Sensing with Soul (Part 4)

All right, let's continue, pick up again, our elaboration of this idea of sensing with soul, and our exploration of some of the possibilities, what can happen as there is that opening of the field of experience, and the sense, the senses and the sense of experience.

Just to start with a few observations, or one larger observation: generally, it seems to me -- again, always exceptions -- but generally, as soulmaking practice 'matures,' if we can use that word, or evolves or whatever, grows, with that maturity, or part of what's involved in that maturity, is that there's an increasing mixture or interfusion of life and image. In other words, we sense more with soul in different ways. That, to me, is something, as I said, I've observed quite generally.

So, a few different aspects to that. (1) The first is -- how to say this? -- what becomes primary more and more, perhaps, but often in quite subtle ways, not clumsy or ego-driven ways, what becomes more primary is the relationship of the imaginal and (quote) 'life.' So if we're talking about intrapsychic images, or also extrapsychic, through the sense of demand, duty, what needs then to be expressed or manifested from, that's born or comes with as a duty or demand from that image. Again, this really isn't too clunky or clumsy. What I'm talking about is not an ego identification or reification; that's loosened, all that.

But then, this importance of the relation of the imaginal and life. And it can be really quite subtle, and it brings with it the question of how, what is demanded? What is my duty? How and at what level and in what domain does this image, so to speak, translate into an expression, a manifestation, in/through my life? What is involved in that infinite echoing and mirroring that I alluded to? These are subtle and delicate questions. Again, there's the problem of this kind of gross reification and literalization and concretization, a kind of very oversimplistic translation of image into life. Not always, but sometimes, that can signal a kind of inappropriateness. So that's one aspect that comes with the maturing of soulmaking practices, generally speaking, and of this mixing and meeting and interfusing more and more of life and the imaginal, and this opening of the sensing with soul.

(2) A second aspect is that there is more sensing of life with soul. More and more, we sense life with soul. The mode of sensing/sensings that we have is more infused with soulfulness, is more soulmaking, is more imaginal. If we use a visual metaphor, we 'see' life as image more and more, as imaginal image. And that becomes, again, not a permanent state, but something that we move much more often and regularly in and out of.

A part of that sensing life with soul more is that, what that also includes is a kind of recognition, if you like, in hindsight, of how much and how often the imaginal and fantasy, different fantasies, have already been operating in our life. This is what I mean: we said "image is primary." Actually, one way of conceiving all this is we are driven by fantasy, by image, in a good sense. We sometimes ignore it, or we collapse it, or reify it, or make it too small, or don't recognize its divinity, or over-identify -- all that kind of thing. But with this growing of the maturity, both in the understanding and the experience of soulmaking practice, one of the facets is that in sensing life more often with soul, and more deeply and more richly with soul, one aspect is that we kind of recognize the primacy and the frequency, just how much and how often the imaginal and the fantastical is already operating in our life, already primary, already driving, pulling us, calling us. We see, and we can bring that as a perspective of one way of understanding what's been moving us in our lives, what does move us, what does galvanize us, why we choose certain things, why certain ways of interacting tend to manifest themselves in expressions. So it becomes more about the relationship of the imaginal and life. And there's also this: we see life more with soul.

(3) Thirdly, there is the widening, the deepening, and the variegating, the making more manifold, more options of our senses of sacredness. In other words, the ways and directions and places and levels at which we sense sacredness expands, gets wider, gets deeper, gets quite varied there. And I mentioned that, for me, this piece of the opening up and the diversifying of the senses of sacredness, sensing the sacredness in life, in existence, in death, in all of it, in all the elements of that, for me, that's the main point.

Now, of course -- and I really do mean this -- you, anyone is free to decide what, for them, is the main point, if one is taken with these practices and interested in them. Anyone is free to decide what is the main point for you, for them, etc. But just to say that, for me, this is kind of the main point. There's so much richness, so much bounty and gift through these practices, through these ways of conceiving. So much is opened up. But at the end of the day, if I just am honest, for me, that's the main point: this opening up of the senses of sacredness.

But just to throw in, because it may not be obvious, and sometimes even that word, 'sacred,' people say, "What does that mean? I don't know. I can't relate to it," or it's a problematic word, or a charged word, or a taboo word, or just a dead word. Just to say, in case it's not obvious: a sense of sacredness doesn't necessarily mean something solemn or stiff. So increasing the senses of sacredness that we have, that are active in our life, that are working, and flowing, and opening, and dynamic, doesn't mean that we become more solemn and stiff. Sacredness doesn't always translate or manifest in some kind of always sober manifestation. Just witness the poems of Rumi, when he talks about Shams, etc. I got a note or an email from a yogi quite a while ago, and she said, "I was with this imaginal figure, and we were in hysterics together! It was hysterically funny." And it was like, "You never said that could happen." But all kinds of things are possible, and certainly sacredness does not always look solemn, stiff, and permanently sober.

[9:43] So there are just a few observations, general observations. But I said I was going to look at in a little more detail, probe, open up in a bit more detail and through examples, how does this sensing with soul open up? How does our sensing, when our sensing opens up to a sensing with soul, how does that happen? What supports it? What are the shifts, or triggers, or influxes, or other openings, etc., that allow that? So I'd like to go into this just a little bit.

