Sailing the Oceans of Soul (Q & A)

We're on. [laughter] So, anybody, please? Yes.

Q1: maintaining form in imaginal practice when one tends towards fading of forms through emptiness practice; quasi-jhānic states featuring qualities of an image after the image fades

Yogi: I'm just curious. The momentum of my practice is very much the emptiness practices, and so when I'm working with an image, it can be hard sometimes to preserve the appearance of it without it fading into a kind of equality or a vacuity. Sometimes I feel like I wish there was a sustain pedal I could just press [laughter] and keep the image alive. One thing I was playing with with that was lines from the Heart Sūtra, "Form is emptiness, emptiness is form," and changing the word "emptiness" to "imaginal", so I have "Form is imaginal, imaginal is form," and so on. I found that kind of helped a bit in keeping the imaginal quality alive of what I was experiencing. I'm just wondering if there's any other suggestions around ...

Rob: Yeah. That's a really interesting question. Thank you. I'll probably have to repeat. Could you guys hear that? So just to explain a little bit. Padraig has done a lot of emptiness practices. There's a whole range of practices there, and when you contemplate or meditate on the emptiness of something at some level, what begins to happen is that whatever it is -- that object, a pain in the body, a form, whatever it is -- it begins to actually dissolve, because its appearance is dependent on reifying it, having a concept that it is something real, unconsciously. So when we bring in, look at it with a view that knows its emptiness to some degree, or contemplates its emptiness -- and there are all kinds of ways of doing that -- because of the dependent arising of anything, of the appearance, being dependent on avijjā, the fundamental delusion that reifies things, because of that, it fades. Or another thing that keeps an object as a form is a degree of clinging. So when we relax clinging, it also fades. Now, Padraig's saying I want to be with the imaginal, but I've done a lot of emptiness practice, and what starts to happen is this image starts to fade. He wishes he could just kind of lock it into staying formed. So one of the things he's tried is playing with the words of the Heart Sūtra, so that 'form is imaginal' -- in other words, images have forms, and that seemed to work somewhat. Yeah. Which is great. You can keep doing that.

I think there are a lot of possibilities here. I do think the imaginal, one of the elements is actually 'a little less fabricated.' That's actually one of the elements. But it might just be that they lose their substantiality a little bit, and they become more liquid, as opposed to completely losing their form. But it sounds like you're talking about them actually losing their form more, yeah? Okay. So it might be interesting to kind of find out what's in my lens at that time (that has become like a really good habit, in a way), what's in my lens that's making that happen? Is it less clinging, if I really decrease the clinging? Is it that I keep kind of automatically contemplating the emptiness of something, sort of in the background? If you can identify what that is, you can take the foot off that pedal a bit. It may be also that tuning more into the sense of eros is really helpful, because eros is, in a way, a kind of clinging, in the sense that it's a wanting. It's a kind of desire. So if you tune to that sense of the eros in you, the sense of desire for this figure, or beauty, or attraction to it, then the noticing of that can actually increase that, and it will re-form. In fact, it will create more forms. It will start to get more complex rather than simpler. Does this make sense? So those are two possibilities.

It might be also just a matter of: what am I tuning to? So, oftentimes, what we pay attention to emphasizes or draws out that thing in the attention. For instance, here's this image, and what are the particulars? For instance, the particulars that attract me, or the particulars that feel soulmaking. So -- I'm making something up -- there's an image, and it's some kind of being, and it's the way they move. They move with a certain elegance or fluidity, and that somehow touches me. So I'm just tuning my attention to both that particular and the way it's touching me, the soulmaking sense with it. The honing of the attention to it will tend to draw it out. Does that make sense?

So those are a few ideas. But I would also encourage -- you'll probably discover your own as well. This is one of the arts, actually, especially for people who have done a lot of emptiness practices. You learn to kind of modulate the fading. I know it's in my book somewhere or other. So you can kind of, like, "Okay, I can practise so things really just kind of disappear and fade," just deep emptiness, and then what becomes sort of even more the art, once you've done that, is learning to take the foot off the pedal a little bit. In a way, that's what tantric practice is. It's playing at this edge of form and the dissolving of form in emptiness. And it's really a matter of doing that, and you learn to kind of hold it sort of there in the middle, where everything is super sort of insubstantial and holy, formed but very insubstantial and translucent and that kind of thing. So that's a real skill to hold that that way. So those are some ideas.

