Transcription
I know I already said this, but I'll say it again: I'm really happy to be here. [laughs] It was Catherine's turn to give teachings this morning, but if it was my turn, I just felt like saying I really love you. We have so much appreciation and delight in you, and the beauty that's here, and the richness of your souls, and your dedication, and your complications, and your wonderfulness. I really love you. [laughs]
So we've got a couple of practical things, which I've already forgotten what they are. One thing is about, you know, a lot of you will be used to or somewhat used to these soulmaking retreats and the culture and the ambiance and the vibe here, and some of you less so and more used to vipassana retreats or standard Insight Meditation retreats where you may have either received a direct instruction from the teachers or picked up pretty quick on the sort of cultural faux pas and dos and don'ts, where you don't make eye contact, and you sort of shuffle down the corridor slowly so it looks mindful. [laughter] And it looks a bit miserable. So that's an option. I mean, you're welcome to do that. [laughter] I'm kidding. Sometimes we need to be more inner, right? Something's going on, it needs my attention. I don't want to be pulled out and into contact. The attention needs to be here. It's fine. So if that's what's going on for you, go into that mode. It's fine. Five minutes, five seconds, five hours. It's fine, you know? It's part of the response-ability, responding to what's needed. And similarly, if you see someone else doing that, well, they have their reasons to do that.
But on these retreats, we're trying to be more open in every regard, and that includes with regard to each other and the heart's connection and the soul-connection with each other. So you can make eye contact. You can smile. Careful what happens, though, of course, as Catherine was saying. Do I then have to show up in a certain way, like this person's coming down the corridor and I have to give them what I imagine that they want? That just so smile that's going to do this or that. So you can open up that way, make that connection, let the body be open, let the soul be open, let the heart be open, let the eyes be open. Be with each other. It's so precious, the Saṅgha. A lot of soulmaking happens in relation, not just verbal relation. So let that be here. Like everything, any choice you make comes with its risks and costs. The risk of doing that is you smile at someone and they ... [laughs] Or they just stare at you blankly. And okay, then I have to handle that. I have to be okay with that. Right? So the relational field is, for us, for this, very much part of the practice. We're not just kind of diving in deep to some kind of atomized deconstruction of this psychophysical experience. Yeah, sure, that's great, that's wonderful, and it's not the whole thing. Yeah? Okay?
Second practical thing is we will start putting up some interview lists. There will be groups and one-to-ones. So there will be a couple tonight after the evening session, about 8:30, so have a look. Again, for me, I'm just not sure how things roll, you know? I will offer as much as I can, and when I can't, it's because I feel like something's going on in body and mind that makes it pretty much not going to be helpful for you. [laughs] Or I'm just struggling, or away at a doctor's appointment, or whatever it is. It says, "If you would like to meet to work with an aspect of your practice in a one-to-one meeting, please print your name below." So we'll do it that way. If you want a one-to-one, it's about practice, something about practice, which means this kind of practice, formal practice, or informal practice, or soulmaking practice in life. It's not just because you want to say hi or hang out or whatever. If there's something, an aspect of your practice that you would like to work with or talk through or get some guidance on, put your name down here and we'll try and get to you, one of us will try and get to you and we'll let you know when. But that gives you also, again, your responsibility to think about what is it that I want to explore, or what is it that I feel I need some help with. You want to be quite specific. And Catherine will offer groups as well. So it'll be one to one and groups, a chance to work. Yeah?
Okey-doke. Thank you for your wonderful questions. There were a lot of them, and they're great, wonderful, and probably won't get to all of them. There were a couple I couldn't quite read as well. But even of the ones I could, we probably won't have time. So I've put them in an order that just seemed to have a kind of thread through it, so we can weave them together if that makes sense. We'll just try that.
Q1: working with feeling overwhelmed by the amount of material on the retreat
The first one's not really a question, unless there's something missing, but it's important. It says, "Sometimes it feels like there's too much on offer, and I get a bit lost and overwhelmed." Whoever wrote this, you're not alone. There is a lot on offer. There is too much on offer in terms of -- what, am I going to have it all down by the end of the week? Am I going to have it all down by the end of the year? No. There is a lot. Really important to realize that, number one. Number two, really important to be kind to yourself. So when I feel lost and overwhelmed, what does the mind do with that? "All these other people know exactly what's going on, and they're totally on top of it, and it's just me," or "I'm a failure," or the inner critic. So really, really, please take care of the kindness with that. It's so important.
There is a lot. It does demand a lot. It's very sophisticated. It asks a lot in terms of bases of practice on which to then build and extend. To say otherwise would be just kind of ridiculous, yeah? Each of us is on our journey with these practices, and it's completely fine. There's no race, there's no timescale. So please, please, just watch what the mind does with that and what the heart does with that. We need the base of kindness and compassion. All this stuff, it might be difficult, but it's also delightful and lovely. I think I said on the last retreat it's like having an enormous banquet laid out and then feeling completely overwhelmed. You don't have to eat it all at once. This has a special kind of preservative on it, but it's good -- it's not bad chemicals, it's good chemicals. It will stay. It's here.
