I was down the other day. Nothing awful or life threatening, just in a funk, from this that and the other. I meditated a bit, and ended up complaining in my journal about it. I got this response:

We hear your pain. We can relate to it. It is simply pain. You know not to hold onto it or push it away. Know it as temporary, empty of self, and unsatisfactory. What else can you do? Weep for the human part of you that cannot accept the way things are. But you also have that within you that allows unimpeded connection to the divine. Which do you focus on? Both parts at the same time, because they are both divine. “Always remember that everything is God.”

I first read about Convening a Council in Cosmic Healing, by Barbara Brodsky. In the 13th chapter, she describes a visionary ceremony in which she takes stock of her present circumstance and then takes a Bodhisattva Vow, offering her newfound wholeness to the universe. She was surrounded by a circle of loving spirits, including Jeshua (Jesus) and her guide and teacher, Aaron. The concept of a Council began to take root in my heart and imagination. This was also about the time that I had a series of conversations with George SanFalcon about a governance process that he eventually published in book form as The Council of Equals. I learned from these two, and for that I am grateful.

At a particularly difficult point in my marriage a few years back, I felt like I had come up against a brick wall. Mrs. BarelyAware and I loved each other very much, but our perspectives and behaviors surrounding a deeply personal issue were at odds and seemed unresolvable. Moreover, the issue loomed large enough in my head that simply acknowledging our differences and living with them seemed intolerable. I needed to speak the deepest truths of my heart to her in my heart’s native language. Part of the problem, however, was that she was for the most part unable to understand that language. The conversation, no matter how many different ways I approached the subject, led down a common path toward misery and suffering, for both her and me. My prayer boiled down to the essence, was simply, “help.” The answer came in meditation one day – talk with her Higher Self, in the context of a Council.

Everyone has a Higher Self. Some call it their Guardian Angel. No matter the name, you have a loving spirit entity assigned to you and you only. Its only job is to help you and guide you and keep you on the track that you laid out for yourself before you were born. Mostly beyond our awareness, this loving spirit is nevertheless with us all the time no matter what. Somewhat idiosyncratically, I like to think of my Higher Self as “me” after I have become fully enlightened. The future “me” is returning from the future, to help the present “me” through my current experiences. I have had the good fortune over the past few months and years to get to know my Higher Self. I call him (Yes, I perceive him as masculine) “Daniel.” Our conversations can be odd, especially from his perspective, because I am literally just talking to myself. Through him, I can access and identify with the oneness of existence.

If Daniel can talk directly with the higher self of Mrs. BarelyAware, then she, on the most important level, could hear me deeply and perhaps help us to resolve this issue. I knew that on the most profound level, our life goals were harmonious. I knew that her higher self was just as loving and powerful as I knew mine to be. Most importantly, our higher selves were deeply connected – not only through the bonds of love and friendship forged by our personalities, but more profoundly through our mutual connection with the essence and oneness of all things.

So I asked Daniel to begin. I wanted to be as inclusive as possible, so I asked any being of love and light that had an interest in positively resolving this issue to join the circle. This included my guides and teachers, the higher selves, guides and teachers of Mrs. BarelyAware, our children and extended families, and other beings that I simply didn’t know. Soon I felt a circle forming, with the two of us in the middle. I felt loved and respected. I stated my needs and my case the best way I knew how. Mostly, I asked them for help, a way out of the stuck place where I felt I was. The circle began to sing most beautifully, as both a chant and a hymn to the creative principle of the universe. I understood it to be a way of focusing and harmonizing the energy of the group. The image began to fade from my mind.  The understanding came that the Council would remain in session until a decision was made or a path found, probably in a few days. I would receive a communication from them then.

A few days later, I did in fact get a notification, and I went back to the circle in meditation. The answer I got made me feel heard and respected, and over the weeks and months, I saw a real change in our relationship. Now I use and trust this process for times when I cannot see a way forward and circumstances seem to conspire against me. My results have always been positive.

