Commuter Zen #72

Can’t wait…

If you’re a film buff, you probably recall director Ron Fricke’s fantastic, visually stunning outings like Koyaanisqatsi or Baraka. Fricke’s newest work is a sequel, of sorts, to the latter. Entitled Samsara, the film is described by the director as a “guided meditation on the cycle of birth death and rebirth.” It was shot on 70mm film — one of just a handful of films to be shot in such a loving way over the past forty years — in some 25 countries. Here’s the story from the film’s website:

Samsara is a word that describes the ever turning wheel of life. It is a concept both intimate and vast – the perfect subject for filmmakers Ron Fricke and Mark Magidson, whose previous collaborations include Chronos and Baraka, and who, in the last 20 years, have travelled to over 58 countries together in the pursuit of unique imagery.Samsara takes the form of a nonverbal, guided meditation that will transform viewers in countries around the world as they are swept along a journey of the soul. Through powerful images pristinely photographed in 70mm and a dynamic music score, the film illuminates the links between humanity and the rest of the nature, showing how our life cycle mirrors the rhythm of the planet.

via Shambhala SunSpace » Director Ron Fricke to deliver Samsara, the movie.

Commuter Zen #77

Here’s another installment in a series of emails that took place between Michael and one of his senior students beginning the Summer of 2009. May you find the exchange interesting and enriching.

September 13,  2010

Student: What does “being wrong” mean from the enlightened or Infinite perspective?

Michael: It’s just like “being right.” From an enlightened perspective it’s like a punchline to the funniest of all jokes. You know, the one about there being a division between up and down, black and white, you and me, right and wrong. From the enlightened perspective, these boundaries can be recognized but they also can be seen through, thus making any claim to rightness or wrongness kind of silly.

Student: But some things are wrong, though. Don’t we have a moral imperative to prevent, for example, war and injustice?

Michael: Of course. But if we attach to our sense of what a moral imperative is or is not, we will then end up declaring war on war. This doesn’t solve anything. Instead it only makes things more brutal. On the other hand, truly meeting the roots of war, and by extension injustice, allows for us to see through any egoic definitions of right or wrong and allows for us to embody an undivided approach to any situation. This undivided approach isn’t opposed to anything and can therefore offer its expression as peace.

Student: This makes sense. So there’s no such thing as an “anti-war” position that isn’t actually warlike?

Michael: I’d say this is true. The undivided approach would offer itself as a “pro-peace” position.

Student: So is it possible, based on what you’re saying, that an enlightened master is never really wrong or right?

Michael: Give me one person, enlightened or not, that is “never” anything and I’ll give you… uh… a bow. The spiritual marketplace has historically found itself full of teachers that do things that are “wrong” based on the ethical standards that they themselves offer up. Perhaps this makes them “unenlightened.” What I might add here is that an awakened being isn’t ever caught by what the mind sees as right or wrong. From this un-caught place, they engage their world consciously with the intention not to do harm.

February 18th, 2012

GREEN GULCH  FARM ZEN CENTER

This one-day sitting will involve sitting and walking meditation, Dharma talks, Q & A and, by request, private interviews with Michael.

Confirmation will be sent to you when your $80 payment is received. Click the link below and you will be taken to our shopping cart check-out, followed up by our Paypal link. Once you click the Paypal link, you will have the option to pay with a credit card of your choice.

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Commuter Zen #76

With this in mind, Michael points out the ways in which we cling to the very things that prevent enlightenment. Past and future orientation, for example, in addition to preferences, will always point us in the direction of our attachments. These attachments end up defining the boundaries of our delusion. But the gift of these limitations are that each of them shows us what we need to get past in order to awaken to the Truth that lies beyond name and form.

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Feel free to subscribe to this podcast on iTunes.

Click on the player below, in order to listen to Michael McAlister’s talk.

Commuter Zen #75

September 1, 2010

Student: What is empathy?

Michael: An impersonal gift of seeing someone totally. We could also think of it as the opposite of greed.

Student: Makes sense. On another point, there are questions still surrounding what appears to be the separation between my experience and your experience. There is something that wants to make this separation the reality instead of seeing that it is an arising within one awareness that we share. So with that said, what is it that is stuck within experience that still sees you as apart from me?

