In this twenty-third installment of the ongoing live series with Wendy Nash inquiring into meditation practice on and off the cushion we explore awareness itself, particularly in light of just having audited a retreat on it.
Retreat Notes
Disclaimers:
- not too many specifics about the retreat
- may be able to listen to some of the retreat dhamma talks on dharmaseed.org later so can maybe audit a bit of my auditing
- this is my best current understanding and it may be distorted or inaccurate and it contains my biases
- retreat was a glad break to usual meditation practice
- did the audit version as a “silent retreat and/or as a compliment to daily life”
Insights:
- I’m still very enchanted by cognition
- There’s perhaps privilege in mediation (retreat) practice so allowing privilege because it is already there. Specifically, this means accepting the rare case of such time for deep practice has been allotted (and for me also taking too many liberties with open awareness practice like priming it for thinking about stuff). This is acknowledged yet not indulging in it to the extremes of “yes, I’m so great, this is so great” nor “oh I feel bad that so many others don’t have this chance and so many other things may be more important than this”
- I guess at least there’s more diversity in today’s self-imposed and/or societally pressured segregations? [This is kind of a response to different groups that would meet apart from everyone else at the retreat]
- Instead of being slowly caked into the sloppy mud hole of (my) challenges, I, or awareness, can be the one who sees and acknowledges that challenging mud hole. This isn’t a hypothetical philosophy but an energetic reality accessed by feeling into what it feels like to feel the one who sees and knows the mud hole instead only lost in the agony of just being in the mud
- Awareness without object is kind of impotent, like having lots of money without being able to spend it, yet also very freeing and empowering not wasting time and energy tracking or staying with objects yet knowing when picking up a (meditation) object it may now very well be better seen, known and handled
- Seeing depths of the inner narrative and how it informs views, compliance, support and/or rejection (of other views)
- Vast, high-level worldly awareness seeming reserved for intel communities who claim to be better equipped to handle what awareness might know and who might perhaps work to reserve or restrict awareness in addition to deciding what is allowed to be known by the public. What impact, direct or in direct, does this have on societies? Contrast this with “don’t know mind”
- Internal politics in retreats often not apparent
Types of practices (that occurred to me):
- (Making inroads to) relentlessly accessing constant organic awareness
- Harness the awareness associated with any/all phenomena for the longterm benefit and self and others
- Access (with intent) any and all possible and remembered/experienced phenomena, states and stations of consciousness in meditation past, present and future and hold this in awareness, interconnected, gathered into a manageable object and (somehow) integrate this into one’s current meditation (object)
- Bearing awareness in mind
- Contemplating awareness
- Investigating awareness: placing and holding attention on the intention to investigate awareness (without a need to have answers or cognize)
- Source of awareness?
- Contacting consciousness
- Light of awareness
- Continuous, rhythmic, soothing walking meditation with or without keeping an intent in mind
Questions:
- What is right effort for (whatever type of) awareness practice (is undertaken)?
- We humans receive so much “teaching” and conditioning, especially in the West, to trust sleep and oblivion. How do we learn to trust awaking/awakened awareness though?
- How is awareness (being) perceived?
- Any practices and/or instructions for investigating consciousness, specifically viññāṇa, the 6 sense consciousnesses, manas, and/or citta?
- What are the differences between viññāṇa, perception of boundless consciousness, the light of wisdom, complete absorption in these, or not, and that which knows any and all of these?
- Boundless space is formless and doesn’t contain objects so how is it different from boundless nothingness? Also, some say neither perception nor non-perception is a subtle, refined state of consciousness, but if framed this way, how is that not boundless consciousness?
- Just consciousness (Orthodox Theravada Burmese) or is there something more fundamental underneath awareness (Thai Forrest tradition). Not mentioned: Pa-auk Sayadaw multiple vipassana minds
- Are there more choices than just these two?
- Can this really be known while (any of the) six senses are online? And when they aren’t online, how does that work, and is that (then) relevant? Ought this type of question be put to today’s mediation masters?
- What is the difference (then) between the Nibbana element and this type of awareness behind or more fundamental than consciousness?
- Could maybe just as the conditions were ripe/fitting for the Buddha to arise in the world and there’s only four aggregates for formless beings, could both of these be the case for different (types of) beings in different locations due to different causes and conditions?
(Somewhat) Related:
‘It’s not a matter of how quickly we do our healing work, but how meaningful our healing journey becomes. This is the heart of awareness.’ –Matt Kahn
Note: This post was written beforehand then scheduled to auto-publish during the The Nature of Awareness Hybrid Retreat [or Coming Home to Kind Awareness] at IMS with Guy Armstrong, Sally Armstrong, Jaya Rudgard, Yuka Nakamura & Kristina Baré — Tuesday, July 16, 2024 – Thursday, July 25, 2024.
*There’s naturally an ongoing open call for meditation (related) questions for the (roughly) monthly “Meditation Q & A” either by the various social media means listed; integratingpresence[at]protonmail.com or just showing to type/ask live.*
Background
Regular, current and past visitors to Integrating Presence may recall the monthly series “Ask Us Anything” I did with Denny K Miu from August 2020 until January 2022 — partially including and continuing on with Lydia Grace as co-host for awhile until March 2022.
For a few months thereafter I did various Insight Timer live events exploring potential new directions and/or a continuation of the Ask Us Anything format while weaving in other related teachings to these events.