I am writing this for my small phone group, a loving sangha that is currently looking for the next step in our shared path together. Now that I have shared my experience, I would like our group to convene its own council. Here’s how to do it:

1) Reflect a bit on why you are in our group, and how a council might help. From 30,000 feet, what are your intentions? Why do you continue, and what would you like to achieve? Be as general or as specific as you like. Examples might include service to positive polarity and to the light, if you feel so moved. If you have taken the Bodhisattva vow, that would be an appropriate intention as well. These are not required, just what inspire me personally.

2) Find a still, quiet place, and begin to meditate. When your mind is sufficiently clear and still, bring those intentions for the group to mind. Ask for help. Then ask your Higher Self (or Guardian Angel) to communicate with you.

3) If you feel a change in your energy, or in the vibration, or a presence, this is an answer to your asking. Please challenge what comes, and phrase your challenge so that it requires a simple yes or no. Example questions might be: “Is your presence and communications harmonious with my highest ideals and intentions?” or “Do you intend harm to none and benefit to all?”
a) If you get clear yes answers to those questions, continue to step four.
b) If you get no or ambiguous answers, go back to #1 and start over. Do not engage with spirits who aren’t consciously serving the light!
c) If you get nothing or are unsure of what you are getting, continue with step four. Imagining the rest of this is perfectly OK (trust me – explaining that is another blog post, and this is already long!). At some point, if you persist, you will find that the experience becomes a bit more than imagination. Keep your guard up however. At any time, if something doesn’t seem or feel right, go back to #3 and challenge.

4) Listen to the energy for a time. Is there a message there for you? If not, no worries.

5) Ask that your Higher Self/Guardian Angel/Whatever you choose to call it join together with the higher selves of the rest of the group, so that your highest intentions and the highest intentions of the other members can be consciously known and in harmony with one another. If you have established relationships with spirit guides or teachers – Aaron comes to mind as one example – be sure to invite them. Ask that any interested being of love and light, who consciously serves others for the benefit of all, join the circle.

6) Before you end the meditation/reverie, try to get a sense of (or imagine) what the circle might look or feel like, what actions might be taken.

7) Please let me know your experiences, either in person or in the comments below!

My favorite communication from Jeshua, given a few months back. He is a constant blessing in my life beyond measure. I was working with karma and forgiveness at the time:

Forgiveness is a way of letting go of the past, of cutting the roots out of the tree of karma. Please don’t forget the perspective from the ultimate and non-dual level. Forgiveness is the discharge of a nonexistent debt. Karma is an illusion, it is simply energy, love and light fixed in place by beliefs, judgments, fear and greed. Karma makes the world go around, but we are really living in a world of illusion. On the mundane level, actions have consequences. On the ultimate level, you can see through these movements and come to the deep perfection of the one, and it’s myriad forms. This is the “forgiveness” I wished to teach, but folks weren’t ready. Instead, I had to speak in riddles, and allow those who knew to nod their heads knowingly. Others were left to puzzle through “turn the other cheek,” and “pray for those who persecute you.” Look at a point in my life when I forgave: “Forgive them father for they know not what they do.” I appealed to the heavenly father within me, because that is who forgives. The ego cannot. Because I knew no separation with the father, I was able to say such a thing.

All the above is about enhancing your connection with your essence, with our essence, with the essence. “Only God heals,” but I say to you “only God forgives” also.

And a second quote, from a guide who did not give a name:

(Please teach me about forgiveness) Forgiveness is a way of dealing with the past, for people who are stuck in the past. Horrific amounts of terrible situations tend to become lodged in the body and mind. If there are ignored or swept under the rug, they become pernicious, causing you problems. Forgiveness is a very direct way to address old habits and negativity without contributing further grasping energy. Some situations and states of mind are more compelling and “sticky” than others, and much psychic pain can result. Part of the power of forgiveness is the ability to say “it is done.” This is a recognition of the world as it is. Situations are always temporary – to the extent that such a recognition is embraced, powerful realizations can result.

My last post was more about asking questions than answers. So instead of answering those questions, let’s intensify the question in the hopes of finding further clarity.