Michael: Sounds like your small self is still fighting against the Big Self’s offering. This, of course, is understandable. Big Self is inviting the small self to recognize the fact that it is perpetually partial in its offering. Put simply, the ego hangs on to separation as a way of keeping its job.

The gift of non-separation that the Big Self sings means death to the small self’s priority, or, in Western terms, it is akin to ego death.

Student: The Big Self kills the small self?

Michael: No. There is no killing of anything as our awareness expands. We just begin to realize what is and what is not useful. We go past but bring along what we’ve always had in the same way that we’ve gone past our teenage and yet we bring it along in our experience as we mature. So we could say that the realization of the Big Self utterly diminishes the position of power that the small self has always known and has expected to maintain. And yet despite its newly diminished role, we bring the small self along as we deepen our practice.

Student: Something in me gets this intuitively but I can’t say that I understand what you’re saying. But the fact that I do not understand doesn’t negate or deny awareness.

Michael: Right. Awareness is beyond anything that you could ever consider “yours.”

Student: So I am before the “I” that thinks it understands. So who is left to want to understand what you’re saying?

Michael: Who, indeed. Awareness doesn’t want anything. Wanting can only arise from something that feels as if it is apart from the deep singularity.

Student: So this wanting comes from the mind, or the ego, or the small self that’s craving understanding?

Michael: Precisely.

Commuter Zen #74

At least 2 million Buddhists currently practice their religion in the United States, and many of their fellow citizens disapprove. A survey conducted by political scientists Robert Putnam and David Campbell, coauthors of American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us 2010, endeavored to determine how Americans perceive the nation’s major religions and found that Buddhists rank second to last, above only Muslims, writes James Coleman in Buddhadharma Fall 2011.

via Bad Buddhist Vibes — Emerging Ideas — Utne Reader.

February 18th, 2012

GREEN GULCH  FARM ZEN CENTER

This one-day sitting will involve sitting and walking meditation, Dharma talks, Q & A and, by request, private interviews with Michael.

Confirmation will be sent to you when your $80 payment is received. Click the link below and you will be taken to our shopping cart check-out, followed up by our Paypal link. Once you click the Paypal link, you will have the option to pay with a credit card of your choice.

Register Now

If you have any questions, contact Kristi.

Via David Sillito of the BBC comes this report — with more to come — featuring Buddhist monk Matthieu Ricard (aka, the “happiest man in the world”) and others, exploring the connection behind mindfulness meditation and science.

Here’s another installment in a series of emails that took place between Michael and one of his senior students beginning the Summer of 2009. May you find the exchange interesting and enriching.

August 22, 2010

Student: So what does it look like when one eventually lets go of the essential questions “Who am I?” and “What am I?” I mean at some point even these must lose their ability to push us anywhere if we’ve gone beyond our sense of “I.”

Michael: There is an automatic surrender of any self-reference as our “essentiality” reveals itself. This doesn’t mean that you never think anymore. Rather, thought becomes an option while acting on these options become choices that are informed at a deeper level of consciousness. So on the one hand you’re right, these questions no longer really push us. On the other hand, they offer us an orientation since questioning our most basic level of clinging, to the self or the “I,” keeps our awakening dynamic and engaged.

Student: So then how does teaching at this level work? I’ve seen you and other teachers use words to point a person beyond their questions and I just don’t get how it works.

Michael: I’m not really sure. It’s kind of a mystery to me. All I can say is that teaching, or should I say “pointing,” seems to involve the totality of being in one person that gets presented to what is, as yet, the unknown totality of being in another. It’s like a fire, where one log is burning brightly and a new log is placed next to the one that’s burning. First, the new log has to be ready to ignite, but once it is the more the fire can grow between the logs. The interesting thing is that anything can seemingly cause this fire to ignite. Words, silence, pain, pleasure; anything at all can point us toward what is beyond the clinging mind.

Student: At what point is there absolutely no confusion and no fear about this process?

Michael: Confusion is at the root of fear. Deep clarity ends any confusion. Therefore deep clarity offers fearlessness. Continually asking the essential questions, “Who am I?” and “What am I?” begin to take us to this place since they can always act as means by which we can get beyond our minds. Getting beyond the mind and its habitual patterns helps us stay afloat and effectively navigate our experience no matter what our level of spiritual attainment might be since this is the core of any deep spiritual practice.