Then, after chats with meditation coach Wendy Nash, it became clear to start a new collaboration similar to “Ask Us Anything” simply and clearly called “Meditation Q & A” especially due to the original intent of the Ask Us Anything’s being “discussions about meditation and related topics.”
Audio: Awareness Itself | July 25/26, 2024 “Meditation Q & A With Wendy Nash” #23
Past chats with Wendy:
The raw unedited YouTube transcription of this podcast:
um this is Josh of integrating presence and today I’m joined once again with the lovely Wendy Nash Wendy what is going on
in your neck of the there give me one second because I’m about to have to do that thing on where I get the sure the
feedback yes yeah you know we’ve got different systems here so the wonders of
the internet yeah exactly exactly so what can I say I’m here on gubby Gabby
country in Queensland in in kavula where it’s winter apparently and I am in short
sleeves and I’m just I’ve come back from the gym so body and mind it’s all part
of the same thing you’ve got to keep it all healthy and well it’s not one thing or the other everything’s got to work
together well totally and yes and meditation is part of that and so this
is the meditation Q&A when need it’s got the physical uh I need to do the
physical side yes that’s a whole another thing right uh so here we are and we wanted to do
maybe something else but we thought since I’m going to since I am just fresh off a retreat we’ll we’ll talk about
that Retreat and I don’t want to make this oh this is me and my retreat and all that make it about awareness itself
which is kind of a little pun you know selfing in in Buddhism right and not self so those of you familiar with this
already know what we’re talking about here but I just want to give a few disclaimers before I start I don’t want to do too many specifics about this
Retreat um because yeah I don’t know about that but that I will say that maybe some of it will be later available
later on D dhed dar.org they often release the public Dharma talks and some
of the more specifics you get a retreat code to to listen to the whole thing of course this is my best and current
understanding and I may present this distorted and inaccurate and it contains
my biases so just be advised of that it’s not perfect right nothing is and
this retreat in general was a kind of a cool break for my regular meditation practice right got to go in just to kind
of awareness itself and uh yeah I really like how they structured this though uh
there was like three levels you could be at be there at IMs uh actually physically there or you could do the
virtual version where you’re on zoom and then you would uh actually participate uh like in breakout sessions
and with the teachers and you would do interviews and things like this I just did the audit right I just get the video
stream and that way it says it’s a silent Retreat Andor as a compliment to
daily life so if anybody has any kind of regular uh video out there to send me
that I can send to people that I do a home retreat on who just don’t really understand what a home Meditation Retreat is so it’s uh I was really kind
of surprised but my folks they’re they’re Boomers I won’t get into that so Boomer GNA boom as they say and I I
don’t want to do that too derogative but it actually is kind of an Insight of How It’s insight into the generation so they
you know so that was interesting having to explain just what a Meditation Retreat is there and here’s a full plug
September 20th G to be doing a free like halfday retreat six hours on insight
timer live there’ll be a session I think on the 17th of next month you’ll see it and I’ll record it’s a kind of a
prepping thing so people are welcome just to drop in they’ll be in two-hour chunks throughout the day so trying that
kind of as an experiment and I like with the structure so that’s the disclaimer
before I get into it um Wendy uh anything to say about home retreats in
general sure so during Co there was a lot of lot that’s kind of what we all
did we were all booked in on these retreats to go to somewhere else and do it as a group in a in a place and then
we were like okay well what we’re going to do is we’re going to do home Retreats and that’s where home Retreats started
to be a thing and there was a lot of derogatory idea and I think there is a
bit of a derogatory idea because you when you meditate together you get this kind of energy and and you drop into a
space um and what they found is that actually home Retreats are equally
valuable but in a really different way you don’t get the depth but you’re meditating as you go and then you’re
going oh is that what I’m like Ah that’s my thought ah this is so it gives you a
much better understanding about how do you live your current life which I think
in many ways is more useful than understanding the depth and I in many I
think it’s actually probably for most people a really good way of meditating
if you want to understand why maybe relationships aren’t working so well maybe why you’re unhappy in your job
where you know all this sort of stuff I mean I had a situation where I was in a job a few years ago in a foreign country
and I just couldn’t get on with the locals I didn’t have any I couldn’t make any friends it was really difficult and
I was having a horrible time at work and I just thought okay I’m basically on a three-year Retreat and then I’m just
going to practice in daily life and I just decided I had withdrawn from world and I
was this was my practice so in a way I think home Retreats can be a bit like
that beautifully well put there Wendy there there is pros and cons to each thing I would uh if I could advise
anybody is to do both you know um to to see the the the ups and downs the pros
and cons maybe how one might service better in certain areas of our lives and in our practice too so yeah Wendy nailed
it there so the the insights that were coming up I’ll just share some of these here and Wendy interject pretty much any
time here with what what’s coming up and uh at the top of the L it was interesting as it went on uh there was
just kind of more of these worldly personal insights and then as the retreat went on you
know that stuff fell away a little bit more um yeah the first one that I have on the
list here is I’m still very Enchanted by cognition you know this notion of
thinking and it is still there you know there was like a lot of degree of
worldly crud that got ripped away in the beginning but then even you can see how
the mind is is fascinated a lot of times by um the powers of the mind right all
the potential things we could think about or I could think about I shouldn’t speak for anybody else and you know
people really get into this common thing of okay there kind of In conflict with their mind because it’s it’s repeating
the same things or their mundane boring thoughts of course there was a lot of that too but for me that doesn’t happen