Very generally and broadly, we might say that in order for some thing in the material world -- whether that's a person, or an object, or an event, or a feeling, an emotion, a state that one is going through, whatever it is -- in order that something in the material world or the experiential world is sensed with soul, we could very broadly, very generally say that loosely four things are necessary.

(1) The first is that we need to be open to this thing and intimate with it. This thing, whatever it is (and I'll give some examples), I need to actually meet it and touch it with my consciousness, with the senses. I need to be present to it and I need to be intimate with it. So for example, if it's my dukkha that I'm experiencing at a certain time, just in a moment, or it might feel like it's a lifetime of a particular kind of dukkha that I struggle with again and again, in order to sense that dukkha with soul (or in a different language that we've used before, for that dukkha to be re-enchanted) -- this pain, this suffering, this sorrow, this thing that actually I don't like -- I need to become intimate with it. I need to open to it and become intimate with it. This is a sort of sine qua non. It's basic. I can't skip this step. Whether it's my dukkha, whether it's some object, some material object or some thing, any phenomena, I need firstly to become open to and intimate with it. (When I outline these four, I don't necessarily mean that they happen in time in some linear order. It might be mixed up, which comes first.)

(2) The second factor or element, or something that needs to be present, is -- again, emphasizing -- the inclusion of the whole energy body, pervaded by sensitivity, by that kind of delicacy of attention that fills out that whole space, and that whole openness to the whole range of vibrational possibility there in the energy body. This, again, serves as a platform, a key, a door to sensing with soul.

(3) Thirdly is some reduction in clinging. Now, not so much that absolutely everything fades. If you're familiar with deep emptiness practices, actually all perception begins to fade. That's actually too much, because sensing with soul is a perception, of course, as is internal imaginal perception. Any sensing with soul, intrapsychic or extrapsychic, involves the fabrication of perception. So there can't be too much of a reduction in clinging, because then all perception or most perception will fade (certainly the level that we call sensing with soul). But there can be actually quite a lot, a range. There has to be some reduction in clinging, some kind of loosening of what may be the habitual grip we have, either pushing away or holding onto a certain idea, or a certain perception, or in energetic relationship with something. Some loosening of clinging is a necessary element in sensing with soul. (Again, there's not a temporal linearity to these elements.)

(4) And lastly, there's a whole bag of tricks which we've touched on before, and I would say just some receptivity or tuning into whatever the most helpful other element or aspect of the imaginal, or node of the imaginal constellation. So it might be, for instance, humility. It might be the 'neither real nor not real.' It might be anything within that: the meaningfulness, the beauty. Anything at all of that list that we went through.

So there are these four elements:

(1) Openness to and intimacy with whatever object we're talking about, and in whatever realm of objects, whether that's intrapsychic, intrapersonal as an emotion or dukkha, or out there in the material world, or another person or whatever. Openness and intimacy to the object.

(2) Whole energy body sensitivity, with that openness of what might be included there, and the range that might be included there.

(3) Some loosening of clinging, grip, fixation.

(4) And then a kind of open, opportunistic receptivity or tuning into whatever otherwise is the most helpful element of, aspect of the perception there, of the imaginal perception, of the sensing with soul.

These four elements are often going to be mutual depending arisings anyway. They're mutually dependent. In other words, as I was trying to say with the list, as one gets ignited or illuminated or fired up with the fullness of the imaginal, with the sensing with soul, then it tends to influence the others and open them, too, especially between the second and the third. The sensitivity and awareness, permeation of the whole space of the energy body with the sensitive, delicate awareness and tuning in there, that factor, that second factor, and the reduction of clinging, it's easily observable, the mutual dependency between them.

As we open up to include the whole energy body and an awareness of that and the sensitivity to that, including that awareness and that sensitivity in how we're relating to some object, inner or outer, that opening up of that energy body sensitivity tends automatically to attenuate, reduce, loosen the clinging in relation to that object, and in relation to other elements, as well, other factors in our being and our perception. And vice versa: when there is a lessening of clinging, the availability of the sense of the whole energy body, that kind of awareness of the body as energy body, and that space as energy body, and all that that means and might be, that tends to open up or just present itself, become more accessible or become noticed, as there's less clinging. It becomes, if you like, maybe not the default, but one of the strong options for how we then sense the body. As there's less clinging, the body tends to be perceived more as an energy body, etc.

So there's a very obvious, easy-to-spot, mutual dependent arising of the second and the third factors of that little list. With practice, that mutual dependent arising -- it will be also easy to spot the fourth, the whole list of what we went through of what we're calling the nodes of the imaginal constellation, or the nodes of the lattice of the imaginal constellation. Anything there, as we said -- humility, reverence, duty, meaningfulness, all that whole list -- that will be included. So in tuning into that, something happens with the energy body and the clinging. In tuning in, reducing the clinging, finding ways to reduce the clinging, those elements, or one of those elements will present itself, become more accessible, become more available to be receptive to, to tune into.

With practice, those three, the last three factors of this little four-item list, it becomes obvious, their mutual dependency. Also the first, but it's not necessarily the case that someone opening to and becoming intimate with something in the usual ways that we talk about it -- in Insight Meditation, we put a lot of stress on that, broadly speaking, in the Insight Meditation tradition: "Can you open to it? Can you be with it? Can you become intimate with it?", etc., whatever 'it' is, this experience that's passing through right now. We put a lot of emphasis on that, but it won't be the case that someone doing that in the context of a more -- what could we say? -- conventional Insight Meditation approach will then necessarily open up the others. There won't necessarily be a huge reduction in clinging. There will be some, just by virtue of approaching and opening to the object. There won't necessarily be the inclusion of the sensitivity to the whole energy body, etc.