Student: And we’re never done?

Michael: Let’s hope not.

11/20/2011

Dear Sangha Member,

The Chinese proverb, “may you live in interesting times,” has never seemed so relevant to me. Yes, we live in interesting times, to be sure, maybe even a little scary, at times, but also filled with opportunity.

Many of us look at the Infinite Smile Sangha as just such an opportunity for spiritual growth and community. As “interesting times” seem to destabilize us, increasingly the Sangha offers us a way of meeting our lives in truly constructive ways. So while technology allows for us to know more about our circumstances at ever-increasing speed, it also allows for our teacher, Michael McAlister, to share his teachings, and our work as a spiritual community, with thousands of people from more than 120 countries across the globe.

But this can only happen because of the generosity shown by those touched by Michael’s secular Buddhist teachings. To those of you who’ve found value in Infinite Smile and feel that these teachings, as well as our work as a community, seem to make the world feel a little less crazy, we’re asking for your financial support.

Please donate to Infinite Smile in order to help keep the Infinite Smile Sangha’s work thriving. Any amount will help. If you could send a check to the address below or click here in order to use your credit or debit card.
Take care and have a great holiday season.

Thank you,

M
Mark Erickson

President, The Infinite Smile Sangha, Inc.
mark@InfiniteSmile.org

Infinite Smile Sangha, Inc.
P.O. Box 636
Lafayette, CA 94549
Ph# 925-871-1622

____

August 13, 2010

Student: Does investigation ever cease as this process and practice matures?

Michael: Let’s hope not, as long as “investigation” is the same thing as curiosity. If, on the other hand, we’re looking at “investigation” as somehow connected with fascination, then we’re probably blocking our progress on the path in some subtle ways.

Student: How so?

Michael: When “fascination” gives way to open and unbound curiosity, ego loses its position of primacy. Once this happens we are prone to the holy accident of Grace. If our curiosity is attached to “getting” an answer or “understanding” a concept then we will find ourselves hooked by our minds. This is ego’s arena and it fuels a mental feedback loop that keeps us from the harmonious resonance that awakening offers us.

___

Feel free to subscribe to this podcast on iTunes.

Click on the player below, in order to listen to Michael McAlister’s talk.

Commuter Zen #73

Here’s another installment in a series of emails that took place between Michael and one of his senior students beginning the Summer of 2009. May you find the exchange interesting and enriching.

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August 12, 2010

Student: Do you find yourself working to unlearn stuff on this path and, if so, why? For the sake of clarity? Why is an unlearning step needed at all? Isn’t it more of an allowing clarity to be what it is, instead of letting go of knowledge?

Michael: I’d say “unlearning” is the same thing as letting go. It’s as spontaneous as it is intentional and it’s the natural byproduct of an authentic stillness practice. It’s also worth noting that letting go supports clarity as much as clarity supports letting go. I sometimes refer to this opening as “Knowing” since it is beyond the “knowing” of mind. So it’s true, based on my experience, that our intellectual strengths can become a hindrance if our practice becomes about “getting it.” Instead of “getting” anything, we let go of everything in order to uncover what our interpretations have hidden from us.

Student: Mind, you keep saying, is just another object arising out of the the one subject, awareness. Yet the mind is what interprets awareness?

Michael: Yes. The mind interprets what arises in awareness, but I’m trying to point you toward what is prior to interpretation. Remember that mind is an object. It isn’t personal unless it offers itself meaning through an identity. As long as I, me, and mine don’t arise with any opposing you, they, yours, theirs, it, its, etc. then mind is merely a simple facet of awareness that can’t dominate experience by becoming a reflection of itself; one that thinks it’s somehow separate from the Deep Singularity.

I think, on a side note, that Deep Singularity would be a great name for peanut butter. Don’t you?

Student: What would go well with Deep Singularity in a sandwich? Swiss cheese? Whatever.

Okay, humor aside, so the mind is conditioned because it’s always feeling separate from everything while awareness isn’t because it includes everything. The Witness is still conditioned, isn’t it? Is this where the slight contraction comes from? A totally unconditioned Witness would be pure consciousness?