Jesus addressed the subject in the Sermon on the Mount, but what he says is truly baffling, even with over 2000 years of tradition attempting to explain it. How can we make sense of what he says? This is Matthew 5:38-45, in the NIV:

³⁸ “You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.’ ³⁹ But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also. ⁴⁰ And if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat as well. ⁴¹ If anyone forces you to go one mile, go with them two miles. ⁴² Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you.

⁴³ “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ ⁴⁴ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, ⁴⁵ that you may be children of your Father in heaven.

The “natural” reaction to injury or injustice was codified in ancient Hebrew law. “Eye for eye, tooth for tooth” is a simple restatement of Exodus 21:24. But Jesus offers another, deliberately provocative code of ethics. Let mean people slap me twice? Pray for those who persecute you? Let someone who is suing me take more? In Roman times, officials could force people to carry official notices or documents. Instead of going as far as necessary, go a bit extra? Give to the one who asks you, just because they asked? Jesus is deliberately going against our long-held ideas of self-preservation, of appropriate boundaries. Is he exaggerating to make a point? What is his point? In fact, these sayings by design make no sense to the small, egoic self. What comes next seems quite logical, but is still perplexing. Here are verses 45-48:

He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. ⁴⁶ If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? ⁴⁷ And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? ⁴⁸ Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

People find themselves in situations both good and bad regardless of their moral character. We often cannot control our outward situation, any more than we can affect the weather or the rotation of the Earth. Our reaction to our situation, even when unpleasant and difficult, is what is important. The “reward” Jesus talks about here I believe is karmic. There is little to no karmic value in loving those who love you. The real karmic payoff is in loving those who hate you, and in reacting open-heartedly in difficult situations. But why the seemingly impossible command to “be perfect” by becoming like God? How does that follow? Loving those who hate you is a tall order!

We have to look beyond the perspective of the small self to understand the code Jesus uses. Jesus deeply knew his connection to the divine, to his essence, to the unborn, undying, and unconditioned. He called this divinity his Heavenly Father. From this perspective, generosity makes no sense – there is no self, no other, no giver, no receiver, everything is One. Yet Jesus also was born of a physical, flesh and blood mother. He had deep roots in both planes of existence, the conditioned, mundane, physical world, and the unconditioned, divine, supramundane world. Yet as a fully enlightened being he knew the non-separation of the human and the divine. Both are manifestations of the One. We too can be in this place of non-duality, of moving our perception with effortless ease between heaven and earth, seeing both. This awareness is what he means when he talks about being “children of your Father in Heaven.” Jesus comes from a place of deep interconnection, where self and other are one. But he also deeply understands the illusory separation of self and other. We can learn to live from this perspective also. This is the “perfection” of the heavenly Father.

• Let’s go back to these difficult sayings about generosity, and look at them from the perspective of a child of the Heavenly Father. To review from my last post, generosity is giving freely and with wholesome intent a gift that is valuable but unearned. Each of these sayings has an aggressor initially taking something from you, causing you pain, or coercing you: taking your shirt, slapping you, persecuting you, making you deliver mail. But then you offer more of what they have taken. So now, instead of them simply taking more, by not resisting, you are freely giving them a gift. That gift clearly has value – the aggressor demonstrated that value by taking it from you in the first place. That gift is also unearned, because the aggressor’s actions are clearly unjust. Just one more condition is left for your actions to qualify as being generous. You, as a child of the Heavenly Father, must be able to give what is needed to the evil person, or your persecutor, or the coercive mailman with wholesome intent. But how can our intent be pure in such a difficult situation? Is this even possible?

From the right perspective, yes, it is. Jeshua knows himself as the one out of which both self and other arise. This perspective allows him to see through the illusory (but still painful) roles of victim and aggressor into the deepest needs of the human condition. This perspective offers a more nuanced and balanced view. The situations in these sayings are unpleasant, painful, or inconvenient for the would-be victim, but none are life-threatening. From a wider perspective, offering what the aggressor wants might be a balanced, wholesome reaction to the situation.