[20:20] But with practice, these four items or factors of this little list become -- one can see the mutual dependency and actually use that to catalyse or enhance or deepen the whole process, the whole movement or the opening into sensing with soul. Let's look at a few examples. I've just chosen a few to give you a sense of what's involved and what can be involved, the kinds of things that can be involved in the experiences, but also what can be involved in the processes of how that transition into opening into sensing with soul happens.

A student sent me an email some time ago, and she was just describing what was going on in her explorations, in her practices. She was getting very interested in the whole imaginal strand of practice, and she was also interested in others -- samādhi, emptiness, and all kinds of things. But she was reporting that she was noticing, in her words, "Even the emptiness practices are getting consumed by the imaginal." The example she gave was, "One moment, I'm tracking vedanā." She's observing, in other words, the arising of vedanā in relation to whatever. She doesn't actually say. It could be the totality of experience. Could be one sense door. Could be one particular experience. "One moment, I'm tracking vedanā" -- the pleasant, unpleasant, kind of 'neither pleasant nor unpleasant' categories of vedanā as they arise, moment to moment -- "and perceiving it as empty." So that's an extra kind of way of looking. She's training her attention on the vedanā, keeping it lightly there, and employing some mode of looking that perceives that vedanā as empty of inherent existence (of which there are many, and I've talked and written about that plenty, so I'm not going into that now). But just the fact is, she was employing an emptiness way of looking in regard to the vedanā. Then she reports, "In the next moment, it becomes holy. The vedanā becomes holy and turns into leaves fluttering from branches." It's a beautiful image there.

So in our language, there's the emptiness practice and the intimacy. Tracking vedanā, one has to be intimate with it, because actually it's a felt experience. One can't do that intellectually. One can't do that at a large distance. One actually has to feel pleasantness, unpleasantness, neither pleasant nor unpleasant, all of which is an intimacy, and an intimacy of attention, and an intimacy of feeling, basically, as the Buddha -- sometimes that word vedanā gets most often translated. So there's the intimacy there, and there's also the emptiness.

As you probably know, as I've harped on so many times about, emptiness ways of looking naturally bring a reduction, a loosening of clinging, which allows a loosening of perception, a lessening of fabrication. Less clinging, less fabrication. Less fabrication means this thing that I'm perceiving -- vedanā, whatever it is -- is then less fabricated, less rigidly, tightly, solidly formed as a thing. It becomes, to borrow an alchemical metaphor that we haven't used for quite a while, it becomes water. All things become water. If you remember from some years ago, we used to say that a lot in relation to the imaginal: "Don't proceed until all things have become water." That's an alchemical maxim. "All things becoming water" means all things not so reified, not so concretized, not so rigidly conceived of and perceived as just this, "this is what they are," and then the self in relation to that also, "this is what it is."

So all things become water through the lessening of clinging that goes automatically with an emptiness way of looking and the lessening of fabrication. The solidity gets fabricated less. The thing is fabricated less as this rigid, solid, concrete whatever. This happens quite regularly for some people. Just that loosening, in the context of trying to do an imaginal practice, automatically in the making water, making liquid, "Don't proceed until everything is liquid," in the making liquid of the perceptual field, we could say, either images arise, intrapsychic images arise in that water, or whatever is in that field begins to be sensed with soul. So there are two factors, if you like, there: the lessening of clinging that, in this case, came from the emptiness practices, and there's also the intimacy that's implicit in the very practice that she was doing.

Okay, so that's one example, looking at the different factors. Some of you listening were present and participating in the retreat that we did. I think it was the last retreat, The Alchemy of Desire at Gaia House. And you remember the ritual we had -- I think it was towards the end of the retreat -- involving the tangerines, and the kind of sanctification that happened there. I want to remind those who were there, and also hopefully try and explain what happened, because I don't think we recorded it in any way. Probably one would need to have filmed it, really, to get a sense without hearing. Let's see if I can describe a little bit.

Earlier in the retreat, by the way, we'd actually spent a day reminding people of the importance, generally, of being able to put things down, in the sense of not cling, move away from an image, give it up, go back to the breath, go back to the energy body, whatever it is -- have some freedom in relation to that. We were exploring a little bit just the whole idea and a few practice possibilities in the realm of just letting go: letting go of clinging, letting go of grasping, letting go of holding on to this thing, whether it's a wonderful, fascinating thing or a difficult thing.

And we offered the possibility of bringing mindfulness, like a really careful mindfulness, to a meal. I think it was before lunch, I said something in the hall. This is quite common to do on an Insight Meditation retreat. Very important, beautiful practice. And also in looking at that, looking at the craving and the clinging that might arise in relation to the whole eating experience, and queuing for food, etc. It's complex for us as human beings, what comes up in relationship to food. Anyway, we had given that as a practice, and we actually intended to follow that through on the retreat as a theme, and then look at what would it be, or open up the possibility of actually relating to food imaginally or sanctifying the whole experience with food. But because there was so much on the retreat, we really wanted to be cautious not to overload people in a week's retreat at Gaia House. So we actually just let it go, and we didn't follow that through.