Michael: In a certain respect, the Witness is conditioned, just like a bridge is conditioned by its opposing shores. On the other hand, the Witness is the mirror that reflects any and all conditions. So it “occupies” an entirely different level of awareness, while at the same time, it is “held” within each reflection of the Infinite. This is why we can refer to it as being an awakened contraction of what is forever beyond contraction.

Oh, and I’m thinking Deep Singularity & Witness… on sourdough.

Student: Sounds tasty. Speaking of tasty, are people attracted to sages like Ramana Maharshi because, as he says, always remains as he is, and is therefore beyond contraction? Is it like he no longer experiences arisings any more, or is like the ocean perpetually without waves? I’m not sure I said that right. He reflects everything, so he reflects nothing. He is perfectly full, so clear. The wisdom he embodies doesn’t need to talk or convey anything because being as it is, is complete. It’s all there, so to speak. There is nothing to give, or get, nothing to exchange in that spaciousness. And yet this isn’t right either, because the Infinite participates in the chaos and choreography of exchange each moment. So, again, why the attraction to Ramana Maharshi?

Michael: Of course it depends whom you talk to, but the “Maharshi Magnetism” arises out of our sense of seeing Emptiness embodied consciously and deeply in a being. It’s as if he and those like him let us glimpse Truth within ourselves when we are in his presence.

On the other hand, swimming in what Hindus call the shakti of the deeply realized beings like Maharshi can often let the ego think that it’s uncovered the totality of enlightenment when it has only tasted a small part of enlightenment’s sweetness. The taste, so to speak, is not the whole desert. The taste does, however, point us toward our own enlightened nature… forever sweet and utterly intoxicating. This probably best describes the reasons behind our attraction to great teachers and great teachings. It’s as if they make us drunk.

We have to be careful of this so that we don’t get addicted. We also must follow the path on our own. No one, not even someone as steeped in the Dharma as Ramana Maharshi can enlighten us. We’ve got to do the actual work of surrendering everything and then re-integrating all that we’ve let go of on our own.

With this in mind, our practice goes to another level the moment we become conscious of the fact that the arising attraction we have for both the sacred and the teachers of the sacred must be seen through in order for any kind of clarity to stabilize. We also, at some point, must break from the sweetness of the teacher for exactly the same reason.

Student: This goes for me too?

Michael: This goes for you too. There will be a point when you’ll see that it’s time for you to leave me and start teaching on your own.

Student: Sounds a little scary. Will I be angry with you or will I just get tired of it all?

Michael: Who knows? But rather than any of it being something to fear, I look at it as exciting. You, after all, will be going past me. In this way, the rhythm of awakening carries itself onward. Pretty cool. Just know that we’ll figure out how to celebrate this event when it comes.

Commuter Zen #72

A graphic shows traces of collision of particles at the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) on December 13, 2011 in Geneva.

Admittedly, I get geeky over stuff like this “God particle.” But for the record, I’m betting that God also shows up as a wave, depending on who’s … ahem… Witnessing.

Physics has a well-deserved reputation for being horrendously complicated, but sometimes its the simplest questions that lead to truly profound insights. When Einstein asked himself, “What would happen if you could ride on a beam of light?” for example, the answer led him to the Special Theory of Relativity.

For the past few decades, particle physicists have been wrestling with another deceptively simple question: Why does anything have mass? You might wonder “why not?” But according to modern physics, you cant get away that easily. The existence of mass — the property of matter that gives gravity something to pull on — needs explaining.

via God Particle Found? Search for the Higgs Boson Narrows – TIME.

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August 10, 2010

Student: Your words during last night’s Dharma talk invited understanding but not with the mind, and I know this because I can’t remember a word you said. How does one know there is understanding, if it doesn’t take residence in the mind?

Michael: Curious isn’t it? When understanding doesn’t need any foundation or any familiar kind of strip on which to land it often hits us in ways that feel really unfamiliar. It’s a bit of a mystery, as if we can see with, and from, our hearts.

Student: It seems as though when the mind tries to make sense out of chaos, it feels like it has to dodge bullets, but when the heart accepts chaos, and sees, it looks just like wind and the infinite naturalness remains unbothered.