Each person might also have their particular order in which they unfold. So there isn't a, "First you do this, and then you do that." Sometimes we make it sound like there is, because when you talk, when you teach, you have to present things in order. But it's not necessarily like that. It's more like a ball of wool, and here's this one sticking out, and it seems to be in my face, and it looks kind of interesting, so I'll just pull on that. And then after a while, getting the hang of this, I see, "Oh, it's connected to this one," and that starts to unravel that one. All the aspects of the teachings are interrelated, completely. So please take care of the kindness. Watch the conclusions that the mind is making about yourself. Practically speaking, just choose one bit -- if this is the case -- choose one bit that either you can't avoid because you just keep bumping into it, or it's actually interesting to you. It's like, "Oh, I had a bit of glimmer of something with that," or "That sounds really ...", and just go for that.
And if the whole week is spent on the energy body, great. If the whole week is spent on the energy body around emotions, fantastic. It's one bit of the teaching, and it's priceless, absolutely priceless. And the rest, hey, it's being recorded. It's out there. Don't worry. Yeah? So to be practical, and things will unfold. Does that make sense? Really, really important. Take your time. I know this; I know it as a Dharma practitioner, I know it as a musician, learning so many different skills involved in being a musician, whatever it is -- jazz musician, this or that. It can be completely overwhelming. Take a little piece, put a little box around it, and dive in, and get creative, and practise, and it will start to suggest other things and expand. Yeah? Ça va? It's okay?
Q2: what is the energy body / alternative names for energy body
One question here is pretty direct: "What is the energy body?" It's actually not that easy to answer. Let's say this. So we're all used to mindfulness of the body. We're all used to practising with the body in a Dharma context. What is the body? Let's leave the word 'energy body' for a start. What is the body, and what is it to be aware of the body? When you're a Dharma practitioner being mindful of the body -- let's approach it [this way] -- we could say there are three interwoven aspects of bodily experience. So when I'm mindful of the body or aware of the body, actually at that time there is a felt sense of experience or sensations, usually in this location here. That's one aspect, right? It's the felt sense or the sensations.
Second aspect, not always so talked about, certainly in Insight Meditation circles, is the image of that body, the image of what it is that I'm paying attention to. So I shut my eyes, and the teacher says, "Be aware of the sensations of the feet, or the sensations of the bum on the cushion," or whatever. Subtly or less subtly, there's an image. It's probably not an imaginal image; it's just an image. It's some kind of representation of this body. In other words, I'm looking at Mary right now. In the back of my mind, there's still a kind of picture, if you like, of this body, Rob's body. It's just part of my awareness. It has a certain form. In the usual consciousness, it has a form of two arms and two legs and whatnot.
So, felt sense or sensations, image, and the third is the idea of the body, the concept or the logos of the body. What is a body? Now, most of us are totally saturated and indoctrinated with a Western materialist view of the body, and so, wrapped up, there will be a whole huddle of ideas about atoms, perhaps, or solidity, or what matter is, what a body is. Maybe mixed with that, there are ideas of what is an attractive body, and whether mine is one or not, and this and that. So there's felt sense, image, and idea. Right?
When we start talking about energy body, we're just saying let's take those three aspects and just open them way up, way, way up, so that the possible range of felt sensations becomes infinite. There's no limit to what the felt sense of this space might be. Usually, you stop a person on the street, and you say, "What are you aware of in your body?", and of course, most people are not that aware until they hurt themselves or there's some intense pleasure or something. With practising mindfulness, you're more aware, "Oh, yeah, the bum on the cushion feels just kind of so, neutral, there's warmth, there's pressure, there's maybe a little bit of tingling," or whatever. There's a certain expansion of the range of awareness. As you practise, as you open that up, the range gets huger, more huge. So it could be anything -- it's actually the felt sense feels like completely empty space, or the felt sense feels like dense rock, or the felt sense feels like a kind of warm field of ethereal energy. Could be anything, absolutely anything.
So that opens up when we talk about energy body, that range. The image too. When I first started teaching about energy body, it was really more about that felt sense, and I gave it the words 'energy body' and 'subtle body' to kind of help encourage the range of experience to move more into this more open, more ethereal, more harmonized, more energized sense that tends to occur when there's samādhi or letting go. But actually, we want the range even more than that, so that the image, too, of the body starts to -- I don't necessarily have to have this usual form that everyone would agree on. I could have a body of fire. I could have the usual form, but it's bellowing fire from my mouth. I could have wings. I could be made of water. It's infinite, the image of the body. The body itself is given permission and possibility to become imaginal, the imaginal body.
So when I started using the words 'energy body' in teaching, it was in the context of teaching samādhi, teaching jhāna practice and samatha, and teaching emptiness. And that, as I said, tends towards a certain range of experience. Now we're doing soulmaking practices, we keep all that as possibility, and we add an infinite range, absolutely infinite range of the image. So we can talk about the imaginal body, or the poetic body. Those were two terms that Justin, who's not here, suggested a little while ago -- the imaginal body or the poetic body. Does that resonate? Yes?
So the felt sense has opened its possible range, the image of the body has opened its possible range, and the idea of the body has opened its possible range, meaning I include, yes, atoms and chemicals and biochemical processes, of course, all that that we're schooled in and used to, but I'm not limiting it to that. So, in a way, the energy body is really an attitude more than an experience. It's a poise of the awareness that allows an openness, allows an opening of the range of the felt sense of the image, of the ideas of the body -- to include our usual conventional ones that everyone on the street would agree with, and every mainstream Dharma practitioner would agree with, but it opens it up beyond just that.