However, somewhere, I think, towards the end of the retreat, Catherine led this, I felt, very beautiful ritual. Part of what it involved (these are my words now) was a kind of sanctifying of food -- in this case, tangerines that were involved. If I remember some of the elements, in a way we created a special space by moving into a circle from the semi-circle we'd been in, moving into a kind of loose circle around a lovely blue velvet cloth that Catherine had. She had a little sort of -- I don't know what to call it. It looked a bit like half an oyster shell, but it was gold inside. It was laminated with gold. Quite a beautiful thing. Someone had given it to her, I think. She talked about that.

And she placed it in the middle. We were in circles around this central kind of altar of dark blue velvet. She placed it there, and talked about gold and lustre, the lustre of gold. So there was this gold kind of oyster shell, a beautiful thing. And [she] asked us, if I remember, to reflect on what has or is becoming gold for us on this retreat, meaning, what is precious for us? What's a treasure? What speaks to us or resonates with us in any way of what we deeply, truly value in our being? So how and where has a gold, this sense of treasure or value, been showing up for us?

It may be conceptually, intellectually, heartfully, imaginally, energetically, in relationship to the body. We were exploring all these different elements and more. So the gold, the sense of treasure, of deep treasure. And the gold itself, obviously, is an image, and this oyster shell of gold kind of was placed there as an image, or at least as a touch point, a touchstone, really, of that whole sensitivity to the sense of value, of gold, in our lives and our practices over those days. Gold might be sacredness, and dimensionality, and the kind of beyondness that calls us, and that we're pulled to, and that we want to move into and connect with when there's eros.

So this bowl or oyster shell or whatever exactly it was, it was painted with this, laminated with this gold lustre. And excuse me, I don't quite remember: Catherine then explored a little bit the etymology and the history of the word 'lust,' and pointed out that the word 'lust' only became a kind of negative term in English in the West in the sixteenth century. Before that, somehow 'lustre' and 'lust' were associated, or at least could be associated, for the soul. Catherine will have to excuse me if I'm getting some of this wrong. There's this association of gold and shining brilliance, lustre, related to eros, related to lust, related to the eros in the way that we're using it: eros as something that will make sacred, that will create and discover dimensionalities and beauties and sacrednesses and meaningfulnesses, and 'lust' making 'lustre,' 'lust' making the lustre of gold, lust making treasure, making gold, lust discovering treasure and gold -- 'lust' in the sense of eros, in the way that we've been talking about. So we can talk in a much fuller way about, if you like, a healthy appetite in and for the senses, rather than the senses (we went through all this in the Eros Unfettered retreat) as merely a problematic area for us to either disconnect from in our move to the transcendent, or kind of hold at bay in this kind of limited way with some notion, a limiting, supposed notion of 'bare attention,' supposed 'bare attention.'

So there was this kind of altar created, and a togetherness in the group, in the entering into the ritual together and the ritual space, if you like, that was created. Catherine was bringing this object and speaking about gold, about lustre, about the shining brilliance there, about treasure, etc., and asking us to reflect on where the gold is or was for us on that retreat, and feel into that. This is important, again: intimacy, opening to, connection with. Sense into the actual knowing, so it's not just an abstract intellectual list: "Oh, yes. There was that on Tuesday morning," or whatever. There's this sensing into the knowing of this. I'm partly elaborating on this because I'm quite interested in ritual as a way of sensing with soul, but that's maybe for another talk. So sensing into that sense of gold, where it has been for us. Not abstract, not intellectual. Getting the body and the emotionality and the soul involved.

Then we were invited to, in our own time, while everyone was chanting together in a kind of open chant -- it was actually Oṃ āḥ hūṃ. I think I said something about this represents the body, speech and mind of all Buddhas, or the primordial Buddha, if you like, Oṃ āḥ hūṃ: body, speech, and mind of the primordial Buddha. It's quite an open chant, in terms of people can enter into all kinds of relationships individually with that chant, in ways that each person finds useful. So it wasn't too formulaic or too tightly circumscribed.

And then as that chant was going on, Catherine invited us, if we wanted to, to come to the centre of the circle and make some gesture -- actually, either in the centre of the circle, or wherever we were sitting -- some gesture of the body. It could be anything at all that kind of expresses or reflects this honouring, and this recognition of gold, this sense of gold that we have, this sense of the beauty and the depth of meaningfulness of whatever it was that we felt that in relation to, that sense of preciousness and instinctual sense of soul-value. So one could do that through the sound, or through any gesture, no matter how subtle, or involved, or gross even. There was an openness and a freedom there to connect the body with the sense of sacredness and with the honouring of that, and actually join them through the expression. Before the invitation to express with one's body or one's voice, we divided up some tangerines and placed the segments there on the cloth, just sort of around in an aesthetically pleasing manner, around the gold bowl or oyster shell, so that the dark blue velvet cloth, in the candlelight, with this lustrous gold bowl, and the deep orange of the tangerines, was there as a sort of focal point for our energies and our attention, and our gestures, and our coming together there in this ritual.