Michael: Beautifully said.

Student: On another point, you also mentioned that standing or teetering on the edge of our experience of reality, or something like that, is an invitation to take another step. Where do you step after that last step has been taken?

Michael: Quite simply, one realizes that they can stop stepping toward or away from anything. Put another way we take a leap, fearing that we won’t be able to fly, which of course we can’t. But the big realization is that we don’t need to fly because there is no longer any gravity to resist. We start to see that we just can’t hit any ground. Just like we “fall” in love, so too do we “fall” awake.

Student: Or soar awake?

Michael: That works. The main point is that the “you” doesn’t step any longer. It has disappeared, in order to potentially to reintegrate as a “You” that sees with its eyes and its heart. The heart recognizes that All is one, one is many, All is many. One gem with many facets. One chocolate mousse, lots of fat. Wait… sorry. I have a weakness for chocolate. I try to stare at that with the heart but not get caught up in the indulgence of it.

Anyway, to go back a little, always explore any seeing with an open heart. Then start to “stare” at experience, without sunglasses, from this opening. Just know that the clarity may destroy the defenses that you’ve been using to get through an egoically oriented life.

Student: But this is the goal.

Michael: Okay. Just don’t cling to that idea. Stare at the experience, with your heart, and then let go.

“When awakening happens,” he says, “there is the realization that all form is experienced within the emptiness of the True Self… this is Buddha.”

To what extent are we committed to uncovering this realization? Do we hedge our bets as we approach our spiritual path by clinging to whatever doubts or excuses we may have no matter how subtle they may be? These and other questions provide the structure and inspire the content of this Dharma talk.

___

Feel free to subscribe to this podcast on iTunes.

Click on the player below, in order to listen to Michael McAlister’s talk.

Commuter Zen #71

Here’s another installment in a series of emails that took place between Michael and one of his senior students beginning in August of 2009. May you find the exchange interesting and enriching.

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July 29, 2010 (#22)

Student: Would it be accurate to say that the ego is strengthened each time we believe that something is wrong? I am noticing something nudging me to believe that there is something wrong with the fact that, even with negative stuff happening, I still don’t think there is anything wrong.

Michael: You mean in some way there is a presence in you that is seeing things as situations rather than as problems?

Student: I guess. Maybe, but I still don’t get what the heck is up with the ego not giving up trying to make me take things personally? Does the nudge ever go away completely? And when the so-called negative happenings are being let slide by without grabbing and coddling and the valuing of them like I used to do, then, other people come to me with their “problems.” Funny. Living from this place, I am finding, is not seen by most people. It feels oddly alienating and I hear the ego telling me to forget all of this teaching, go back to the group and then I won’t be alone. All will be okay again. But of course this is ridiculous and can’t be done. Something deep in me knows that there’s no turning back. Oy!

Michael: There’s a lot to work with here in that you’ve rattled off a series of stories, all of which have inertia. Remember that ego’s primary job is to protect itself by clinging to whatever it thinks will keep it safe. So, by extension, ego clinging to stories about what is “negative” or “personal” and what isn’t is the same thing as ego working to keep itself large and in charge. Seeing through this folly gives birth to a wisdom that, like you said, is alienating. But we can’t go back. We can only keep heroically exploring our tendencies and habits in order to see through them. Once we can do this, we also see that there is no such thing as alienation except to the thing in us that has felt separate all along.

Student: The ego?

Michael: Yep.

Student: So in a weird way I guess we can hope that negativity and personal interpretations of situations don’t die off. Because they won’t. They’ll always be there if the ego is in charge. But if we can stabilize a sense experience that goes beyond our clinging we can continually relate to our negativity from a much broader perspective.

Michael: Well put. Are you ready?

When questioned about any regrets they had or anything they would do differently, common themes surfaced again and again. Here are the most common five:

1. I wish Id had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me. This was the most common regret of all. When people realise that their life is almost over and look back clearly on it, it is easy to see how many dreams have gone unfulfilled. Most people had not honoured even a half of their dreams and had to die knowing that it was due to choices they had made, or not made. It is very important to try and honour at least some of your dreams along the way. From the moment that you lose your health, it is too late. Health brings a freedom very few realise, until they no longer have it.

