it's only a partial answer to how does it feel. There's still yearning, longing. I would look more at those kind of emotions, and include them more, and be with them more. This is a really important principle: sometimes it's right in the emotional, not just the physical difficulty, but the emotional kind of sense of, "I really want this to go," whatever it is, and "help me," as you said. "Help me" is already something there.
Yogi: Often the image would have the same pain as well.
Rob: Okay, so there's something in that, rather than I'm using this to get rid of the block. It's hard sitting there in meditation when the body is aching and contracted; I really know that. But very easily we can make that the point, as opposed to the bigger. Something devotional and heartful and soulmaking is around already in the field, but there's a way of shrinking the attention that it ... You understand? So is it aversion dressed up as a god? I mean, it might be. It sounds like there's aversion in there. But it's not only that, and I can tell from what you're answering. So it's more like opening up that level, that kind of corona around the whole thing, and it's through the emotions there, and that relationship, and the image reflecting, etc. That might be really interesting. Yeah?
All right. Iona?
Q5: the imaginal becoming more subtle / agitation and unpleasant energy
Yogi: Yeah, it's kind of a question/wondering, and it's about samādhi, fabrication, and the imaginal. My own practice has been predominantly samādhi. Of course the samādhi deepens, things kind of just descend into [inaudible] -- lose the distinction, and lose the complexity. Things are less fabricated. In that kind of state, I can't really resurrect the imaginal image. I've been doing imaginal practice not in the sitting practice, just kind of wandering around in day-to-day life. That's what it kind of feels like -- it kind of feels like day-to-day life, but with an artistic lens or something like that. But I kind of have this wondering: does it also get more subtle? Does it have the same kind of thread that samādhi does, where it gets more subtle and there is a concentration element to it? Because, you know, if I take it into my meditation practice -- I don't have a problem with fabrication or agitation [inaudible], but I'd kind of rather be doing samādhi if I'm sitting there. Do you know what I mean? [laughter] It's too agitating. But that's fine, agitating is ... [laughter] I'm just wondering, does it kind of get more ...?
Rob: Does imaginal practice get stiller and more subtle?
Yogi: Yeah, does it get more subtle in the same way so that everything becomes a bit still and ...?
Rob: So I would say yes, okay? But I would also say -- and I think I said it in here the other day; I can't remember -- but it's like, when you do imaginal practice, generally speaking, there's some release or opening or harmonization in the energy body that comes with the image. That is your indicator that you're on the right track. There might be agitation in the sense of excitement, etc., but something in the energy body -- you know, pīti is also agitating, yeah? So it's not so much the presence of agitation as the presence of some kind of harmonizing in the body. What you get as you do imaginal practices, it's like, at any point there's this possibility of just leaning more into the samādhi, leaning more into the energetic quality of what's going on, and enjoying that, and opening to that. It takes you into more samādhi. So you're kind of letting the image go to some extent. Eventually, you can kind of play with the different emphases of attention. You could give very little attention to what's happening in the energy body, or most of the attention to what's happening in the energy body, or most of the attention to the image, or most of the attention to the emotion that's happening. So there are all these facets of experience, and with practice, you can kind of decide where to lean at any time. So imaginal practice can absolutely take you to different levels of samādhi just by virtue of staying in touch with what's happening with the energy body, and then at any point just kind of peeling off into that, focusing on that, if you want to.
But there's also a way that images, as the whole thing matures, I think get a little more subtle like most practice. Going back to what you said at first, samādhi is a movement of less fabricating, yeah? When you're doing imaginal practice, you're fabricating, okay? What can happen, though, is there's a kind of settling in samādhi, and you can go deep as you want and hang out in that if that's what you like to do and whatever; that's fine. Then, at a certain point, you can just come up a little bit, so to speak. Just loosen the whole thing a little bit. And what will have happened in that plunge is the psyche has got loosened, and it can be a place where images are born. If I'm right down there in the stillness or whatever it is, I'm really in a state of non-fabrication. And actually, all perception is fabricated less -- worldly, bodily, and imaginal. But it's like, that's a kind of plunge that then I come up a little bit, and the whole thing's looser, and then more imaginal stuff can come if you want. Does that sound ...? Yeah? Okay.
Yogi 2: [inaudible]
Rob: Yeah, it was about with Laurence, you know. This energy here that feels -- this is quite common, what we just said with Iona. Pīti can feel actually unpleasant at times. I'd define it as pleasantness, really, as non-sensually arising pleasantness, but for a lot of people at different stages in their sort of exploration of samādhi, pīti actually feels unpleasant. It's too agitating or it's too coarse or ...
Yogi 2: I just want to go to sukha.
Rob: Yeah, very common. And for a lot of people who have tasted more of the calmer end of samādhi, you become what I call a pīti snob. [laughter] It's like, something you would have given your right arm for a couple of years ago, this bliss now becomes ... Or it's actually unpleasant, and we have to find a relationship with it that allows it to be pleasant again. Part of that is the allowing. So it's like allowing and tuning into. What it might be, there is some enjoyment there, and I've just gotten into a relationship with it where I tune to the unpleasant, and the very resistance to it is fabricating it as unpleasant. If I can open to it, and just find the pleasure, find the pleasure, it actually starts fabricating as pleasant. So if it's that (I'm not sure; maybe when we get together more, we can get the sense), but if it is that, it's actually quite common. It's very common at different stages. Again, everything depends on the relationship. Everything, as we talked about with Rachel, everything depends on the relationship. The relationship conditions, fabricates, shapes, guides what unfolds -- body, world, emotion, mind, image, energy, all of it. That's a general point. Okay. Let's have a bit of quiet now.