I can only speak for me, but what happened through that is there was a focusing, a bringing to consciousness and to visceral feeling and sense, to the soul-sense, of the sense of sacredness. It was connected with the bowl. It was connected also with the group, and the circle, and the togetherness, and the kind of invocation and the power through the gesturing and the voicing together of the chant, the singing together, and we were allowed to improvise however we wanted with the chanting as well. All that created, if you like, a kind of soul-field, or a soulfulness field, or soulmaking field, or force field of soul, whatever we want to call it. What happened was that, at the very least, I would say, for me, at the very least, what happened was these different elements became kind of sanctified together. In other words, they became imaginally perceived together. They gained dimensionality, meaningfulness, resonance. There was reverence in relation to all of them, beauty, all of that.

So that the tangerines then, as much as the chant, as much as each other, and togetherness, and the bowl, and the sense of gold, and all of that, each element there, each sensual element, became infused with soul. I sensed it with soul, and my sense was other people were as well. There was a sensing with soul of the tangerines, which, in fact, I don't think anything had been said; we hadn't said anything about the tangerines. I don't think Catherine had said anything. We just placed them in proximity, in this field of focus, if you like, in this soul-field, and through proximity, through the kind of contingency, the touching -- contingere, 'to touch,' 'to touch together' -- through association, if you like, the tangerines became sensed with soul, and whatever that might be for each individual person. There are going to be individual variations, but it will involve these general elements: a sanctification, meaningfulness, beauty, dimensionality, depth, divinity, all that stuff.

When it came time, we were invited to eat the tangerines, slowly, mindfully, ritually, individually in whatever way we wanted to. People were also given the possibility of feeding a tangerine to another in the group in a kind of ritual manner of their own choosing. When that came to be the case, the tangerines themselves were -- it was holy food. It was food of the gods. It was the blessing of the earth. It was all of that. It was spiritual nourishment, soul-nourishment, which is so much more than just material, biochemical nourishment, for the biochemical processes in the cells, in the body.

So again, if we kind of analyse a little bit what was happening: through whatever we might say, association, proximity, contingency, and through the element of value, those two together were the prime elements. There is also something about field, which I'll come back to soon: the field of others. If we're open to them, and if there's not some problem there, then the field, the social field we're in can be a soulful social field, can be a soulmaking social field, so that it becomes catching. In other words, the tangerines 'caught' soul, if you like, through being in close proximity with the bowl and with the sense of sacredness, and caught it from us, and we caught it from each other, etc. I may come back to that whole question of field in this series of talks, hopefully, maybe, in the future. We'll see.

But these two central elements there were deep value and association. So again, if we're kind of analysing -- I don't want to be too technical about this -- but those were, if you like, primary elements. And also notice the involvement of the body. We could mention that. In the chanting, in the opening of the body and the chanting, the involvement of all the senses, hearing, seeing, moving the body, the involvement of the body in the gesture and the invitation to express through the body whatever devotion, etc., was there. We had, by the way, opened the retreat with a similar-ish invitation to express in the body one's devotion to eros and devotion to the mystery of desire, even if one didn't really understand or that wasn't completely clear or free of problems for one. So this ritual also kind of had a connection, followed on from that previous soulmaking ritual with which we opened the retreat.

Anyway, in terms of conceptual understanding right now, these two factors. When we sense with soul, we sense something with soul sometimes through association of something else that we're sensing with soul, through proximity to it. It gets caught up in the field, if you like, infused with soulmaking sensing. And also through value. This is, again, something I might return to. I probably will. When we feel into our sense of deep, deep valuing of something (the gold, the treasure for us), and we feel it, that also can be an element that stimulates a sense of soulmaking. In that case, in that whole ritual there -- I certainly was really touched by it; I thought it was very beautiful -- we can look at, we can begin to understand how that process happens.

[45:03] Okay. I think I'll give another example. It's actually a lot more involved. There are many elements at work here. I'm going to again read from an email that a student sent me a while ago. I have her permission to do so. There are many elements, so I'm going to intersperse it with a little bit of commentary, kind of drawing out for our attention the elements that are involved, what's happening in this process of opening to a sensing with soul or a transforming the perception, the sensing, so that it becomes more soulmaking, more soulful.

In fact, that was the very inquiry. The thing that I'm talking about now, the process that I'm talking about now and trying to illuminate a little bit, was the very inquiry that this person was working with when they opened in this way that they then wrote to me about. I'll read you what she says. She says, "I've also been working with what I'm calling 'transitioning' into the imaginal. I know that we are imagining twenty-four hours a day, but the soulful quality is not always present, so this has become a question for me: what do I bring to the imaginal that allows the soulfulness to blossom and feed me?"

Okay. This was actually a question she had asked on the retreat. I will point out now we've said everything we've said in the first talk of this series that I would change the wording there. She says, "What do I bring to the imaginal?" I would rather say "what do I bring to the imagination, to the use of the imagination" that allows the soulfulness, that allows the soulfulness to blossom and feed me -- in other words, that allows the fully, authentically imaginal to blossom, or allows a sensing with soul.

There are many elements here, as I said. Partly, notice that she's starting with an inquiry, or rather, her imaginal explorations are infused with a certain inquiry that she kind of invented. It follows on -- she had actually asked me something about this in retreat, which I had, at the time, only given a limited answer to, to her. She picked it up off her own bat, I don't think with any further suggestion from me, but I can't remember.