Read on for the remaining four…

He also addresses an article that was shared with him in which Joseph Goldstein offers a way for busy people to “turbocharge” their practice in nine minutes a day. While this isn’t enough time to get at the roots of our delusion, both Michael and Joseph Goldstein agree that the exercises application can do wonders to deepen wherever we might be on the path.

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Feel free to subscribe to this podcast on iTunes.

Click on the player below, in order to listen to Michael McAlister’s talk.

Commuter Zen #70

Here’s another installment in a series of emails that took place between Michael and one of his senior students beginning in August of 2009. May you find the exchange interesting and enriching.

____

July 25^th, 2010

Student: Why does it seem as if I phase in and out of clarity? I mean I’m getting increasingly clear about who “I” am in the biggest sense, and from this perspective there is a noticing of the ego wanting to cling, then there’s an awareness of the ego fading into the background and foreground is all infinite, I don’t know, sky-like depth. But then comes an awareness of the ego attempting to reemerge along with the whole arrogance of it all. Is this normal? Did you go through this? Once one is clear about who one really is, shouldn’t everything fall into place naturally and effortlessly?

Michael: My experience has been one where “I” continually surf between the world of form and the formlessness of Emptiness. But in that space between there is no surfer. There is just awakened spaciousness. That’s the best way I can describe it, I guess. I get mad, sad, glad and even bad (ha!) but nothing really sticks. Stuff just keeps stabilizing at seemingly deeper and deeper levels that are way past a “me-sense.” Then again, stories are still written and they are also unwritten. Loss and gain both arise as do praise and blame. As we’ve discussed, stuff hurts more and yet matters less. It’s all there… but, oddly, it’s also not really there. Experiencing this unfolding perspective offers a tremendous freedom.

Student: But did you ever notice the ego jumping back into position, calling the shots?

Michael: Sure. I still do. But for years I noticed a great, increasing stability in my practice after my initial series of blasts. I got a little lazy once this happened though. Looking back on it, it seems clear as day that the ego was still at work in just very subtle ways. This subtlety became totally obvious with the advent of children. The kids brought about an increase in work as well as a decrease in time I could dedicate to sleep and meditation.

In a weird way, this slip, so to speak, deepened the practice in that attachments were experienced viscerally as well as mentally. I don’t recommend it, but sleep loss does wonders for this.

Student: So how’d you “get it back?”

Michael: I never “had it” to begin with, but the practice kept putting the light of awareness on what the small self wanted to remain in the dark. It’s as if forcing the meditation practice, even when all I wanted was a nap, kept showing the small self that it could no longer expect to be the boss any longer. It would have to sneak around in the shadows of consciousness hoping to find an opening into which it could assert itself. It’s as if there is a Knowing that the damage has been done, and yet I’m still always surprised at how delusion still pops up.

Student: So the moral of this story is to practice regularly.

Michael: I think so. Practice always shows us, regardless of our position on the path, that there’s a deep awareness that continually shows us that we’re never finished; that any “I” can always enjoy the thrill of a tremendous failure or success even after realization. But this is what makes life so much fun; we can always relish delusion’s subtleties. That I can be really, truly normal enough to cheer when the Giants win, and cry when I’m moved by love or loss. That good cigars and good wine and good food always thrill only a little bit less than the sight of a beautiful women dancing. That I can die well, knowing I’ve touched lives by showing less and less “I.” That I can die old and happy, with grandchildren who what the hell I’m talking about.

Then again, this is all just a series of stories that I’m not really attached to, nor am I clear on any of it really. It all dissolves into an ever collapsing Witness of everything that ever arises.

With this in mind, we seem to be trained in this culture to always want more, or less, of things and experiences. We seemingly spend very little time appreciating what we have in the here and now. What’s more, the nondual teachings of “Emptiness” and how it appears to be an utter void to the mind, can be experienced as total fulfillment to our deepest sense of being. Michael approaches this evening’s talk with this paradox and offers up pointers on how to bring about the fullness of Emptiness in the midst of every single experience we might have.

___

Feel free to subscribe to this podcast on iTunes.

Click on the player below, in order to listen to Michael McAlister’s talk.