as much anymore or I’m completely diluted and I think my thoughts are just the most amazing thing in the whole world right so there’s plenty of that
too but it’s just like once I really face that Stark truth if I’ve got a
problem with thinking and information not problem but you know what I mean like the the mind is a beautiful tool
and it doesn’t need to be in conflict but see that addiction to information
the possibility of generating these insights and thinking about things like
this they’re great but but they can also distract from from practice too so so
okay I because I I I hear this a lot so
I wonder if thoughts are a distraction or they are actually telling you
something really useful and it’s a matter of inquiring into the nature of
those thoughts the running themes in those thoughts the the con because I
find you know these these transes we get into on Retreat are more things that are
just coming up from the basement that are given an opportunity to be aired and so it’s more about how how is this how
is this a really use ful way so what what information is are these thoughts
um trying to tell me and I am not listening so I am choosing not to listen most of the time so these thoughts will
come in and I want to I want to understand why why have they come now
what is important for that what is import what is the important message of that so I don’t ever see them as a
distraction but I kind of really useful thing for me to to know
like that nagging little thought what well there’s something really important here actually totally and I agree let me
um preface this or add a little make clarify a little bit so those will come up and those are great insights those
are like wow it’s it’s when then I think that okay this is what it’s all about
then I just give free and total Reign for whatever wants to come in uh but not
no that’s um without knowing it right so it’s when I’m not aware that the mind
has grown grab something and just completely want run with it and then it’s let go of that and then something
else comes by and and it grabs that and another thought comes by and it grabs that it’s only when that process isn’t
known that it becomes something that it needs to be mindful of yes what you’re
talking about is allowing for the The Depths to surface and these uh
especially early on these huge psychological insights that were um that
I wasn’t even aware of right I mean it was just one after the other like wow you know how could I have not seen that
or wow I totally forgot about that or now I can put the dots are being
connected so it’s like where is the the the middle ground for this to to allow
these without needing to fight them without needing to put them on a pedestal though or without having to
tear them down and be in Conflict you know so what some of the strategies is you can just say not now but then you
actually have or not you then I have to actually give myself the time aside to
allow for that to happen you know and I think maybe this is where I need a contemplation practice and a meditation
practice and I don’t think they have to be strict all the time but actually as
long as this is all seen and known it’s it’s it is what it is so any
follow-ups yeah so um things arise in
the mind because they are things that the Mind normally wants to shut
out so yeah okay so it’s Go I mean you know
it depends on the intensity of it uh but even things as oh what’s for lunch today
and oh gosh and that person over there geez they’re a bit irritating aren’t they and they’re breathing really loud
and all these things that arise on Retreat you know in certainly in in the hall and and actually for me what is
really useful in there is to go ah wow just listen to the
attitude listen to the attitude what what is my basic disposition of thought
what is the theme here in the thought and so I never find it to be I sort of
have this as a bit of a bug bear in the in the meditation communities that these
you know are what’s for lunch today is seen as not not a correct thought and I think this idea of what is correct
thought and what is not correct thought is is is sort of
really part of the um it’s another
game it really is and we talked about this uh several other times and I I just
yeah all that stuff is part of phenomena right in the fourth Foundation of mindfulness is phenomena and mindfulness
of mind too so it’s just part of of the whole mindfulness thing is is have is
seeing and knowing these things the only point I meant is when I’m um I’m not aware of what’s going on cognitively
right so when when I get lost in thought right and and I don’t even think it’s a problem it’s just what’s the best way to
to view this and then what’s the best way to respond to it you know uh that that’s that’s the big thing that I mean
yeah so and there and there is a kind of a right way and a wrong way you know all
all to me my understanding of awareness is always just whatever arises is what
arises and it’s not possible to be fully present for everything all the time like
and that becomes then this tight controlling mind and that’s not helpful because then
you’re trying to control the world and that comes out in this kind of serious earnestness and you’re boring as you
know a bat piece of manure so and you don’t want to be like that
so it it it is what it is and and you’re fallible you’re not you’re sorry Josh
you’re not enlightened I hate to tell you this but you know when you’re the Buddha when you’re the Buddha it maybe
it’ll be different but I I think the Buddha was probably equally caught in all that stuff and what am I going to do
about Dave you know Dave the Monk and or whatever his name was you know and oh
dear why are they all bickering over there and oh dear she’s very attractive and you know I don’t want to I don’t
want to get caught in there but I just know that you know Sam he’s you know he has this whole big thing about the the
nuns and what am I going to do about that and I have to deal with all this stuff so I can’t see that it would be
any different ever no matter how far along you are well yeah it’s it’s well
known in the sutas that the Buddha had challenges too after even full Awakening right there’s story after story of the
different challenges that he faced and uh some of them very very mundane things too you know um all right well I’ll go
on to the next one here um and there’s this I don’t want to get too political I just want to keep this in context of
meditation about privilege because I know it’s a whole different story when it comes to the world and things like
this that but there um there’s perhaps privilege in Meditation Retreat practice
so allowing this privilege because it’s already there to begin with you know specifically this means accepting the
rare case of such time for deep practice has been allotted and also for me taking too many
liberties with open awareness practice like priming it for thinking about stuff but so this is this is acknowledged yet
not indulged in to the extremes of yes I’m so great this is so great you know