Of more immediate importance are the benefits to the giver. For a person consciously on the spiritual path, generosity upends the ego’s normal habits and perspective. If you can remain openhearted and generous even in a difficult situation, you might prevent further unwholesome karmic consequences from your reaction. You might also find the space and light to respond more creatively and appropriately. If you can turn the other cheek with these truths in mind, your intent is wholesome. Through your generosity, you benefit yourself, you benefit your persecutor, and you begin to understand that you are no different from them. You both are acting in a play on a stage. Eventually, with repeated giving from the open heart, you truly become a child of the Heavenly Father. Generosity rightly understood is a need of the spiritual aspirant, something that leads to happiness, both relatively and ultimately. From that perspective, giving sometimes is the sanest, most appropriate response, even in difficult situations.

When the ego is less involved in any particular situation, even difficult ones, then we can:

1. Before we act, assess the needs of all parties involved – self and others;
2. Act freely, creatively, and appropriately, and
3. Not be attached to any particular outcome, but instead tend to the consequences of our act.

Living up to the provocative ideals expressed in the Sermon on the Mount is a difficult task. Perhaps our attitude needs to be closer to the Buddha’s five precepts for laypeople. They all start with the formula, depending on the translation “For the sake of training, I undertake the precept to…” This is a beautiful way of saying “I will try, to the best of my ability, because it is good for me.”

Aaron offered a beautiful guided imagination/meditation on generosity in our last class. Let me give you an excerpt:

We are walking in a beautiful park. You have spent the morning walking, walking through Paris, your first time there. Seeing the sights, visiting museums. In your purse, a small lunch—an apple, a croissant, a bit of cheese. Now you are hungry and you sit on a bench. In front of you flows the river; to one side of you, a beautiful cathedral. There is awe and joy at these beautiful sights and this lovely autumn day.
You pull out your cheese and your apple, and almost immediately a very skinny, dirty child appears; big eyes, looking at you, beseeching. Holding her hands out. You don’t speak French, not clear what she’s saying, but your heart knows she’s asking for food.
There may be an immediate easy impulse to offer her the food. You can purchase more; you have money. There may be a subtle contraction, “My food. My meal.” Looking around, “I don’t see a food vendor anywhere in sight.” Maybe then a judgment, “I should give it to her.” Again, another contraction. “I should.”
Take your little paring knife and cut a slice of apple. Invite her to sit on the bench beside you and give her the slice of apple, and a slice for you. Allow yourself to feel her joy as she eats this very juicy slice of apple, finding there the self that is innately generous and openhearted. If a stingy or self-centered thought arises, don’t get caught up in it, just note it as thought, “self-centered thought, fear-based thought,” and let it be. Return immediately to this loving, open heart, to the joy of giving. Mudita; joy for others.  Return to the part of you that can give so spontaneously. In this way, keep offering her pieces of your apple and cheese and bread, eating of it yourself also, to whatever degree feels appropriate. You may give her half, or you may give her nine tenths of it, or one tenth. There’s no right or wrong, here.
I want you to find the place in yourself that is openheartedly generous and deeply caring for the welfare of others, and know, “I am that, beyond any conditioned thoughts that may arise, any judging thoughts. I am that generosity and love. I am that.” Can you rest in that, “I am that,” with some degree of comfort and ease?

Aaron gives us an excellent thought experiment, showing how compassion, mudita, and other manifestations of the open heart can naturally flow from the practice of generosity. Importantly, he also shows where this flow can be blocked, by stinginess or self-centeredness. Both openness and contraction can be there at the same time – is it possible to identify with the Big Mind/Big Heart and give freely, while not denying or trying to change that which obstructs?

Let me take a stab at defining generosity. Three main components need to be present. The gift must be something of value that was not earned by the receiver, the gift needs to be given freely, and the giving needs to be done with a wholesome intent. If the thing has no value, than what is the point? If the gift was earned, it was an economic transaction. If you are coerced into giving, then you are not being generous. If you are giving for selfish reasons, or with a hidden agenda, then few benefits from generosity will arise.