Having said all that, let me add something completely different. I don't think I said this before. I don't think this is quite what you're talking about; I'll just mention it anyway. Sometimes what can happen working with an image is it's very formed, and it's beautiful and everything, and then for all kinds of different reasons -- not necessarily what you're talking about, Padraig, but -- the image sort of dissolves, but we're left with the essence of the image. So, for example, in that very vague example I gave, an imaginal being or figure or angel or whatever, and it's the way they move with such elegance and fluidity, and whatever it might mean to the perception for the figure to fade and sort of the essence of elegance to remain. So one might then feel in a completely empty space that's sort of condensed the essence of that image. There's not a form there, but there's a particular of a kind that one is then -- I don't think that's quite what you're talking about; that's fine. I'm just mentioning it to everyone. So that's fine. I wouldn't do too much of that, but that's one of the possibilities that might happen. I'm just mentioning it.

So in a way, then, what that means is there's a sort of quasi-jhānic state, but it's a jhāna on elegance, whatever that might mean. [laughter] It's the essence of elegance, without a particular manifestation of elegance that belonged with the image. What that means, again, is there's kind of infinite possibility here of different states that can open up. So the Buddha outlined eight jhānas, let's say. And they're the sort of very classical ones. Now, you might find yourself skidding into some of them with practice, because of what we said about the energy body harmonizing and the samādhi being available. You might find those. You might find something like what I've just described, a sort of essence of some quality -- could be nobility or courage. It's like, what does that mean? It's just the space, there's nothing but space, but it's permeated with this kind of essence of some value or virtue or something like that. So that's a possibility.

There's the retaining of the form with all its particulars, and its complexities, and its nuances, and subtleties, and then there's -- well, if we go in order ... well, I don't know what the order is, but -- there's another possibility where there's an imaginal being, but it's a kind of more universal being. So, for example, Kuan Yin. Sometimes there might be a figure, and it turns into something more universal. It's still a figure with a form, but it's Kuan Yin. And what you find with, if it's, let's say, Kuan Yin, is she doesn't have that much of a personality. She's compassion, and it's beautiful and divine and all that, but some of the particulars have faded. So, not just with the emptiness thing, but there are different kind of ways that things can relatively fade. All those would be fruitful meditations, all those categories, whether it's jhānic, whether it's this kind of essence of a quality, whether it's a sort of universalized deity in a figure, or whether it's a really particularized, very unique image. These are some of the ways things can open up. In a way, what we're focusing more on is the first one, just what we've been talking about with images, with particulars and uniquenesses. But just so you know.

Catherine: Can I just add something to what you said? Because there might be a universal image that becomes particularized. I just want to include that.

Rob: Yeah, thank you. So there are all kinds of shades here. Even if you go into the jhānas, if you really go into the jhānas, there are eight, and it's really good to get them really clear, and then you realize actually you can mix them in ways that seem to contradict the rules, and bring in other qualities, and mix mettā with the sixth jhāna, stuff like that. Things are never as discrete as they appear in textbooks. So all kinds of fluidities can happen. I think one of the arts of practice, though, is to know what is happening, and make that differentiation. It's not so much that this should happen rather than that, but, "Ah, this is the flavour now," like that chef that I was talking about: "When I add that spice, then, aha, that's the difference. When I add it then, there's a difference. Or now this mixture is just like this." That's part of the art, this refinement. Anyway. That's more than you bargained for.

Q2: image fading to its energy body sense

Yogi: Could a shade of that, or one of those things -- I can feel that sometimes an image shows up more as its particularities, and then it fades more to its energy body, so I'm feeling my energy body and its energy body.

Rob: Yeah, yeah. I'll just repeat that. Sabra's saying that sometimes working with an image, there's a sense that the image fades a little bit, but what's left is the sense of energy body, either just in oneself or the relationship of energy body ...

Yogi: Its energy body is still distinct.

Rob: Yeah. So what's imaginal has gone to energetic. Fine and lovely. I think if that's always what happens, it won't have the full richness of possibility. So again, you get this kind of navigational possibility at any time. You'll probably find, in time, you can sometimes just lean it that way if you want: "Let's go to just the energy of what's happening, and kind of resonate with that, or feel the mutual effect of energies, or the mutual interaction of energies, or what it does here." And that's fine. It's a conscious leaning. It's great. But in that, a lot of the other particulars have gone from the image -- the particular kinds of beauty, for instance, or what touches you. It touches you in the energy, maybe shades of emotion, etc. So it's a choice, and it's great, and it's a great thing to kind of play with, but in the context of what we're doing, if you want the whole availability of everything, I probably would make sure I'm not doing that all the time, or even most of the time. It's just one of the possibilities. Does that ...? Yeah? Okay.