So it's a weird thing. Someone asked, "Rob mentioned before he wished he had called 'energy body' by a different name. What would he have called it instead, and why, please?" A couple of things there. One is, actually not just with the word 'energy body,' but also with the words 'eros,' and 'image,' and 'soul,' and any of these words we use, I wish, if I could go back in time, that we'd just had different words right from the beginning, because it's possible that someone has studied eros in a different context and it means something slightly different, it means something different than what we mean, or 'imaginal,' or 'image,' or 'soul.' So that's one of the reasons; it would be easy, and I think it's quite common, just because words are the same, to assume that we're talking about the same thing, and then what happens is a certain direction gets washed over or diluted or mixed with other directions. Not better, not worse, but just different. There are certain possibilities that will open up through this path, the way we're talking about the energy body, the way we're talking about imaginal and soul, that won't actually open whether you've done it in your psychotherapeutic training, or in shamanistic training, or this or that, tantra, whatever. Not better, not worse. Some overlap. But different. So if we're not a little careful with words, there's a way it can all just be, "Oh, I know that," and something collapses and gets confused and diluted.
That's one of the reasons. The other reason is what I just said: I used the words 'energy body' and 'subtle body' originally because it was in the service of samādhi experience and unfabricating of perception, emptiness experience, which tends towards very ethereal, very open, harmonized, etc., and a kind of blurring of the form of the body. The boundaries dissolve; it's just a kind of field of light, for instance, or a field of pleasure. It's great as one portion, but if we want to extend the range into more the imaginal body and the poetic body, then we have to kind of stretch these words. All these words that we're using -- I've said this before -- whatever they are, eros, humility, soul, they have to be loose and elastic. There's a balance between them needing to be very precise and differentiated, what we mean, and then actually stretching as our experience grows and they become infused with soul.
Back to what I said before. We could talk about this energy body as really energy body awareness, or it's a kind of poise of the attention, a kind of stance or attitude or modulation of the attention that allows, rather than shuts down, the range of possibility. So it's weird. It sounds like it's a thing, the energy body, and it must be a certain experience. No, really it's more a kind of awareness. That's another reason why we've got the wrong words. It's more on the subject side of things, and then the object side, the range can be huge.
So it's a poise, a stance, an attunement that allows an expansion of the range of the sense, the felt sense, the image, and the idea of what we call 'body.' And on top of that, it's also a poise that is more particular and that, at any time, attunes itself to what is appearing. This is a little more difficult to describe, but it's almost like sometimes, if I say, "All right, I'm going to look at that -- whatever that notice is on the wall." Is it a notice? What is that? [laughs] Whatever that is on the wall there! Okay, I put my attention in a certain location. It's not an attunement. An attunement is something more to do with the modulation or the delicacy of the attention. I was trying to think, what's an example? Sometimes when you're listening, if you're listening for something delicate, it's not that I have to scrunch up and force my attention. Actually, I need to somehow make my hearing attention more delicate, yeah? Something similar with the energy body. There's a kind of poise that needs to be commensurate with, in tune with, what the experience is. So if what's happening is I'm practising and there's a lot of lightness and ethereality in this space, that actually takes a kind of delicacy of attention. It's a delicate perception which needs a kind of delicate attention.
So when we say 'energy body,' we mean the kind of poise, stance, that allows an open range, that doesn't box it in to what we've been taught or what we're used to in terms of felt sense, image, or idea, but that also particularly tunes to what's happening now, let's say, in a helpful way -- either in a helpful way, meaning it's helping the samādhi, it's helping me navigate, it's helping me sense if I'm letting go or if I'm craving, and also helpful in terms of the soulmaking. Yeah? So tuned how? Well, tuned in a helpful way, either soulmaking or helpful in terms of letting go, etc. Does that ...? Yes? Okay.
Q3: how Rob's experience of the energy body has changed over time and included image
"How has your experience of the energy body deepened over time, and/or examples of how shifting the experience of the energy body shifted the range of image." Hmm. Okay. Maybe I'll, in a way, pick up on what I said before. When I started with the energy body, I think I learnt it from Ajaan Geoff, who is, some of you will know, Ajaan Ṭhānissaro, to do with breath meditation. It was very much to do with samatha, developing samādhi and jhāna, etc. I also did a little qigong, and sort of put those two together and just started experimenting on my own. But it was in the service of that. So the range of experience that I had, because that was my idea and because that was my intention -- those were my intentions; it had to do with samādhi -- it stayed pretty much within that realm of possibility: ethereality, density, contraction, openness, harmonization and energization, etc. Right?
Once I started getting into imaginal practice and opening that, then these other possibilities opened up of the body becoming image, or energy becoming image, which is a slightly different thing. So you can feel, for instance, the energy between two people, and you think, "Oh, that's what's happening," but it can also become image as opposed to a reified thing. And so then all kinds of possibilities -- fire bodies, fire bellowing. I've shared lots of these before. The body is here; it's almost like there are two awarenesses of the body at one time. I can feel the body sitting, the sensations. I can also feel the sort of energetic tone or texture or vibration of this space. And at the same time, there's some image or other, and I'm flying over there. I have this double awareness at the same time. It can sound like, "This is really sophisticated," but it just happens, okay? And it can happen to you. Not that it should or shouldn't, but it's a possibility. So somehow my energy body is over there, flying or turning cartwheels in joy or whatever it is, and I'm somehow aware of how that feels, and I'm somehow aware of how this stationary body that everyone can see and would agree on -- "Rob is sitting there" -- I'm aware of how that feels. It's a kind of ... not splitting, because that has negative connotations. It's a kind of double awareness. So that would be an example.