I’ve set aside so much time for meditation and this is amazing nor The Other Extreme of oh I feel so bad that
so many others don’t have this chance and that so many other things may be more important than this you know so
that’s just some of the thing that arised early on about this notion of it is kind of a rare thing in the world to
to to have this time to to do practice like this you know yeah I mean I think
you know if you have to pay bills and all that sort of stuff just to give you a heads up that we have somebody
listening in and who said hello um Ali alale has joined the chat Hello nice to
you nice to chat with you so um good to be with you online here um yeah I think
um yeah I got a little bit distracted there but um it certainly is a a
privilege and I think you know there is a thing the reason why they call it the upper middle way is because a you need
to be in a full-time permanent job with several weeks annual leave allocated to your job
yeah well or not have a job to begin with not have a job but you know you’ve still got to but then how are you going
to pay for it because how much other they’re usually like $11,000 or something you know $500 $1,000 that’s a
lot of money and then you’ve got to give Donna which is usually a whole lot of extra money as well
bour um and Alis says bonjour everyone so I’m saying bonjour back um and
yeah so I there is a lot of stuff and certainly now that my personal
circumstances have changed I sit there going ooh I’ve got to get there I’ve got
to pay for the retreat I’ve got to pay for uh Donna and it’s a big you know that’s it
might cost $1,500 that’s a lot of money not everyone’s got that spare cash and then
for me I lose income CU I’m paid for work when I paid by the hour so that
that that is a it is definitely that and and I I think that’s why home Retreats
can be really valuable because you can actually do that before work after work
include that in your day you know you could set it up a really good um you
could really Set uh set it up that way yeah very good and this specific thing
was because um this is Buddhism now I know there are Retreat centers that that
do charge that amount but there’s different pricing levels too and I mean just full disclosure here since my
income is basically based on donations and I don’t have a huge lot amount of income and there was an auditing option
so I pretty much got this uh next to next to nothing you know um but with the
with the Donna and you know the taii force tradition they working this way too you know you come from gener and
there is no if you want to be a l resident there it’s free I mean you do you exchange not exchange I shouldn’t
say that but uh there’s there’s certain tasks that the monastery needs to run but your the room and board is provided
and everything is done out of um generosity of one’s heart and giving but I get it when it comes to the the world
and outside of things like this with Retreat centers so yeah money is a whole other thing you know there’s pros and
cons to um having these different tiers there’s pros and cons to charging a flat
fee there’s pros and cons to doing it all out of generosity so that’s we’ve talked a little bit about that but I
think we’ll we’ll go on to the next one here um so Ali Ali ales says is is Danna
like donations so Donna maybe you would like to just very briefly explain that
yes really uh very briefly there’s a whole thing on my website called um noble noble giving I think it is at the
top and it it’s it’s this thing that basically means generosity right like
it’s it’s that was the very first thing that the traditional Buddha taught uh historical Buddha traditional historical
bu that everything is done out of the generosity of one’s heart right and it’s such a foreign concept to today’s
society I I feel um and Wendy you jump in here to to to fine-tune this but it’s
it’s it’s this notion of giving you you pay attention to the intent before you
give um the in uh or how you feel before you give how you feel while you’re
giving and then how you feel after you give you know and so it brightens the heart of the giver and that of receiving
so a lot of Donna also is receiving some people have a hard time receiving as well so it comes from the generosity of
the heart it’s a whole different monetary model you know and it it’s worked like in Burma and and Thailand
quite a bit uh for a long long time you know uh and it is the antidote to Greed
you know it is the there’s so much greed in the world and the antidote is
generosity um so it goes way more nuanced and it can be said way better than that but for the most part that’s
how it works I just want to add in there something that just to to contribute to
that is that it’s to do with your heart state are you doing something in order
to get something and then it wouldn’t matter how much you gave even if it was a massive huge Temple or whatever that’s
that’s not generosity because you’re waiting to get something back but it’s also about how open are you with your
compliments how open are you with receiving the kindness kindness of others how open are you with um giving
praise or receiving praise all these things and just very small things it doesn’t
have to be a big gesture it’s really about what’s your heart state yeah oh absolutely worthiness too is a
huge thing that comes into it you know and oh can I afford to do this this type of thing right so that’s the Buddha said
even if you have a little give a little you know so it’s it’s more about the heart State than the actual amount and
we don’t have to we could do a whole thing on it we don’t have to give monetary things we can give our our our
attention is the most sought-after commodity in today’s world Bar None that
anything whatsoever you know our expertise our time our skills you know
all these types of things yeah so it’s it’s such a beautiful beautiful practice and it’s such a um kind of a
countercultural notion almost in today’s society um so I’m GNA skip this next one
here um so the the okay so like what is the we haven’t I haven’t really even got into the awareness part of this yet but
one of the things that came up was this notion of awareness Wendy and I did the show about knowing and what’s being
known so it’s it’s in our experience and then there’s our knowing of our
experience so this next Insight instead of being slowly caked into the sloppy mud hole of my challenges I or awareness
can be the one who sees and acknowledges this challenging mud
hole this so instead of actually being in the mud hole right I can actually be
the one that that sees that there’s something there’s something in the mud
hole so there’s kind of like a a space or a gap or a distance instead of being entangled in my experience and absorbed
into it I can see the experience and the The Knowing of the experience is it’s
connected but it’s separate you know what I mean so I can be having a really emotional upheaval turmoil uh which
isn’t good or bad uh and then I could be the one or exp uh knowing that seeing