Anyway, there's this impetus, this willingness to inquire, and that's, to me, really, really important. As you'll see in what she describes, there's a lot of flexibility. There's this willingness and availability to play, to experiment: let's see what happens. Let's try different things. Let's just have fun, even, you know, in the context of this inquiry, this curiosity. And also a deep yearning and longing for these kind of openings. Anyway, so she asked this question, and then she says, "One of my discoveries came during an eating meditation." This links to what we were talking about before: the sanctification of food within the bigger subject of sensing with soul.

She continues, "I had decided to continue with your instruction of taking a few meals meditatively." So this is exactly what I was saying before. This is after the retreat that I was just referring to when I'd given those instructions before lunchtime. "I had decided to continue with your instruction of taking a few meals meditatively, but decided that rather than emphasizing the emptiness, I would draw out the imaginal. I made some hummus and prepared a plate of vegetables, and then sat down to eat. I began with the more horizontal contemplation of all the hands that had touched this food: the growers, and the transporters, and the supermarket workers, etc."

So a couple of things there. What she means by 'horizontal' is there's a spreading out of the awareness of what's involved in this thing -- the hummus, and the vegetables, and my sitting down to eat. What are the dependent arising factors in the material world that contributed to this? Many of you will know this is a favourite of a lot of insight meditators, and certainly Thích Nhất Hạnh talks a lot about this. Can we spread the field of awareness to see that this (if it is a plate of hummus or whatever, or vegetables) depends on so many factors coming together to be now on my plate, and that I'm able to eat this? As she says, the growers, the transporters, the supermarket workers, the growers' parents, the transporters' parents. All that, their education, everything.

So there can be a 'horizontal,' meaning it spreads outwards to involve more and more of the world. But 'horizontal,' she's saying, in contradistinction to a sense of, we could say, 'verticality*,'* or 'dimensionality' is the currently more in favour term that I'm using. So she says, "I began with the more horizontal." There's even an awareness: "Okay, I'm not doing imaginal yet. I'm just spreading it horizontally, this awareness." And in so doing, there's already a loosening of the thing-ness of things, of the tight sense of, "This is a plate of hummus. It's nothing but a plate of hummus. This piece of broccoli or whatever, the vegetable, or carrot, is just that: it has very clear borders." There's a loosening of that through the contemplation of this horizontal interconnectedness and the conditions.

Also in that, with that sense of interconnectedness, mettā and compassion probably open and soften the heart somewhat, because then we become aware of all the work, and the care, and oftentimes sacrifice, that might have gone into this plate of vegetables and hummus, and the growers, the people transporting, and the people working in the supermarket who might be tired. In the sense of interconnectedness, it also conditions or forms a basis for the softening of the heart with mettā and compassion and heartfulness. So to point that out as well. We're looking at the factors that support, catalyse, and make possible this transition to sensing the world, sensing things in the world, with soul.

Then she continues, "And then I looked at the vegetables and tried to 'see' [in inverted commas, she has] all the water and sunlight and earth that made up the walls of their cells." So again, the interconnectedness, the horizontal interconnectedness in meditation is broadening even more to these more subtle elements: water, sunlight, earth, in the thing, so to speak. She's aware: "I'm 'seeing' it" there, but it's in inverted commas. And again, there's a furthering of this loosening of the sense of the thing and the concept of the thing.

Actually, again, as Thích Nhất Hạnh points out, the rain is in this hummus. The rain is in this carrot. The soil is in this carrot. And if the rain is in it, then the clouds are in it, and the sea is in it, etc. Very beautiful. But for now, what's important is the sense that this is part of the loosening. She continues, "Which led to this desire to taste all of that, all of the water and the sunlight on the tongue, and to taste the dreams of the children whose parents had operated the machinery." How beautiful: "to taste the dreams of the children whose parents had operated the machinery." In the opening up of the interconnectedness, the heart opens, and part of what opens is a desire to taste all of that. Desire and intimacy, yes?

She continues, "and the dukkha that might have arisen in this long chain." So there's the compassion, and wanting to taste, wanting to become intimate with that dukkha -- okay, yes, in the imagination, but still there is this desire, element of desire, expansion, and a kind of desire for something intimate there. She said, "to taste all of that on the tongue."

[54:04] So at this point, we've got elements of imagination, desire, heartfulness, love, all that. And then she continues, "I could feel in my body that the imaginal was operating, this feeling of liquidity and a bit of electric charge." I read it as referring to the energy body. She says, "I could feel in my body that the imaginal was operating." How? As I've pointed out in the past, the energy body feels different. Something comes a little electric, or a little alive, or energized, less solid, etc. She continues, "I still hadn't eaten anything. I was just opening to that charge." So she's taking this very consciously with a lot of mindfulness, a lot of sensitivity, aware of the different elements.