I would like to revisit Aaron’s guided meditation. I very rarely encounter dirty, hungry homeless children, and I haven’t been to Paris in 25 years, but my imagination of such an encounter has a slightly different twist:

We are on the park bench, eating lunch. The dirty child appears, obviously hungry. You give her food, and ask her to sit with you. She does, and eats the food. As you are eating, paying attention to her, and mindfully noticing your reactions to the situation, she points behind you and looks agitated. You turn, turn back, and your purse with the food in it is gone. The child is running away, now too far away to catch easily. She stops at the border to a wooded area, and gives you the finger as she disappears. Most of your important documents are back at the hotel, but the purse, the food, and maybe $10 is gone. You realize that the child still was obviously hungry, and by feeding her you were addressing a real need. You would’ve probably given the money to her at the end of the meal anyhow. She was simply not able or willing to give you the warm fuzzy feeling of being grateful for her lunch. You are not truly harmed in any real way by the theft.

How do you react? Can you stay openhearted and generous instead of becoming a victim or a martyr? Can you become mindful of the contraction in your physical body and in your mind and heart? What might an appropriate inward response to this situation be, that allows you to identify with the essence of your being, while not denying the reality of the experience?

Let’s examine some real world examples. The guy with the sign on the corner as you are driving by. If you give money to the guy, you don’t know how it is going to be used. Can you give freely in the face of uncertainty? What conditions would need to be present for you to give?

Here is another. Your children aren’t grateful for the time and effort you are giving them. They aren’t small and cute and cuddly any more, they are teenagers. They want to be fed, and they want to be fed now. How can you give them dinner with an open heart?

One more, this time more personal. When I adopted my son John from the Ukraine, I had the opportunity to visit several orphanages, run by the state. At one, I had a bag of hard candy, and I sat in the middle of the playground, handing out candy to the kids. It was very gratifying at the time. Now that I know more, I realize I was playing into something pathological. The kids were hungry, and I was feeding them not food but edible garbage that would just make them hungrier after the sugar rush and the insulin spike. I also was unknowingly contributing to a nasty little social habit. Children growing up in orphanages often will shun intimate relationships with caregivers that constantly change. Instead, they learn to shower love and affection on complete strangers, because they might get adopted sooner if they do so. After my wife and I became John’s parents, we fully felt the unpleasant effects of that psychological dynamic, which western psychology calls attachment disorder. How do I feel about that memory? The intention in giving the candy at the time was clear and pure, but the results of my actions, combined with the actions of others like me caused pain and suffering. Does my ignorance of the unknowns in that situation make it OK somehow?

Because this is (based on) the real world, there are no easy answers to these questions. I cannot tie up everything into a nice neat bow and make it pretty for you, rhetorically or otherwise. Generosity usually meets with the resistance of the ego, so that the act will have both wholesome and unwholesome motivations inseparably swirling together. Once the act is completed, we cannot control the outcome, but we also cannot ignore the outcome. For better or worse, we always have a responsibility to tend to the consequences of our actions to the best of our limited abilities. In a very human way, we just have to muddle through as best we can.

Generosity, consistently practiced, is a way of broadening our perspective to encompass all affected parties, both self and other, when assessing the consequences of our actions. The broad perspective of the open heart is its own teacher, helping us moment-by-moment, in each situation, to react appropriately and impeccably.

What do you think? How can we be generous in real life? Start the conversation in the comments section below.

Let me tell you all about what happened while meditating last week:

9 March, 2015

It is Monday morning, but I am not working for money today. Taxes aren’t done. I’ve been working on them and working to avoid them all weekend. I’ve gotten more out of sorts, until last night I found myself being sharp with the kids and Mrs. BarelyAware. I wanted to be alone, but when I was alone, I was prone to distraction.

Last night I sat with it. This morning I sat with it. Let me tell you all about it. I felt darkness, contraction, anger, despair, sadness, and dissatisfaction. It was centered in my pelvis. It didn’t feel like “me.” Maybe I have invited an imp or spirit into my experience? My first insight came – it doesn’t matter. Watch the “Not self” of those negative objects, and see clearly that they aren’t me or mine. I don’t have to own them or hang on to them. So I just watch, noting “unpleasant, unpleasant.”