that happen right so instead of being admired and entangled in it can actually
be kind of a piece and a refuge of seeing and knowing that happening while it’s it’s not a disembodiment you know
it’s not a fracturing because it’s not disconnected either it’s just gives a
little bit of breathing room and dis engagement so I put this isn’t a hypothetical philosophy but an energetic
reality access by feeling into what it feels like to feel the one who sees and
knows the mud hole instead of only lost in the agony of just being in the
mud so you kind of get what I’m getting out here Wendy yeah so so this morning I
was meditating and I’ve been looking at blame you know what you know feeling blamed or scapegoated or and sort of the
how that disconnects in relationships and a whole you know why is it that what is it that actually makes us look above
you know come from above and look down with content or feel down and you know this this sort of where do we sit in the
hierarchy kind of thing and so what I was really looking at is
um so so there is a desire to there is something what is it that wants us to in
if we’re having a difficult time say in a relationship okay and then we seek to
come forward and try and men that
relationship and but there is some part that says actually that person has doesn’t have that capacity and yet there
is still this sort of part of us that says yes but but I I want to I want to
make this so there’s there is an sort of as you say this energetic awareness to
come forward to how do we be with things that cannot be
resolved how to to allow that and I think you’re touching into that a little
bit it is yes there is a difference between our experience and knowing our
experience there’s a there’s kind of a difference between being completely absorbed into what’s going on and
knowing kind of what’s going on the awareness that knows experience usually
we’re so focused on the object of our awareness and not that there’s the capacity to to see it to know it to to
recognize it to be aware of it so it it add adds another helpful layer and so now we’re getting into the the kind of
awareness um that we we worked with on Retreat and I have the next one here awareness without object is kind of
impotent like having lots of money without being able to spend it yet also it’s very freeing and empowering not
wasting time and energy tracking or staying with objects yet knowing when picking um when picking it up when
picking up a med ation object it may now very well be better seen known and handled so we spend a lot of time um
watching objects well the choiceless awareness right we did part of that uh where objects arise in Consciousness in
awareness and we just see it and and the and the attention just goes to whatever
is most predominant in experience it could be a sound one moment it could be a thought then it could be a memory and
then it could be you know um planning dialogue rehearsing body sensation pain
Pleasant sensation so whatever moment to moment is the most predominant experience that one’s attention is drawn
to that becomes the momentary meditation object so we went into that and then we transitioned into just sitting back and
resting in that awareness that that it kind of lies behind our experience right because
there’s the meditation object of the breath but there’s also the knowing of the breath so instead focusing on the
object it’s more of resting in this awareness that was used a lot yeah then we also saw I also saw like
the depth of our inner narrative I I knew this kind of in the past but just saw how it informs our views uh
compliance how people in power you know use these narratives for compliance and
for us to support or reject others views right if we have a really strong narrative we’re attached to and uh then
we’re going to use that to kind of inform whether or not how we fit in with other people’s narratives um yeah so can
I add on yes absolutely as part of my inquiry into blame it’s sort of been quite a long time I think probably last
time we spoke I was just doing this inquiry and what it there is something
about somebody has say a really strong mind so you may have uh somebody in your
family system who has really opinionated and I in that relationship it’s like
your own sort of Mind state has no validity your your reality has no
validity in that so it is it is this how do you be with
this this thing where you cannot CLA you where one person’s reality is being
denied and maintain your own sort of experience
of reality what I guess the question is or the inquiry is actually you it show what
it highlights is the level of relationality in our experience how much
we are connected with the other people for our own reality and inquiring into
or sort of seeing our own reality Through The Eyes of the other and what happens when the other person cannot see
our reality then how much that affects our own sense of what is our experience I
hope that this is a really good point for me because a lot of times I find myself on the other side of that when I
get too much in a hurry or get too um involved in what I want to say and then I have the tendency to um like give this
impression I’m overlooking or not connecting actually I do a lot of times so it’s a very good reminder and it’s come back back to bite me a lot lot of
times too and accuse that oh you’re just you know you’re you’re not you’re not listening you’re you’re you you’re
you’re always one that’s right you you kind of have this Superior attitude and I’m just like oh boy yeah you know and
owning up to that and taking responsibility for that and saying okay it’s time to step down dial it back and
what do you you just want to get on a soap box here Josh and be on a Pulpit or something you know and not connect with
people I mean that’s that’s I don’t want I don’t want to be around people like that so I don’t I it’s it’s very good to
be reminded of that uh well yeah it is you know sometimes it’s not pleasant but
it’s it’s definitely needed so yeah so so going back to your thing before you
we were talking a little bit about um The Knowing in the knowah and I I
actually wanted to talk about that experience of being the knowah in that what you just describe there where
you’re you this is my opinion and I’m right and this is how it is that experience of being the knower I know
what’s right here that that’s what I was trying to draw out in that conversation
and because it is very it is I found myself doing it yesterday and it takes
over and it’s it’s it’s an awful experience for the other person to live with to to feel into and it’s awful when
I realize I have just squished another person like a little fly you know as I
walk a little ant on the foot path you know I’m sort of squishing them it’s awful it it is and you know we when we
did our other show I think it’s it’s really helpful to to maybe re sometimes
instead of knowing and the known to like noticing um observing awaring awareness