"I still hadn't eaten anything. I was just opening to that charge when I thought of you [she was writing this to me] and Jane." Jane, some of you may know, has been so kindly and so beautifully preparing me food since I've been ill sometimes, and very gracious and lovely. This person knew of this, and my severely compromised digestive system after the operation and all that, and being on chemotherapy, and Jane's beautiful service in offering food. "I was just opening to that charge in the body when I thought of you and Jane, and the food that she was preparing for you. And I thought how dearly I would love to feed you." Again, heartfulness here, love. Eros, perhaps, in our sense -- not sexual, remember; eros is a much bigger sense than that, of everything that that brings. Perhaps devotion. It's going to be there, eros, devotion, love, heartfulness, for any beloved erotic (in our sense) imaginal other. It just goes with that. It may be a friend. It may be a partner. It may be a family member. It may be a teacher, as in this case. It may be a historical figure. It may be as I've described I would have for certain musicians or artists, or spiritual teachers in the past. It may be a figure from literature. It may actually be a fully -- an imagination character, or from a film. But these elements are going to be there: a sense of some kind of sense of devotion, love, eros in our sense, heartfulness, etc.

She says, "I thought how dearly I would love to feed you. And then the words 'my body is your body' were offered into the mind. There were some strong body convulsions as you and I merged." There's a lot going on here, and again, notice -- well, I'll come back to one element there, but for now, notice how, as we pointed out a lot in the Eros Unfettered talks, self and world, as well as other, are included in the imaginal perception here, in the sensing with soul. It's not just, in this case, me or the food. But "the words 'my body is your body' were offered into the mind. There were some strong body convulsions." In other words, there's an opening in the energy body. There's another level going on in the energy body. It doesn't have to be convulsions. It can happen very, very smoothly and subtly. In this case, it was something a little bit stronger. "As you and I merged." So self and world are getting involved, all this, as well as other. In other words, "you and I merged" and "my body is your body," that little trinity of self/other/world, or large trinity, was getting subsumed, involved, drawn into the whole imaginal perceiving, the whole sensing with soul, and also the food that she was kind of paying attention to there as the first object. "As you and I merged. And this food, perceptually [in other words, she had the perception, this food, perceptually], had the potential to heal you."

There's, again, the love and the care there, involved in knowing about my situation with the cancer, and the chemotherapy, and the operation, and all this. And there's a transformation of the perception of self, world and its involvement in all this, in the vegetables, etc., and the food itself, and me. She actually had the perception, the sensing of the food, as "the potential to heal you." She continues, "It was sacred, holy food, because it had been touched by everyone and everything, and it could offer its rain, and compost, and human emotionality into your system." Very beautiful. Do you see how everything is getting kind of involved, drawn, caught up in the soulmaking vortex, in the soulmaking dynamics? She continues, "The feeling of you entering me, of this kind of fusion that happened, of us consuming the food as one body and yet still two, it's truly indescribable." She says, "I'm struggling to describe it, to convey it in words, but it was truly indescribable."

So again, there's a lot of inquiry going on there. There's a lot of flexibility. There are many elements involved. And it's all done with this kind of careful, attentive, soulful mindfulness, you could say. Well, soulfulness has to be mindful. And there's a lot of flexibility and a lot of experimenting in all that. And yeah, in this case it involves me as the imaginal other, or as part of the imaginal other, but in a way that is healthy and beautiful and still with a very clear boundary, and the boundary functioning as a temenos that can allow this kind of opening up into the imaginal, and not become either something that needs to be concretized (if it even could, in this case) or something that feeds someone's ego, my ego or her ego or whatever.

Now her inquiry continues. She writes to me, "Since then, I've tried to 'recreate' the above." She has that 'recreate' in inverted commas: "to 'recreate' the above with varying results." So again, she's on a thread of inquiry here. I feel it's so important. "I feel like there's still so much to know and learn about the conditions that align when the imaginal is most potent." Again, it's exactly what I've been talking about over this set of talks so far. "Perhaps the clue is in the word 'recreate,' which suggests that these sacred visits from the imaginal [or from the soul, we might say] might be just the result of tinkering with the conditions, and gaining 'control' over when and how they appear." She continues, "This lacks the erotic thrust, the sublime impregnation of how I experience these moments. It's like you've said many times [she's talking to me now]: they have a divine autonomy. The element of surprise and grace is flattened by believing I, anyone, as a human being, could fashion it alone." In other words, it's all just up to me, as I said, up to my kind of technical mastery, etc. There is that, but there's also this element of grace that I've been trying to include in the first talk on this set.

[1:02:27] Again, if we pick out one phrase that she had said earlier to illustrate this, she had said and written, "And then the words 'my body is your body' were offered into the mind." In other words, that was an element of grace there. Something just was given. It occurred to the mind. It was planted. It landed in the mind. This kind of thing is very common. It's as if, as I said, we're given something by soul. We're handed something, as if the soul has its own kind of intention, intentionality, its own kind of direction that it wants to stimulate in us, but which we still need to assent to, and to pick up with skill, and sensitivity, and responsiveness, and free will, and all that. Then she says, just at the end, "Maybe this was what you were trying to point out on retreat." I actually can't remember. It may have been. So there's an example that involves, as I said, many elements, all subsumed into a larger inquiry, and a lot of flexibility and experimenting, etc.

So let's finish this short part with just a few observations again. When there is sensing with soul, either of the extrapsychic or the intrapsychic (and again, I've said this before, but it may be worth saying again), what we might call the conventional perception of the physical or material world, and the things in that world that are in front of us or around us or whatever, they don't necessarily disappear. In fact, most of the time, they won't disappear. So I'm still seeing what anyone might see, that conventional perception. It's just that a dimensionality, or dimensionalities, dimensions have opened up. Meaningfulness, sacredness, all these other elements have opened up -- not in place of that object, but that object is then imbued, filled out, enriched, complicated, etc., in that soulmaking way, by those elements or aspects of the imaginal or the sensing with soul.