“Be a lamp unto yourself” is the title of our class. I have many ways of lighting that lamp, and I went through some of my options: generate Metta, breathe, Tong-Len practice. After a bit of pondering and quiet attention, more insight came – I needed to let those techniques be. My lesson here and now is not to “make it better.” I could light a lamp and send the imp scurrying away. I would feel better, but what really is my highest purpose? What I needed then was to not to feel immediately better, and not to temporarily banish the problem. I needed to watch, to look deeply into my experience. Noticing thinking, asking for help, then just watching. As concentration deepens, noticing more pain, more darkness, more negativity. This negative experience, although constantly changing, is now consistently strong enough that it remains the predominant object most of the time. Relax, breathe. Shoulders are tense, which had gone previously unnoticed. Concentration and tension are now linked, and they temporarily eclipse the pelvic darkness. Noticing tension, tension. Shoulder contraction finally releases, and with release comes some calm and peace. As that particular tension changes and dissolves, more darkness, anger, and frustration get noticed. The darkness is changing, now more space around it. Concentration feels lighter, more buoyant, with less tension. Fear, anger. Now I feel the radiance associated with it. Darkness is radiating outward, which is lighter and more pliable than before.

By now, I feel the help that was asked for in force. They (me?) aren’t sending the imp away, they are aiding me in realizing a higher goal. Concentration is stable and strong, aided by a strong predominant object. Mindfulness is strong also. Awareness is watching and penetrating into the heart of the experience from moment to moment. Holding and polishing (vitakka and vihara) are present also. Equanimity has a different character to it. Watching had a tinge of indifference or resignation earlier. Now I can let the darkness and pain simply be. With that, the heart begins to open. Watching now is about watching with the open heart, with compassion for my dissatisfaction.

At some point, the darkness released. My energy body felt open, clean, radiant. Equanimity was strong – just watch that also. The entire process took 90 minutes, and it wasn’t easy.

Reflecting on my experience afterwards, I felt like I had a small breakthrough. My goal, formulated and refined only during the sitting, was finally achieved. I was able to “just watch” and thereby penetrate into the essential nature of the negativity. Awareness of the three characteristics were strong. Objects were temporary (anicca), arising into experience, changing constantly, then dissolving. Objects also weren’t me or mine (anattaa), but they also weren’t separate from me. If I wasn’t able to relax into these truths, then dissatisfaction (dukka) would inevitably arise. Once I stopped trying to light “my” lamp and just let my experience be, the light of awareness yielded both insight into my experience and freedom from negativity.

I have a last comment on my teacher, the Imp. Was my experience of negativity the simple result of my own bad mood, or was it augmented or modified by a negative external entity, a dark spirit? Conversely, when I asked for help, and help came, was that just me drawing on my own untapped and unconscious reserves; or was it the intervention of a positively polarized light being, a divine angel or angels? From the Karaniya Metta Sutta:

By not holding to fixed views
The pure hearted one, having clarity of vision
Being freed of all sense desires
Is not born again into this world.

Both the internal “psychological” and external “demonic” explanations are true. Both help me to understand my experience, and give me a context to understand and act appropriately should a similar situation arise again. Yet both explanations are also false. Calling the Imp either wholly self or wholly other distorts the full reality of the experience and only enhances the separation and isolation of the self.

If instead I can allow the “Not self” of the Imp to remain fluid, intuitive, and empirical, not fixed and rooted in a particular system of beliefs, I will become free. Specifically, I will have the freedom to see clearly and to keep new karma from being “born again into this world.”

Thank you, little Imp.

We had our first “Be a lamp unto yourself” class last night, and I had a great time, as usual. We spent a fair amount of time discussing what mindfulness is. Mary emailed me afterward with a good question that related to the conversation:

As a hypnotherapist, when I talk about “consciousness”, I am using it as to term to describe a beta brain wave quicker wave form, as opposed to the sub-conscious, which is more apt to be an alpha wave, a little slower and more relaxed and “in tune”.