Commuter Zen #69

Here’s another installment in a series of emails that took place between Michael and one of his senior students beginning in August of 2009. May you find the exchange interesting and enriching.

____

July 16, 2010

Student: I’ve got a bunch of questions that have been popping up so I’m just going to spill them out and hope you can do something with them, okay?

Michael: Sure.

Student: Do you really not care one way or another if anyone in the sangha, or anywhere else, finds their true nature or realizes enlightenment? Is not caring the same as not being attached to any outcome? What do you think would be different both in the sangha and with the teacher-student relationships if there was a caring? Do you think this is what that student was talking about when she asked after last night’s Dharma talk, during the Q & A, “where’s the heart in your teaching?” Do you think that that which pulls for a teacher to care one way or another is the same thing that resists either standing on its own two feet or the feeling of being left completely alone on the path.

Michael: Wow. There’s a lot there but I’ll try to piece something together here. First, if I said that “I don’t care” in relation to students finding their true natures, I misspoke. What I mean is that “I’m not attached to the outcome” of their work. Nor am I attached to mine. With that said, I care far more about their realization than I care for them as individuals. This often bums people out since they want a relationship that’s different from the one I’m interested in cultivating. Quite simply, I’m interested in delivering this teaching as best as possible more than I’m interested in developing new friendships. This doesn’t mean that I don’t care for people who come to hear me. On the contrary, I care very deeply. Deeply enough not to let them fall back on habitual egoic patterns. Egos hate this and often see it as heartless, and I know that my style is not for everyone. But, in my view, for a practitioner to let the teacher-student relationship to really take off, they must be willing to see and accept what’s actually going on within themselves as it relates to the relationships that they have, both with me and everyone else in their lives including their inner-most being.

Student: And students are afraid of this work, right?

Michael: Yes. It’s natural for this to be so. But it doesn’t make sense for any teacher, in my view, to simply play the role of rescuer. This just keeps the student stuck which is anything but compassionate, nor is it wise, for that matter. It’s most helpful when, as teachers, we allow for people to spin and spin and spin in the same eddy of life’s flow until they get sick enough of their patterns to garner the resolve they’ll need to make a 90 degree turn, thus breaking the cycle and developing a different perspective in the process. Supporting this move is my raison d’etre. It’s the only reason I do this work and increasingly it’s becoming the main focus of my life.

Student: Sounds like spiritual tough love.

Michael: That works, as long as smiles are seen in that mix. And, it should also be noted, there is a whole-lotta’ heart in this process even though people might see my approach as not caring or loving enough. I’m okay with this.

Student: So the best way to help a student realize the Truth, so to speak, is to let them fail?

Michael: The best way for a teacher to help a student that has fallen into a tar pit of ego is not to lift, clean, or pull the student out of the mess. Rather the teacher should ask the questions necessary for the student to uncover the core of the experiences they are having. This brings the light of consciousness into the darkness of their unconscious patterns. So back to our previous point: usually when people want more “heart” or they want to feel more love from their teacher, they really want to feel like someone’s got their back. Which is another way of saying that they want someone to keep them from falling into the tar pit. While I’m not interested in pushing people in to any tar pits, a person’s ability to navigate around it depends on the skill set their practice offers. This realization of skills is more important than whatever I might want to do in order to rescue them from their missteps.

Student: So in a way you want to see them fail?

Michael: I want to see them fearlessly meet their life in a fully exposed manner. I want them to be utterly open and vulnerable to this very moment and participate totally. When they are raw and consumed with feelings of being lost and at their wit’s end, I want them to become familiar with those feelings; so familiar with them that through their practice they no longer fear them.

Student: But do you ever feel like you have to push them there?

Michael: I’ve never had to. People usually show up to deep spiritual practice in a state of confused vulnerability. Pushing someone into this space isn’t appropriate in my view. In fact, it’s abusive. Having said this, the teaching ignites once both teacher and student can work together in a place of wonder rather than certitude. Once the wonder takes over, something is recognized showing us that there is a way out of the limited and a way into the limitless. From here it’s my job to just keep pointing the way, hoping that they’ll take the steps necessary to find strength enough in their own legs to step past me and carry the torch.

Regardless of our tradition, we can reduce our spiritual practice to its component pieces and find that Buddhism’s Four Noble Truths offers us a path toward freedom.