Let me share something that happened this morning, on this note. So Catherine did her lovely instructions, and she said about touching the body. So, as you did, I started touching my body, and immediately aware of the weariness and weakness and depletion in my body from illness and treatments. Grief comes, okay? Immediately see what's happening. There are certain instructions, very conventional, so to speak, and they might say even with the intention of love, but I'm including the emotion, so that's already something bigger. There's story involved. This is an option. In other words, the narrative of my life, the narrative of the illness, the possibility of my dying, the probability of my dying soon, all that is there. Compassion. There was compassion for this body and for the trials and tribulations and what it has to go through, what I have to go through. What happened to the self-sense at that point? It could be with the toucher: I am the one touching this body. Or the self could be identified with the touched, the one touched: I am the body touched, and these hands are touching me.
So this is normal about self-identification; it'll go here or there. It can move around, what it identifies with. In this case, it just happened that I was, let's say, more identified with the body that was weary and wounded, etc., and being touched with love. And whose hands were these? You say, "They're your hands, Rob. Don't be silly." But actually, no. I didn't know whose hands they were. They were angels' hands. When we stopped touching, the hands were still there, blessing and loving and tending to all that. With the sense of it, I don't have to go into just sensation, no story. I could. That's a certain mode, and we're used to that from mindfulness: get in, right close to the so-called bare sensations, etc. But in imaginal practice, and when we talk about opening up the energy body experience, there are all kinds of possibilities. So this included, as I said, the narrative of this body -- which, actually, I've been ill since my twenties, but the narrative of that. Not just the bodily narrative -- the narrative of my life, my death. My death has already happened. I'm already dead, from an imaginal perspective. Some of you have heard me [say], what is it to see, to sense things, to sense one's existence, one's life and death, from the perspective of eternity, from the perspective of beyond death, of the eternal? So that got mixed up with it.
Now, you see how this simple bodily experience, that could be as simple as I touch my chest, and what do I notice? There's warmth and pressure. Okay. Maybe I notice there's some kindness as well. Great. That's great. But it's quite a narrow range. It's not good or bad; it's just that's a certain normal, narrow range for Dharma practitioners. This opened up to include and draw into it all kinds of other elements and aspects of my being that were becoming ensouled. Is this making sense? Yes? So the emotion was there, the grief, the bodily experience, the weariness, the compassion, the angelic nature of it, the self, the narrative, the life, the death, the eternality. All that was there. The mystery. Invisible hands kept doing that. It was very beautiful.
I could give so many examples, but that's just one example of a way, then, that the bodily experience started to become more imaginal, and the idea of body -- all that I said: felt sense and image and idea -- starts to expand, starts to draw in all kinds of other elements. It doesn't stay, necessarily, that small. Now, it wasn't that my mind was wandering, and I'm just like, "Blah blah blah, I wonder what ... Ooo! Ooo!" It's not that. There's quite a lot of stillness and containment, but the range has gotten wider and richer, more multidimensional, more multi-aspected. Yes? So that would be an example.
When Justin suggested these two words, poetic body or imaginal body, I really liked it. Everything has drawbacks. The drawback with 'poetic body' is that, for some people, it will emphasize too much an idea of poetry without the felt sense. For me, insight meditation is so rooted in the felt sense. So that was one reason for keeping the word 'energy body.' Okay. Maybe that's enough on that.
Q4: how does energy body relate to the concept of aura
"How does energy body relate to the concept of aura?" It will depend, okay? It's not a word I use a lot. I don't have any problems with it. Does everyone know what that means, aura? Very loosely, people talk in certain circles, maybe certain healing circles or so-called New Age circles or other things, perhaps shamanistic circles. It's the, let's say, perceivable energy field -- a human being's, or a tree's, or anything, an animal's perceivable energy field. It's usually perceived visually, perhaps with colours or certain levels, sheaths or something like that. Or maybe you see the chakras or something. Have you come across this kind of thing? Yeah? So it's really fine. One of the differences is in terms of reification, meaning that usually the context in which the concept of aura is used is a context in which there is an assertion -- either explicitly or implicitly -- that this is a real thing that we're talking about, and one day we'll be able to measure it scientifically, and if you can train your awareness, two people will read someone's aura the same way. It's objective. It's independent. It has inherent existence.
With all of these teachings, we're tending away from the reification. So energy body is an experience that's created/discovered in the moment and is not postulated, either subconsciously or consciously, as real: "This is the way it is. This is a truth. This has an inherent existence." Yeah? So that's one distinction. It's a really, really important one. It's massive. It makes a huge difference, huge, huge, huge. Already in the aura, there will probably be some limit given by that concept and the context it's in, of those ranges of felt sense, image, and idea. There will be some limit, and it will be a reified one.