acknowledgement is a is a lovely great word for compassion practice too you
know um so I’ll just go on here um the the vast high level worldly awareness um
see seemingly reserved for intelligence communities who claim to be better equipped to handle what awareness might
know and who might perhaps work to reserve or restrict awareness in
addition to deciding what is allowed to be known by the public so what so
basically what I’m saying there is you know these Intel agencies they I mean of course things need to be classified
right we don’t want nuclear weapon Secrets out there but basically they’re saying okay if if you need to know this
we’ll decide if you need to know this or not which you know there’s pros and cons to that but there also seems to be
potentially an incentive for them to actually look at awareness itself you know dumbing down of awareness in what’s
being what what we can possibly be conscious of I won’t go into specifics on that but if that is the case what
impact direct or indirect does this have on societies and then we talked about don’t know mind right this this Zen
thing too and how do we contrast this with don’t know mind and I think I’ll just put in this other
one here too and I don’t want to get in specifics with this to retreat but I I kind of uh Wonder like the internal
politics in Retreats is often not apparent Wendy talked a little bit about the retreat that she went on and I don’t
want to talk about this the politics in this particular retreat but in general you know there’s a lot of things going
on behind the scenes with with groups and organizations you know um I was just very pleased that they didn’t bring
politics into this um you know that it was just about the practice because I I
really don’t need another indoctrination political thing there’s so much of that in the world to be able to sit and
actually go away from that and and use that to to to bring back to those in the
political Arena if they’re going to go back into that so there was something I wanted to
add in there so what does that mean at a societal level so I was at a business
networking thing the other day and one of the women there is a she’s a psych ologist and so she just you know did a
ran a workshop on values you know how to find your values and she thought maybe 20 people would come turn up and 60
people signed up to go how do I find out what my values
are and I thought now that of all the things I had thought about people and
where they’re living what they’re experiencing they don’t know their own values now I know I have had times where
I have thought thought one thing or I had thought one another thing or whatever but and I’m clearer about my
own values at The more I’ve I’ve done that but I have never had a sense that I
wasn’t on a journey to you know I could feel I had a really strong Rudder to
sort of sort out myself sort out because I never wanted to hurt people in the way
that I had been hurt I never wanted to uh perpetrate the things that that I had felt perpetrated at me so I I I that’s
been sort of my value my my Rudder so the idea that I wouldn’t even know what
that is I’m going how how can you live your life with that and I think as
people they get up and what we do we get up we have breakfast we go to a job
we’ve got the kids we’ve got our marriage we’ve got watch the Telly we’ve got our friends we’ve got our families
and we’ve got and we’ve got buying house and food and diet and how do we look how
do we say how do we interact how do our relationships and what should I do and here we are and it’s very in this sort
of immediate narrow space rather than this depth space I I would say of
meaningfulness and so to answer maybe that’s not where you wanting to go but I
thought that was a very interesting uh perspective to go there
were 60 people in I don’t live in a big city I live on the edge of a town you know I live on the edge of a city and
people who are who come here are the people who live here 60 people in a small town wanted to know what are my
values well you know it is really Bittersweet what you say Wendy so on one hand it’s kind of a downer and sad that
that that that’s like that right and it’s so admirable I mean my heart just leaps up and sings and warms when when I
hear what you say because there’s so many let’s just call um bully victim uh
hero programs out there right there’s the bully that victimizes and then a lot of times the victim will go on to bully
again it’s a vicious cycle looking for the hero to save them and you said enough that’s the only way out of those
Cycles is to say enough I’m gonna I’m gonna stop I’m gonna stop this I don’t need a hero and I’m not g to I’m just
not going to turn around and be the bully again this is this I’m going to deal with this and that that personal
responsibility is so empowering and so needed in so many areas of life so I I can’t um really complement that enough
you know it’s it’s it’s uh it’s so needed right now and at the same time
these people you know they they’re just they for the most part in in the Buddhist it’s called uninstructed
worldling right they just go with the programs of the world they’re blown around by the worldly winds they haven’t
been instructed on on these things and so they’ll just do whatever programs been given them you know it really is
sad but I think that’s until they get instructions and you know um when I heard this I kind of had a sense about
my values but uh when I really heard this thing about core values identifying the most core values you have and then
leading your life from those it was just like a huge game changer so I’ve been in that in those shoes a little bit you
know until I really honed them down um it was it was so helpful and it’s such a
different alternative than just living goal by goal by goal or whatever program comes in or or this thing and that so
yeah just a sec we’ve got Alis Al has said uh um oh maybe actually Ali or Ali
if you could write out the how I should say your name so that I say that your
name is correct okay so otherwise I feel like I’m guessing a little bit at my
poor pronunciation so if you like is it Ali or Ali or just write it out in some
sort of vague sort of phonetic way that’ be nice so he says this is when my brain
is like let’s investigate these people so I think it’s about the values and what similarities they share or what
their underlying patterns are ha haa
so um yeah so you know like yeah how are we going
to do that though you know um it’s it’s it’s so wow you know yeah like you know where do
you begin on end on the similarities where sort of all have and I think this is what the the Buddha said is what we
all want is we we just stop wanting to feel you know getting what we don’t want
not getting what I do want makes me unhappy um and that’s kind of the whole
cruxs of the matter you know and and and we have that everybody wants that you know
yeah you that’s that’s that’s how yeah for sure uh yeah it’s so funny when read
aloud yes well yeah that’s especially when the one writing it isn’t reading it