Q3: making distinctions and discernments about different states and qualities

Yogi: I have a follow-up question to what you were saying about discerning different states, different qualities. I find I can discern them as like A, B, or C, but I don't know what they are. Is that just a question of ...?

Rob: Which different states are you talking about?

Yogi: I cannot articulate even to myself. I just know, "Oh, that's interesting. That's different." I'm having a really hard time.

Rob: Okay. But are you talking about something with images, or something where the images fade and it's more of a space or a state?

Yogi: Both.

Rob: Okay. So I don't know how important it is for everyone to be able to put everything into words. Maybe that's just people who try and teach or something. But there is something about trying. I remember being in group interviews, and people just in a state -- just a lot of rapture, or the first jhāna or something. It's like, "It's impossible to describe! It's impossible! There are just no words for it whatsoever!" And it's like, "Well, go on, just try a little bit." [laughter] Once you start just throwing some words at something, you'll get, "Oh, that's not quite right. That's right." And then someone might help you: "You mean ..." "Oh, yeah, that's a good word." And it starts to crystallize. So what we want is, part of the trying -- it's not like the be-all and end-all, but the actually trying starts to -- here's the mystery of it, and it's like the actual trying starts to shape things more. They start to contrast more, and you get more refinement of distinction and discernment. Yeah?

Yogi: I find that's what I've sort of been doing, [inaudible] different words and seeing whether they resonate. And sometimes I think, "Oh, yeah, that's that."

Rob: That's beautiful.

Yogi: But there's an infinite number of words ... [laughs]

Rob: There are, especially if you start adding Greek and things. [laughter] So I wouldn't kind of tie yourself in knots about this, you know. It's not so much, "Am I able to describe accurately?" It's more like, "Can I refine my capacity to differentiate and discern?" That's actually part of this practice. It's a part of any practice, whether it's emptiness, whether it's jhānic, whether it's imaginal. Sometimes what happens -- let's say in an emptiness practice, like we were describing with Padraig. Things fade, and because there isn't still the discernment, everything fades, it's like, "There's nothing happening." Actually there is something still happening. What is the something that's still happening? Well, space is still here, for example. So there is a 'something' that's happening. Or space fades: "What's still here?"

So why am I saying all this? Just that this capacity to discern is actually crucial. If I can't discern, let's say in that level where everything fades and there's just [space, etc.], then actually I won't be able to go any deeper. I just get stuck in a kind of pretty nice soup. [laughter] But I can't take it any further. I won't go to the Unfabricated. I won't discover other realms. I know people who hang out in that for years, years and years and years. I mean, that's a choice or whatever. But partly it's dependent on this discernment that allows.

Now, if we talk about eros, I realized this morning that I didn't finish a sentence, I think. There was a small definition of eros. So that's the smaller definition of eros, but once it is allowed to do its thing -- which means impregnate images, and generate, and create/discover shades, and push the logos, and all that -- once it's involved in the eros-psyche-logos dynamic, and that is going, then all that, when we say "eros," actually all that is implied. You understand? So anyway. But part of that process, that eros-psyche-logos, when it goes, is making more and more discernments. So here's my beloved other, my image, and as I said, the eros wants more. One of the ways it finds, creates/discovers more, is actually by making more discernments and delineations. Instead of you just, "Oh, it's just a human being," you know, "It's just another one of those," there are infinite discernments and shades of the imaginal faces you can be, and the theophanies, the faces of divinity that you can be. So there's something about discernment and differentiation, both perceptual, sensible, and conceptual, that goes with eros. It's part of the beauty. It's part of unfolding the beauty of what's happening.

One more little thing. I was talking with someone today and, you know, in terms of "Do I need to be able to describe everything?", sometimes you don't. Part of the inexhaustibility of images is that you won't be able to describe. It's like the differentiating, the describing, is part of what generates more. So you're never going to reach, "Now I've summed it up," you know. And then part of what's beautiful that can happen between human beings -- and Roxanne's question the other day, about working in dyads with this kind of stuff or with others -- is an image that you have, that you begin to share, and maybe you feel "I've just been completely inarticulate about that. I haven't captured it," somehow I capture it. That relates to (yogi's) question. Sometimes there's a magic in human communication, and in the imaginal as well -- it's like, you can start to say something in the most clumsy, inefficient way, and I sense the image. I pick it up, or it sparks an image in me. So you don't have to worry too much about that. Have I answered what you ...?