Second, I tend to be quite kinaesthetic, which means that I tend to feel things in my energy and body rather than see them. So if I'm working one on one, sometimes I feel like I can feel what's happening in the other person's energy body somewhat. But some people are more visual, so that may be more your modality, that it's more visual. So I'm conscious of how much -- I don't actually know what the answer is, but how much these teachings may be shaped by my personal proclivities to be not that visual and more kinaesthetic. I don't know the answer, but that's a thought.
Q5: common conceptions that limit one's experience of the energy body
"Aside from materialist and modernist logoi/ideas/concepts, what are the common conceptions that limit people's experience of the energy body?" Well, one of them is just, for instance, that one might be too limited in terms of the idea of an aura, for instance, or the idea of chakras and where they are. One has been taught a certain system of, "This is the energy body. It looks like this. This is in this place and that's in that place, and that's how it is," and it just gets taken as a truth, and reified, and not understood, and not participated in as something that is created/discovered. Yeah? So that would be one way.
And of course, the tendency, the most common views in our Western culture, are indeed materialist and what we might call modernist, but if you just go to Totnes or something, it might be actually the dominant view is something different, and it's more what we might call mentalist or spiritualist or something like that. So one could get equally trapped in that kind of logos, that kind of concept. But actually any idea. So there's something, if we go back to the eros-psyche-logos dynamic (which we'll leave for another day), soulmaking dynamic stretches things. It will stretch everything. It will stretch whatever logos, whatever idea, whatever concept, whatever belief, whatever experience, in its time, as it ripens, if we do not get in the way. If we allow it to do its work and ferment things, like fermenting bread or fermenting yeast, it will rise, it will expand, and it will push against ideas, images, conceptions, beliefs, views, etc., ranges of experience. So there could actually be absolutely any idea about the body -- that the body is here and not there; that it's separate; that it's mine. Countless, countless. So there's something inherent in the soulmaking dynamic that will eventually, if we let it do its work, push and either shatter or just stretch. So it could be anything.
Q6: experience of the energy body depends on the kind of attention given to it
"When the energy body collapses, how do I discern between constriction of the energy body or a change or shift of my way of perception? Or are they both the same?" They're both the same. The energy body is not a certain experience. I can sit here and be aware of the energy body, and report that it feels contracted or tight or small or whatever it is, and I'm still aware of the energy body. If I make my awareness big -- so there's a difference between the awareness stretching -- if I open up the awareness to include, let's say, just this much space, sort of a bit bigger than my physical body, my obvious physical body, and if I just am sensitive, delicately open and attuned to the vibration, the texture, the felt sense there, the possible image (which may be completely conventional), and possible ideas (which again may be completely conventional at that time), then my energy body awareness is open. That's all I have to do. So there's not a right or wrong experience. It's more like it will get contracted. If you're not seeing that the energy body experience feels contracted or constricted many times a day, in and out, you're not paying enough attention. Whoever you are, even if you're a Buddha, it's going to do that, okay? Maybe not a Buddha. I don't know about Buddhas.
So the object, the experience, can have this huge range, but I can always just open up the field and just be there with this kind of open, delicate awareness. Everything is connected, though, you'll see. So what the actual experience is in the energy body depends on the kind of attention I give it. It's not like I can separate this subjective and objective pole. If I keep opening the attention, the experience of the energy body will tend to open up, it will tend to lighten, it will tend to harmonize and energize, because experience of anything is dependent on the way I pay attention. Not always, and it might take some time, etc., but that's all I have to do. I don't have to say, "This is the wrong experience," because it's not the wrong experience; it's more, as I said, the poise, the stance of my attention.
Then, for instance, if I go back to the example I gave, if, let's say, in my attention as well, either deliberately or by the grace of the angels and the divine and the Buddha-nature, some compassion, some love comes in, or at least any judgmentalism and reactivity lessens, then I've got a different kind of attention, and that different kind of attention, because everything is a dependent arising, will give rise to, will seed, a different experience. Everything depends on attention, on the kinds of attention, the modes of attention, the way of looking. Everything depends on the way of looking.
Q7: difficult experiences as part of the range of energy body
"You have mentioned the energy body can feel twisted or negative. I only feel it when I feel expansive, connected, absorbed, not when contracted. How is that possible, or have I misunderstood?" I wonder if that's connected to what we just talked about. In other words, the energy body is not just this kind of experience or that kind of experience. It's an infinite range, way broader than certainly most people in the culture would be used to, even most insight meditation cultures will be used to. If I'm feeling whatever it is -- depressed, or angry, or fearful, or reactive, or withdrawn, or whatever, or just there's some clinging -- I will notice that happen in the energy body, and that's what the energy body is at that time. That's what it feels like. And I can give that more attention, and I can see if I can take care of the kind of attention that I give it so that it's helpful. Is this answering that question? Yeah? Good.
Q8: energy body responses to relational practice
"What is the kind of information I can read from a contracted or expanded energy body in the face of the other person or event or whatever? Is intentional expansion always a skilful response? Creating space internally or externally to receive further response options?" What is the kind of information I can read from a contracted or expanded energy body in the face of the other person? So maybe this is a question both about the balance of attention in twoness practices, and also the energy body. When the energy body is contracted, it means there's some clinging, some craving. When it's more open, it means there's less clinging and craving. So that's the most basic kind of information. And that's really, really important, okay? Dharma-wise, that's a fundamental navigation. Second Noble Truth? One of them. [laughs] I'm just kidding. You know I know what they are. [laughter] It's really fundamental information: is there clinging and craving here? Because that's going to lead to dukkha. That's going to tie me up in papañca and reification and all that, misery. Or is there less? Where is it moving? So that's a really important read.