And again, I know I've said it before (I'm pretty sure), but just to say again, in all this, with sensing with soul, it is actually possible to have two perceptions at once: one kind of very conventional-level perception, if you like, of what anyone in a normal state of consciousness would feel in that situation. For example, the sensation of the body sitting; the sensations of touch with the cushion or chair or bench, or whatever it is, on the backside; the sensations of the feet or the legs on the floor. Just normal body sensations of sitting. And, at the same time, an image of the body, or a sense, the sensations of the energy body, at the same time, that are very different to the normal, conventional physical sensations that one can also feel.

One can feel one is sitting still in the chair, or on the cushion, or whatever, and feels that sensation at the same time one has a sensual experience, a sense of the energy body, as I've described, for instance, doing cartwheels or somersaults, or dancing, or flying, or coiling around the vertical central axis of an erotically beloved imaginal other, or the body as a light body of a certain colour -- all kinds of possibilities. That perception is possible at the same time as the normally conventional perception of the sensations, and even maybe the visual perception of one sitting wherever one is sitting, on the cushion, on the chair, on the bus, whatever it is.

Or one may be sitting in the physical presence of a beloved other, and one sees them as one normally would see them, as everyone kind of pretty much would see them, and at the same time, there's an imaginal perception of them/him/her that's different: they are an angel, or they are a cosmic king or queen, or whatever it is. Infinite possibilities there. That perception, sensorially, might be quite vague. In other words, we might not clearly be able to discern, but we know it's angelic, or we know it's this cosmic queen thing. Maybe at some times I can't really describe it exactly, and other times maybe we can. As I've pointed out many times before, that kind of vividness of the image to the senses, or to the inner senses, is not important. It's not a problem. It doesn't really matter that much. What matters more is these other elements of the sensing with soul, these other elements or aspects of the imaginal constellation.

Okay, last thing for now, about intention again. I've mentioned this before, but it's quite an interesting aspect to me to touch on, and to open up and explore, and draw attention to, mention. I talked on a couple of recent retreats about different possible fantasies of path, and goal, and self on that path. One of them I called the 'medical model,' which typically is the model that a lot of spiritual teachings employ -- oftentimes not consciously; sometimes consciously. That was actually something that was pointed out by some Greek philosopher, I think, whose name I've completely forgotten. So philosophy as medicine for the soul, and that whole analogy of the path which the Buddha used explicitly and consciously: the Buddha as physician, diagnosing, giving a prognosis, giving a cure, etc., a regimen of treatment being the eightfold path and all that. So in that medical model, one is really trying to end suffering, or for most people it's actually just decrease suffering, whether that's in the moment or over a long term.

What I want to point out now is that medical model, or that intention to, let's say, just decrease suffering, alleviate suffering, sometimes that very intention, or having that intention as primary, may block or stifle the fullness of the soulmaking that's then possible, the fullness or authenticity or genuineness of the imaginal and the images that open up, or the fullness and the richness of what's possible in sensing with soul -- sometimes. We talked in the first talk on this series about one of the aspects, one of the elements of the imaginal constellation being fullness of intention. This is complicated, but what I said back then was: I don't mean to say that the desire for alleviating suffering isn't there and part and parcel of what's going on for someone exploring these practices, but at some point, it may well not be the primary intention. I think that's perhaps the important piece.

So imaginal perception, the imaginal, sensing with soul, whatever we're going to call it right now, it may well end a certain suffering. It may well just totally dissolve a certain suffering. It very probably and almost always attenuates or alleviates, sometimes to a remarkable degree, some suffering. That is very probable. But again, in my way of thinking about things, at least where I am right now, it's not really the point. It's somehow included in the package more often than not, but it becomes something that's not the primary point of what we're doing.

Oftentimes what happens is the suffering is translated, if you like, or it's cast differently, through the sensing with soul, through the imaginal perception. The sensing with soul puts the dukkha in a different light, in a different context. If you like, it sets it on a different stage. And this kind of allows or brings soulmaking. In soulmaking, that's what's happening, not necessarily the ending of suffering. But this is complex, and I will return and devote a whole talk in this series, I hope, to some of the strands of the very complex area of dukkha and soulmaking.

But just to say for now: this piece about intentionality can be significant in sensing with soul, because if the primary intention is getting rid of dukkha or just alleviating dukkha -- which is a fine intention, and very appropriate at times, and completely valid; everyone should be free to choose that at times, or even all the time, if that's what they want -- there will be times when, if that's the primary intention, it actually blocks and stifles and prevents a fullness, and a full deepening and opening of the sensing with soul. It may be, as one explores all this, it may be that there's some dukkha and some grief or suffering of some different kind, and one starts with the intention of just wanting to alleviate that dukkha. That's very understandable and very normal. But then when the suffering is alleviated just enough or just a little bit, the sensing with soul begins to emerge or become possible, and maybe that then becomes the primary intention. Through that, maybe the suffering is decreased. It may be, as the imaginal opens, suffering is decreased. So there's also a fluidity in terms of intentionality that can be possible here. But just to draw attention to that briefly right now.

Okay. I think that's enough for today.