Yogi: Yes.

Rob: Okay, very good.

Mei-Wah?

Q4: images fading when allowing the body to move; movement triggering image

Yogi: [inaudible] Another time, I had my eyes open, and there was a kind of residual sense of an image that I had contact with earlier. There were lots of movements that were coming.

Rob: That your body was actually doing? Yeah.

Yogi: But then, I guess it felt different because my eyes were open, but the image felt a little bit ...

Rob: A little bit vaguer, the image?

Yogi: The image felt vaguer, in a sense, than the way that I'm used to, I suppose. But then the movement in the body felt sort of like an image in the movement.

Rob: Yeah, very good. So Mei-Wah is explaining that sometimes practising with the eyes closed, sometimes with the eyes open, sometimes a movement seems to go with the image, and she lets herself explore that movement, but then the image gets more vague often. But then there's also the possibility of the movement then becoming image. The movement itself becomes image. So all this is possible. What's quite common -- this is why when we did some of the movement, and I said there are all these stages of awareness and skill with it, and the last one -- I don't even know what to call it: soulmaking movement or something, the ability to actually move and sustain the imaginal sense as well -- quite difficult. You start to see, I let myself move, and the image fades a bit. Then there is a different possibility that comes in, that my movement itself starts to become a new image. But even that's actually quite hard to sustain when you're actually moving. But I would just let yourself explore it all. There's not a right or wrong. Eventually, what we want is everything and anything can potentially become image and soulmaking. Not necessarily all the time or at the same time. So it can be movement. It can be just an image or whatever.

And there's another possibility, which I don't know if you included in your question. What can happen is there's the image, and I have a sense of the energy body moving, or my energy body feels the movement that the image is making, but physically I'm completely still. In that mode, in that sort of in-between mode, I can retain the image and all the soulmaking sensitivity. It's not so difficult, whereas actually moving is, I find, quite -- and I think most people find -- really quite difficult to sustain that same degree of sensitivity. It's almost like most of us are helped with a large portion of our sensitivity through the stillness, through the physical stillness. Does that address ...?

Yogi: [inaudible]

Rob: Yeah, and in a way -- I don't know if we'll have another session on this retreat, but some of the exercises we were doing was just start with the movement and see. It's like there's the openness of awareness and sensitivity, and it might be that I'm making this movement, either a subtle movement or gross movement, and the movement becomes image, or an image gets attached to the movement. So who's making this movement? Oh, it's a wrathful deity, or whatever it is. So yeah, the movement can trigger. Image can come from anywhere, absolutely. So sometimes I would. That's really worth exploring. Okay.

Q5: concepts becoming image

Yogi: [inaudible]

Rob: Very good, thank you. Several people have mentioned this: can a concept become an image? Yeah, absolutely. Another way of saying it is a concept gets soulful for us, yeah? So it could be beauty, and again, it's a kind of abstract thing, or it could be just a logos, a conceptual framework, or a certain -- several people have mentioned this, and I can't remember now some examples, but absolutely it's possible. Oh, someone was talking about the concept of evolution, biological evolution of species, and that that, as a concept, actually can become very enriched and multidimensional and very fertile, yeah. So a concept can, absolutely.

Yogi: [inaudible] Working with the concept of respect ... But then when I wanted to work with it, I thought that it would be helpful to choose an object as an imaginal physical object, a tree or something, to deepen it.

Rob: Maybe and maybe not. So again, I would let the soulmaking be what navigates you. It might be I just have this idea of respect, and I don't really have any particular image or object that goes with it, but I can feel it working on the soul. I feel the resonance, the beauty of it, and that's working, and I just let that stew, and let myself be touched by it. If images come, great. If they don't, great. It's already become a soulmaking object, we might say. So that's really great, yeah.

Roxanne, do you want to ask?

Q6: soulmaking through sounds and listening

Yogi: This relates to what she was saying about movements. I was thinking about sound. We were playing with making sounds in the hall, and we don't usually do that outside, like making noises, but I wonder if we can use that in the same way that you use movements, or listening to sounds to create soulmaking ...