I think, following on from what Catherine said this morning with the exercises with another, in relationship, in dyad, in twoness, and the balance of attention, it's not wrong -- I sit down in front of this other, this person's coming towards me down the corridor, and I notice a contraction. Well, then it's time to get interested. Now, it could be that I just notice that, and I find a way of just opening it. It could be that actually I'm really interested -- well, what's happening? Is there a specific fear there? I'm afraid they're going to judge me? I feel a bit dull today, and I think they're going to judge that? Or I feel not interesting, or I'm ugly, or whatever it is. Or I really want them to see how handsome I am or whatever it is. All this, it's good to know: "Oh, that's one of my patterns." I start to see that again and again. Okay, now what does that mean? We don't know the answer, because it's going to be specific. But that's really, really good information to be able to read.
When there's eros rather than craving, the energy body tends to open and tends to harmonization and more ease and more delight, etc. So that's part of the navigation: "Ah, there's eros here," or at least openness, and that's good to know that. It also tells us when we're on the right track in terms of this thing, if the other is an event or an image, "Oh, this is soulmaking." It's part of how I get the sense that I'm on the right track in my practice, is by the read of the energy body. If I'm going for samādhi, the energy body tells me, whatever I've just done -- I've given more intensity to the attention, and really drilled into the breath or whatever, and then I notice my energy body contract. Okay, that's telling me maybe what I've just done with the attention is a bit too much and it's causing a contraction. Or I do that, and energy comes, and it's open: "Ah, great. It's the right thing." It's not always going to be the same answer. So you always, like a sailor at sea, are just receptive to how the wind catches the sail, and I can feel it in my arm. I can see it. So practice is like that. It's like reading the billowing of the sail, etc. Whatever I'm doing, if it's samādhi, if it's mettā, if it's emptiness practices, if it's imaginal practices, this energy body is one of the aspects that gives a really good read on navigation in the moment.
But in addition to that, there's a whole range of personal/psychological, let's say, issues and patterns that are so important. We talk about roots of soul. Catherine, a little while ago we were having a conversation, some months ago, in fact. It's a bit like someone starts regular Dharma practice, and not necessarily because they want to get rid of suffering, but let's say this person, this hypothetical person, they sense the possibility of the mystic, of mystical experience, or they hear about the Unfabricated, don't understand what it means, or emptiness -- I don't understand it, but something of that pulls me, calls me. And so I book on a retreat, and that's my heart's desire. I want to know that, for example. Day two, day three, that's not what's going on. It's my knees are screaming, and my mother, and my father, and my siblings or whatever. I may have to work with all that stuff, heal it, understand it, make it into soul eventually. These are parts of the roots of soul. Now, that happens, again, not in a linear way. There's not a dogma of order. It's not like, "First you have to do this in therapy, and then ..." necessarily. For some people, it is. But these aspects of psychological or relational difficulty, they're part of the information, the kinds of information I can read from a contracted or expanded energy body. Where is my joy? What are the kinds of ways I contract? And what does that need? So a lot of this is just about psychological awareness and relational skills and awareness.
Q9: perception of energy body different on left and right sides of body
"I have noticed that my energy body has a dark side and a light side, changing at the midline. In vision, too, one eye has warm light, the other more blue. Is this just an epiphenomenon, or can I use it for soulmaking, even if it is just an epiphenomenon?" Wonderful. I've never come across anything like that before, but so what? "Is this just an epiphenomenon, or can I use it for soulmaking?" You can use it for soulmaking. Do you have to? Not necessarily. But it's possible. Exactly what that would involve, we don't know. Anything can be made into soul. Now, if it turns out that they call you in for a brain scan and the doctors say to you, "Ah, Hazel, we found this curious thing in your brain that causes you to experience this," and they say that's what's causing this, and you say, "Oh, it has nothing to do with soul," no. Because in soulmaking, we don't reduce to one causal explanation. Sure, I've got a funny thing in my brain, and it might cause something from a certain perspective, but because we make soul, it involves our participation, we're asked to create/discover, anything -- even if the doctors or whoever says it's because of this -- can be made into soul.
But you don't have to. You might feel drawn to, and then it's a question of being creative and playful, and navigating and sensing: where is the soulfulness? Where is the sense of soulfulness with this experience? How does it start to complexify, etc.? And you can follow your sense of soulmaking and allow soul to be made through this probably somewhat unusual experience. Yeah?
Q10: ways of working with highs that accompany desire in the energy body
"At times, I can get very high, manic even, especially when working with the heart's desire in the energy body. Can you say something about this?" I probably have to hear a bit more about the specifics. But first thing is, I think, okay, "I feel manic and high." 'Manic' already is a loaded word to me. I don't know. It has a lot of negative connotations. So my first question would be, okay, does it really have those negative connotations, or is it just an energy state that I'm not yet used to, and most people in the culture aren't used to, and most meditation circles don't talk about? So again, watch what the mind is doing, because it might just be -- and what will happen, and actually what needs to happen with some people, is the range of their, let's say, energetic capacities needs to grow. A person is kind, is mindful, is calm and clear, and knows the teachings, and practises well, etc.; without realizing it, the energy and the range of energy that can move through that being is actually quite tightly limited. There is not the possibility of a lot of energy. And with that, there is not the possibility of a lot of emotion, and there is not the possibility of a real fecundity and richness of soulmaking and image.