I don’t think that the term “consciousness” means the same in terms of meditation and awakening.  Sometime can you clarifiy this for me?

What do we mean when we talk about consciousness? Consciousness the way we talk about it – Actually, “we” is lazy. I am speaking here. While this is my understanding of what Barbara and Aaron mean by “consciousness,” I cannot speak for them. So let me switch to “I,” but let me be clear that these ideas are by no means original to me. I am sorry, Mary, but “consciousness” has very little to do with the usual western conception of the word. Consciousness the way I talk about it is something very specific, and is simply the most common translation of a Pali term used in a somewhat technical way. The concept is rooted in a process the Buddha articulated, called the 12 steps of dependent origination. Although the subject is interesting, it is complex, snore-inducing, and isn’t strictly necessary for our purposes. I am, after all, trying to keep this brief and readable. However, the knowledge is valuable, practical, and transformative, like most everything the Buddha propounded. If you’re interested, please google it.

Let’s get very basic. You, as you conventionally understand yourself, are a subject. When you perceive something, that something is an object. This could be a sense object, a sight, a sound, a temperature, a smell, and so on; an emotion, like love, joy, fear, jealousy, and so on; a thought of any sort, or literally anything else. This is the sense that I mean when I talk about the primary object and the predominant object in meditation. I as the subject apprehend an object.

Each object, no matter what it might be, invades your perception, stays for a while, and then goes away, to be replaced by another object. For example, when a bird chirps, the sound “contacts” you through the ears. Immediately, a “consciousness” of the sound arises, specifically a “hearing consciousness.” You also can have “taste consciousness,” “sight consciousness,” consciousness associated with thoughts, emotions, and other mental formations, and so on. That’s what I mean when I talk about “consciousness.”

The implications of this process are profound. Each object has a consciousness associated with it. As an object arises, changes, and passes away, so too does the associated consciousness arise, change, and pass away. “Consciousness” is not a static thing – it is more of a process. Think of a river. Each moment, the river is different, because the water molecules flowing by any one point are different from moment to moment. However, we can still conceive of a “river,” because the new water will probably behave similarly to the old water. If you dump poison, or stain, or a log upstream however, the river will change, making the “process” aspect of a river more apparent than the normally “static” aspect. A candle flame has the same nature as the river – it seems to be the same from moment to moment, but close observation reveals how the flame is in constant flux. So your consciousness – part of the “you” that you thought you were – is actually a process that is highly dependent on the objects that contact you in any given moment.

You didn’t ask about this, but let me introduce another concept, awareness. This is the consciousness of ultimate reality. Ultimate reality in the purest form cannot be perceived by normal consciousness. Any object requires a consciousness specifically associated with that object, so ultimate reality requires an “ultimate consciousness.” That sounds silly, though, so I call it “awareness” instead. Refined inward objects like light, space, the open heart, metta, compassion, or energy (an incomplete list) all approximate ultimate reality. They are (in this sense) also fundamentally different from our ordinary, mundane reality, and therefore also require a different consciousness in order to perceive these objects when they contact us. Let’s call these refined inward objects “supramundane” objects and the consciousnesses that are associated with them “supramundane” consciousnesses. These supramundane consciousnesses also usually fall under the umbrella of “awareness.”

One characteristic of ultimate reality is that it doesn’t change. It has been, is, and always will be the same. To illustrate, imagine the quality of space. No matter what is or isn’t occupying a particular space, the quality of the space, its “spaceness,” never changes. So the purest form of awareness, the consciousness of that ultimate reality, never changes either. Objects that are close to ultimate reality – the list in the paragraph above – change much less, and so our awareness of these objects tends to be less changeable, calmer, and still. This is in often stark contrast to changeable mundane consciousness apprehending changeable mundane objects. In meditation, both situations simply require your loving, non-reactive attention.

Ok, that was fun! Did that make sense? Questions? Points of order? Clarifications or changes in emphasis? Expansions? Go ahead, ask me another! Leave comments below – let’s start a conversation.