so hopefully we didn’t butcher it too bad right okay well I’m gonna go on Blaze through this we’re g actually get
to end a little bit early today five or 10 minutes early Wendy needs to to go on to the next thing in her day um so so
these are the type of practices that occurred to me so these are kind of maybe offthe wall practices of
meditation maybe completely out of the blue I’ll probably skip a couple of them but these aren’t necessarily these
weren’t ones that we did officially but I just some of them are perceptions too
what about making inroads to relentlessly accessing constant organic
awareness that is a big mouthful harness the awareness associated with any and
all phenomena for the long-term benefit and of self and others so these are kind
of like um thought forms and perceptions so what would it be like if you could harness the awareness associated with
any and all phenomena like one time I don’t think it’s physically possible or you can’t really pin anything down like
this it’s just a conceptual thing but um it’s just thinking of other ways to get
into this awareness practice are these are things that just came up just occurred to me um so we have correct
pronunciation it’s Ali as in Ali I think so it’s not Ali but Ali yes and
I I’m pretty sure I know Ali from my fiance’s uh work too so yes
welcome yeah so this next one is really far out there uh access with intent any
and all possible and remembered uh or experience phenomena
States and stations of Consciousness in meditation past present and future and hold this in
Awareness interconnected gathered into a manageable object and somehow integrated
integrate this into one’s current meditation so yeah what what say that again
because yeah I kind of missed a little bit of that so say that again so let’s see if I can get it okay so uh the
intent is to access with intent any and all possible
and remembered phenomena or experienced
phenomena accessing any and all possible States and stations of Consciousness this is all Y in
meditation I don’t think this is possible you know this is just kind of like an intent right if you could just
bring all that up in one in one kind of palm of the hand um all those
experiences in meditation that’s ever been experienced past present in future uh and then hold this in
awareness and had them all interconnected and gathered into like a manageable object meditation object and
then you could somehow integrate this into one’s current meditation object so
yeah so these are very abstract subtle um Sara Fabrications you know
constructions of Consciousness that aren’t really possible you can’t really sit there okay am I doing this d d d du
it’s just kind of like this General sense uh of
expansion uh going way out Gathering it into something that can be experienced
which it can’t really so it’s just kind of an interesting thought experiment so that one’s a little bit far out I I
think the more I try to explain it the weirder it gets no let me see if I’ve got this let me see if I’ve got this
so um am if i’ if I’ve understood what you’re saying what what you’re saying is
there is a level of awareness where we have um where where
where we are all knowing of all things and in which case to me that
sounds closer to a near-death experience my life flesh before my eyes not that’s omnipotent but it’s not all knowing it’s
not necessarily that um actually this is just within everything that we’ve ever meditate everything that’s happened
during all of our past meditations maybe if we could know everything that would be possible in our future meditations
which it’s it’s getting close to it but but not quite there you know what I mean apparently I I was listening to to
something uh overnight and um there was some there is a movie coming out and she
has some mushrooms and she goes on this you know trip and we are not condoning
this behavior in any way shape or form and it’s hallucinogenic and illegal and
ious things so absolutely plus you don’t you can access way more expanded States
in more stable and healthy beneficial states of meditation by the way yeah but so but it’s a movie and uh what she does
is she she goes on this trip and she sees her future old her future self as an old woman and then that sort of like
they have this dialogue I haven’t seen it so it was just interesting to um think well if you were in your
future self looking now and now looking at your future self it reminded me a little bit of that but perhaps I’m
really wrong no no that’s that’s that’s that’s fair and we they talk in meditation circles and like Ali Just Ali
just said it’s like accessing a library and reading all the books at the same time kind of one I think Tara Brock has
this exercise where you you access your future self you access your future wisdom right or you access all your
spiritual allies you if you gather like all the people you respect your mentors
you know uh different figures in history if you could just kind of feel into them and get their wisdom it doesn’t have to
be spoken or seen so much you know it’s it’s kind of um an imaginatory exercise
so then going on here bearing awareness in mind so one of the definitions of mindfulness is just bearing something in
mind or continuously bearing awareness in mind uh contemplating awareness you
know one of the it’s a uh investigation of dh’s fourth Foundation of mindfulness so contemplating awareness
uh then we’ve got investigating awareness placing and holding attention on the intention to investigate
awareness right we have the intention to investigate awareness and then you just constantly bring the attention to that
intention uh when the mind wanders off then we just okay I want to investigate Consciousness without having to have an
answer or anything like that and just see how that feels and holds in the awareness and what arises when doing
that over and over again uh you know what is the source of awareness there is like like okay where does it come from
you know was it always there uh cont this is yeah yeah and this is the
$664,000 question what is the source of awareness you know and this is some people would call it ass Soul some
people would call it God some people call it you know whatever it is
consciousness some people whatever but that’s right they the yeah just what is
the source and we don’t know we don’t and we don’t no and they they’re having to go back to the drawing board they
thought I had all this understanding of Consciousness and now they’re going actually we are completely not barking
up the right tree there so got to back to the drawing board yeah it is yeah and it’s the final frontier in science too
you know contacting Consciousness right we have a all we we contact something and then have a feeling what if we
constantly contact Consciousness light of awareness uh awareness is often known of you light up a room and then you can
see what it is what is the this is the Notions of light with it and then but I I discovered this walking method