Nothing is a root cause, so everything feeds everything else, but it might be that for some people, I need to learn how to tolerate more energy, to allow more to come through, to be okay with that. It doesn't mean I have to have some bonkers kundalini experience for five years and then melt down. Hopefully not. Having been through that kind of thing years ago, I don't recommend it. But generally speaking, some people are unaware of the ways in which actually their whole experience -- not just of energy and body, but also of image and emotion and therefore of self and life, etc. -- is actually contracted. And it's not at all obvious that there's a lock on that and actually there's a very minimal amount of energy being admitted into the system.
So one thing is: watch the judgment, the conclusions that are being made. Another, just practically speaking, if there is a lot of energy (and as I said, I'd have to hear more about the specifics there, but), expanding the awareness, giving it more space. It's like if the container is too small, the pressure is higher, right? There's more pressure. There's more air in a smaller space; it's higher pressure. It's more uncomfortable. So just expanding the container. And give it some holes. If it's really a lot, it may want to come out, the energy, in certain ways. What does it want to do? Maybe it wants to shoot out the throat, or out the back, the back of the neck and the throat, or out the heart, or out the feet, or out the top of the head. And just let it do that. Let the imagination do that so you're kind of modulating it that way. It also depends how much skill -- obviously I don't know who wrote the note and what teachings they're familiar with, but if I reify it, if it's a real thing that's happening, this energy state, and I'm convinced of its reality, and it's concrete, then that adds to its difficulty. So can I see it as theatre? Can I see it as empty? Even if I feel like I'm not very advanced in this emptiness business, when you see it as theatre, that tends to take some of the pressure off and release. I think I would need more specifics before I could say more.
Q11: soulmaking in singing, art, movement, play, etc.
"I sort of think energy body plus the presence of the aspects of the lattice," the elements of the imaginal that we've talked about on other retreats, "in meditation is soulmaking practice." Energy body plus the presence of the elements of the imaginal. "What are your thoughts on energy body and presence of the elements of the lattice in singing, art, movement, play, anything? Would you consider this soulmaking practice? Could you elaborate, please?"
It depends. It depends on a number of things. Maybe just to say one brief thing right now: one of the things it depends on is what the intention is. Certainly soulmaking practice is not confined to any posture or any activity. It could be anything at all -- in relation, in making art, in speaking, in walking down the road, in whatever it is. What does make a difference, I think, is the intention. We talked about the elements, and one of them is fullness of intention, meaning that the intention is not limited to, for instance -- to me, as an artist, an artist has specific intentions. My intention is to make this piece of art, and to do it well, and to find the right words or to find the right colours or whatever it is. So I'm tuned to the aesthetic product. I care about that. I have a responsibility to that as an artist. If that takes over my intention, then it's art practice that may feel soulful, and it's great. Fullness of intention means that it's not just the product, it's not just the healing, it's the soulmaking that is also included in the intention. It's a full intention, a full range of intention. So that's probably one of the things that makes a difference.
I know, you know, as a composer and poet, sometimes the process just felt nuts, crazy, very unmindful, even, you know, because I was so intent on getting the product just so, and reading that product. Might go in and out of a sense of soulmaking, but my responsibility as an artist was to the product, was to the art, the piece, I felt. [inaudible question/comment in background] Yeah, that's okay. Thank you. One thing I wanted to add was people have very different relationships with the artistic process, very different. So I think you have to kind of go with your sense. I'm a certain personality and a certain artistic personality, so I wouldn't want to put that on everyone. But I think, going back to everything we've said about soulmaking, it's like, keep it open. Whatever you know and whatever you experience, just be aware there may be more. There may be more at the edges that you've yet to encounter and come across, that's all. Yeah? But I totally appreciate that, and I think that's important and right, yeah. Thank you.
Q12: images and soulmaking in jhānas
I would really love to do this next question, but I think I should probably stop. [inaudible background chatter] Is that okay? All right. Thank you. "Following Catherine's instruction in the morning about ensouling the energy body work and the twoness exercise, could you say something about the possibility of letting the energy body move towards or move into jhāna, absorption, within a soulmaking framework?"
Jhāna, if you don't know this word, is meditative absorption in some kind of yumminess, put it that way. There are lots of different flavours of yumminess, and the Buddha outlined eight in particular, but actually there are more, and there are gradations. [laughter] It's 'yummy.' It's a Pali word. [laughter]
"On the one hand, in jhāna, there's a desire and movement towards absorption and merging rather than twoness. I seem to remember Rob contrasting them on a number of occasions (jhānas and soulmaking, contrasting them). On the other hand, on my personal retreat lately I've been encountering the first jhānas and it felt related to imaginal work in various ways. First of all, the jhānas themselves appeared as many-faced others, and relationship with them felt rich and nuanced and highly erotic. And even when there was strong movement towards merging, there was still a sense of self as that which is merging into the other, so never fully one, but it might just be my inexperience. Then, also, each jhāna had specific images that were felt as her emanations or manifestations -- not fully imaginal in some aspects, but richly so in others, like a condor gliding on hot air currents, or a human body floating at sea for first jhāna; the scent of jasmine or a deer drinking from a spring for the second." Beautiful.