Rob: Absolutely, yeah. Again, there's just not time. That was one of the things I was thinking of offering you guys, that kind of thing. We may or may not get to it. But yeah, anything can. Anything at all can become infused with soul, can become sensed with soul. So making sounds, listening to sounds. Then there's the whole mystery of -- we have voice, and what happens with our voice, what gets communicated, all the mystery of communication, and kindness, and insight, and ideas, and beauty, and connection. It's happening in the larynx and the throat, and it's mystery there. Even just the sense of, like, taking up the mysterious sense of this vocal capacity. And again, maybe it's vocalizing that allows you to connect with that, and maybe it's being quiet, just similar to not moving but letting the energy body move, that puts you in touch with that. Does this make sense? But yeah, try, try all of it. And sounds, certainly -- I've shared lots of images where birds and things become infused with a soulmaking sense, and the sound becomes imaginal in all kinds of ways, interacting with the body, beautiful things. So the possibilities are literally endless, I think. So just open the doors and play and see. Is that okay? Good. Good, good. Okay.

How are you guys doing? Some of you may need to go? Okay. Sampo, please.

Q7: icon and idol

Yogi: It's a small question. Did you consider using the term 'icon' for an imaginal image of the imagination? [inaudible] Why not?

Rob: I've used it. So far, I think I've used it -- I think I said in the hall once -- in contradistinction to narrative image. But basically, yeah, it's the same thing: an icon is an image, and anything can become an icon in the sense that we're using the word 'imaginal image.' Yeah, absolutely.

Yogi: [inaudible]

Rob: No, no. [laughter] There's a whole set of talks that are newly on the web, and there are like eight or nine of them that are parts of one really super long talk, and they're called something like (actually Greek words again -- sorry) "Between Ikon and Eidos."^[1] It's just another way of saying 'image.'

Yogi: Is that somehow related to the [inaudible] French?

Rob: Jean-Luc Marion? Yeah. The way he uses it, as far as I can understand him -- some of these French guys, I don't know [laughter] what they're trying to say. But as far as I can understand, that's some of -- at least there's this kind of infinite depth of the icon, yeah, and our participation in that, absolutely. Definitely. Yeah. I maybe avoid it because of the word 'iconoclast.' I feel that some people who consider themselves iconoclasts are actually -- you know, Jean-Luc Marion has this word to contrast icon with idol, and actually we're interested in destroying that as something that's reified and is flat. Some people who call themselves iconoclasts are maybe not really iconoclasts so much as ...

Yogi 2: Idoloclasts?

Rob: No, they're actually setting up other idols. Under the name of iconoclasm and sort of anti-spirituality and anti-secularness or whatever it is, or anti-imaginal figures that are sacred, they're actually setting up other idols, but not realizing it. Anyway. I don't want to get into that! [laughter]

Yogi: [inaudible] destroy the idea of an idol?

Rob: So iconoclasm can become a word in the culture for someone who just kind of has the courage to crash through things that have become holy. But some people who might see themselves that way, who are seen that way, might actually be setting up idols under the name of what they call 'iconoclasm.' They're just setting up other idols -- things that don't have depth, don't have sacredness, but are still kind of attached to. But I don't want to get into that! [laughter]

Q8: the word 'imaginal' versus 'sensing with soul'

Yogi: [inaudible] Catherine talked about it yesterday. You said you don't really like the word 'imaginal.' You prefer 'sensing with soul,' which is a new term. I find it very, very helpful ...

Rob: Good.

Yogi: You said many times it's not just about images, but images get so stressed here, and I got confused with it, because I'm more tactile or whatever. When I sort of tapped into sensing or sniffing ...

Rob: Absolutely.

Yogi: [inaudible] And without trying to impose, subtly or not-so-subtly, needing to have an image; otherwise, something is wrong in the way I'm working.

Rob: Absolutely. And like I said at the beginning, if there was a way to instantaneously download everything at the beginning ... because you sound like you could have done with that right at the beginning, and probably other people could as well. Yeah. So great that you got it, and there's that opening of possibility. But yeah, it's a matter of timing when there are so many different people. And even though we try and say an image doesn't mean something visual and all this ...

Yogi: It's in the word.

Rob: Yeah, it's in the word, and it's hard to go in. Yeah. Absolutely. So maybe another retreat we'll start with that idea, the sensing with soul, and take it from there, you know.

I think we need to end. Is that okay? Let's have a bit of quiet.