continuous rhythmic soothing walking meditation with or without keeping an intent in mind so I was doing something
different I was just walking in a way that felt really good and rhythmic and relaxing I mean not o I’m overe
exaggerating here but focusing more on just okay keeping a rhythm going and
then um and then going with an intent in mind holding an intent in mind all right
so I’m going to blaze through some of these question questions I can’t go probably through them all but I want to go what is the right effort for whatever
type of awareness practice is undertaken um and then we as humans receive so much
teaching and conditioning especially in the west to trust sleep and Oblivion uh
just put it that way how do we learn to trust Awakening and awakened awareness though you know we we trust that oh I
have the American dream you know oh just you know uh go into Oblivion and you
know get your six-pack whatever that’s trusted you know just zone out to a Netflix but how do we start trusting
this awaken awareness the big one how is awareness perceived I mean how do we
even perceive awareness to begin with um and then we get into really specifics
about Consciousness vigana six sense consciousnesses Manas and chitta so
that’s beyond the the thing and then uh I some of these are a little bit more nuanced really specific questions so I’m
just going to go on to the big part of the retreat where there it seems to be kind of um a thing here so in Orthodox
terava burmes they they talk about just Consciousness if I’m putting that if I’m getting that right but then the tforce
tradition says well is there something more fundamental under this awareness you know this knowing you know so
there’s there’s kind of a knowing or awareness but then can there be an awareness of
awareness uh but the way I get this is it’s set up as a two-side thing they didn’t even mention that it could be
something else they didn’t mention poid multiple of vomes you know um so and
then how well some of these are a little bit more two Nuance we need to start wrapping it up here uh what else should
I say though and then what is the difference then between the nabana element and this type of awareness
behind are more fundamental than Consciousness and so this was kind of a
a big exploration on the treat of you know is there just the standard
like Consciousness or is there something behind the Consciousness that’s not Nana
but that’s it’s similar to it and there’s really kind of uh detailed Nuance things that I don’t really feel
we should well we don’t we don’t really have the time here but if you guys want to read my notes they’re in the post for
this and uh for those that are really into kind of uh going into the the the
nuanced of this respond so we covered the Practical well I’ll just give Wendy a chance to respond to anything here and
then we’ll start wrapping up you know I think what what can happen
on Retreat is that we can get so caught up in
the in the you can almost lose touch with reality and and lose when I say
that I mean it becomes so internalized in this isolated experience
of concentration and it’s it’s you can get
lost in the weeds in the sea in the seaweeds you know these growing down
into that and and it can become an inquiry and it can become a form of
distraction in and of itself you know and I guess my question
is well this is this is good and you know and um maybe I shouldn’t say this
but I’m going to sort of and why does it matter whether your awareness is here or
what are you aware of what is consciousness and is there anything underneath it you can inquire into that
and then you’ve got to live and you’ve got to be here and talk to people and earn money and you know relate go get
groceries these these are very good questions Wendy I’m glad you brought them up because I was wanting to go too
much into the details of these these These Fine particular points but then we have to take it take it all back home
again right and so that was the the end of The Retreat did a really good job I feel of doing this so then we got into
equinity practice right this is the thing that underlies all our relations and all the beautiful heart qualities
and this is the looking upon experience you know with the level-headedness and
and and wisdom but not an indifference you know and um then how do we bring
these and integrate these awareness practices into kind of actionable things within our daily lives and so equinity
was one of the ways I feel we started doing this and then transitioning out of
the retreat I I don’t think I should go into detail and give away exactly how they did it but it was a really good
practice at the end to taking what we’ve done in Retreat and then transitioning
back into daily life so there was a whole integration process into this and I’m so
glad you brought this up and it’s just as you talked about psychedelics too those people that do that where they
really uh I think go south a lot of times is not integrating the experience and then they either people try to reach
the peak experience or they don’t know how to go back and and and do it properly so it is of utmost important
like what do we do with this now you know how is this going to help us and like I said earlier the Practical part
of this is that we can rest in awareness right and we can use this um a more kind
of uh awareness of what’s going on and we can never have too much mindfulness and awareness so it trains a different
part of our attentional process too I feel and then we can not in Tangled and
we could know and respond and have more of a gap between our experience when we
can remember to to do so and um yeah and and keep inquiring into inquiring into
the re Rel Rel ational processes so all right Wendy I think we’ll we’ll we’ll call it here huh and why don’t you is
anything else you’d like to take us out on uh just thinking as you were saying that uh what I became really aware of is
what the those inquiries into awareness do is what’s happening is that it’s actually creating a whole lot of space
between each of these little seaweeds as I called them and I grew up by the ocean
by the way and so these little seaweeds that you would sort of go through and
actually it’s creating more space around them so you have a more expanded sort of
awareness and yeah that just there’s this Zen it reminds me of this Zen thing
too ABC a bigger container right you take a teaspoon of salt put it in a glass of water it’s going be real salty
but if you put that same teaspoon in the a big pond grab a you can barely taste it so beautiful seaweed image I’m going
to use that if I can sure okay all right all right may
you all be well and practice well and be aware well and yes relate well thank you
and thanks for closing up a little bit early sorry guys I just gota I got to do stuff thanks so much that’s right all
right bye y’all
Integrating Presence 
18 thoughts on “Awareness Itself | July 25/26, 2024 “Meditation Q & A With Wendy Nash” #23”