"A fully imaginal image that's very dear to me of a young man looking for gold in a stream became linked to the second jhāna, and each could lead to the other (the jhāna could lead to the image, the image could lead to the jhāna). And lastly, various kinds of images seemed to tend to lead the energy body towards different jhānas -- soulful sexual images or concepts charged with eros to the first jhāna, images of non-sexual love, eros, mettā to the second -- and they (the images) could be held rather vividly throughout the first jhāna and most of the second. Even when disappearing towards the deeper end of the second, as I so far know her, their scent remained. Sorry for the length. Thank you for creating this retreat where such a question can be asked. PS: on re-reading, this seems a rather dry list." It doesn't seem dry at all to me! [laughter] "But the experiences themselves aren't dry or clear-cut at all, but mysterious and constantly transforming."
So yeah, lovely. Totally what I would expect, completely. I think if this kind of thing is happening, or if it happens later on for you, if you start getting into this territory, what's good, again, is to be clear about the intention and leaning at any time. Some of you have heard me use the analogy of a bird, like a bird of prey -- if it wants to change directions, just tilt the wings a little bit, and ride that thermal that way. Want to go that way, just tilt the wings and ride that thermal that way. Can go deeper into a jhāna, and the image will fade. For quite a while at the beginning of jhāna practice, people often find certain images that either come up in the jhāna, that seem to sort of express the jhāna, or that trigger the jhāna, that open the door to a certain jhāna. A certain memory, even, or an image brings delight, and then I can go with the delight and suffuse the body with delight. Even if that's how I kick-started, eventually one doesn't need any images; one can just remember a jhāna and go into it. But that's quite a stage of an image perhaps triggering; there can be all kinds of things, and of course the Buddha gives images for the jhānas as well.
So even if I kick-started this pleasant state with an image, then my navigation comes in: what am I doing now? Where am I going to set my dial? Am I going to go just fully into the nice feeling, the yumminess, and just really get into that and let the image really go to the background? Maybe I kind of use the image like [audio cuts out], and can let it go like one of those glider aircraft -- they get pulled by the other plane, and then you can let go of the rope, and then it can fly. Gliders don't do that, do they? [laughter] It's a matter of navigation and intention. There's not a right or wrong. But I'm clear what I'm doing, what's my intention at any time. It's fine. If I want to go more into the samādhi, I just steer that way. If I want to go more into the image, and the soul of the image, then I may be aware there's all this yumminess and lovely feeling, but actually I'm more in the nuance of the image and the soul aspect of the image. Or I might be somewhere in the middle territory, and that's fine too. So it's really a matter of intention and clarity of intention at any time.
Yes, the jhānas are going to be rich and filled with eros -- even if they're not imaginal, when they're new, the soul, the psyche, is opening to new territory. Look, if you're doing jhāna practice and you're coming to me saying, "I opened to the second jhāna," and I say, "How was it?", and you say, "It's nice," I'm like ... [laughs] "Wrong!" Sorry, not wrong, but you should be coming and saying, "Oh, my goodness, that was just the most fantastic experience I've ever had in my life," and it touches you to the core of the being, the beauty of it, the loveliness of it. So there is eros. The soul is expanding, the psyche is expanding, the gorgeousness, the love, the attraction, all of that.
"Even when there was a strong movement towards merging, there was still a sense of self as that which is merging into ..." There will be. There's less self-sense in a jhānic experience, but there is still self-sense. There is not the complete cessation of self-sense. So there is still a duality. No matter how merged and melted you feel, there's still a duality. It's subtle. People don't notice it at first. After a while, the eyes get used to the dark and say, "Hold on!" People think, "Oh, I'm doing this wrong." They're not. It's natural. Only in a cessation experience is there the absence of any self/object duality.
Have I addressed the questions there? Is there something I'm missing?
Yogi: [inaudible]
Rob: Yeah, so what we can talk about is, one of the aspects of jhāna practice we can talk about is the degree of absorption, let's say. If I push on that pedal a little more, into more absorption, yeah, then basically there will be a fading of images and it comes more to this sort of amorphous, unformed experience of energy body or light or that kind of thing. But you don't have to do that. If you want to learn jhāna practice, then you're going to have to do that sometimes, and that 'sometimes' might be months and months, that's what I'm learning how to do. But there's no right or wrong, and you can play with where you are on that spectrum, yeah? I think that was it. Also, the rapture in the first jhāna oftentimes does feel very sexual. People say, "It was like an orgasm." It's like, yeah, so you would expect kind of sexual images to go with that. Oftentimes with the happiness of the second jhāna, there's a lot of love in it. Sometimes people think, "Oh, the second jhāna is primarily love, not happiness," but actually it's primarily happiness -- it's just sometimes there's a lot of love in it, so again sometimes we'd expect the mettā and the love to be mixed with that. In other words, the kinds of images are exactly what I would expect. Is that okay? Okay. Let's just have a few moments of silence before we break.