We first recognize our anguish, we then see it’s cause as our clinging, we then realize a freedom from our clinging is possible and finally we see that there is a teaching that helps support a stabilization of this realization of freedom.

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Feel free to subscribe to this podcast on iTunes.

Click on the player below, in order to listen to Michael McAlister’s talk.

Here’s another installment in a series of emails that took place between Michael and one of his senior students beginning in August of 2009. May you find the exchange interesting and enriching.

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July 15, 2010

Student: If experience isn’t personal (as in, why me? or, why not me?), then why do so many teachers and psychologists say that our thoughts create experience? Thoughts come from the person, last time I checked. Is it just that experience is not to be ‘taken’ personally?

Michael: Experience is personal when it meets mind. Prior to meeting mind, experience is Being. And yes, the gift we get to bring to experience gets revealed when we don’t take its content as a reflection or the result of anything personal. When we bring this gift of openness into whatever circumstance we find ourselves, we meet our lives with a quality of deep intimacy. Choosing to live as this closeness with all things has the potential to change everything. Everything.

Student: Okay, but if there is no one to make the choice, where did it come from? And with this in mind, why are we moved in particular directions?

Michael: While people make choices: ’tis only the mind that moves. And the mind is a personal aspect of the One. Herein lies the fun part. There is one and there is many… all at once. Choice is that very partiality of the many moving as a creative expression of the One.

Student: So is it the mind that engages in that dance of many and One? Does awareness engage through the mind, then?

Michael: The mind is the dance. Awareness never engages. Rather, awareness supports the expression of itself as any movement, much as energy expresses itself through any of us at any moment in time in anything that we do.

Student: So we’re always dancing.

Michael: We are limitless expressions of the interplay between love and light at every moment. The radiance of this limitlessness is seen by others when our egos stop veiling the love and light that is trying to see itself through them. So get out of the way and watch what happens.

Love can never be made safe. It is the opposite of safe. The moment you try to make it safe, it ceases to be love. I realize this is a bummer, but think about it. Love is predicated on receptivity, on opening up again and again and again to your beloved, each time afresh. To do this, you have to let go of insisting that he or she conform to your standards for what a lover should look like, do, be, say, and instead allow him or her to simply be him or herself. Then you take it from there. To do otherwise, to continually choose who you wish this person was over who he or she actually is, is, well, it’s not love. I don’t know what it is.

Read on…

via Buddhism & Heartbreak: 3 Suggestions for Mending Your Broken Heart. ~ Susan Piver | elephant journal.

For beauty is nothing but the beginning of terror
which we are barely able to endure, and it amazes us so,
because it serenely disdains to destroy us.

This sets up his talk by making the point that it’s in our desire to categorize and compartmentalize experience that we defile what’s being offered. He goes on to say that “if we don’t mess with suffering we free ourselves from suffering’s mess.” While this may sound counterintuitive, it is the path offered to each of us as our meditation practice deepens.

Gaining a sense of safety is usually what attracts us to practice. We seek an escape from what our reality is offering and initially meditative work can offer us refuge. But at some point, what initially appeared to us as a refuge begins to reveal itself as something entirely different. As our practice deepens and our individual consciousness is loosened on universal awareness, we begin to see that all manner of negativity and resistance begins to arise the more exposed we feel. This is precisely what meditation is designed to do: force a deepening realization that we can not get any closer to Spirit than we already are. Facing this beauty and then accepting all of its implications allows for Rilke’s point to settle within our hearts, thereby offering us up as continual expressions of love.

___

Feel free to subscribe to this podcast on iTunes.

Click on the player below, in order to listen to Michael McAlister’s talk.

In this interview posted on Integral Life, originally included in The Collected Works of Ken Wilber: Volume IV, Ken offers an in-depth description of each of the major state-stages of meditative practice—ranging from psychic absorption, to subtle illumination, to causal transcendence, to the ultimate nondual embrace of form and Emptiness.

Q: We would like you to describe the experiences of several stages of meditation. But first, tell us about meditation itself—the different types and how they work.

A: It is common among scholars to divide meditation into two broad categories, called “concentration” and “awareness” (or “insight”) meditation. Or, “opened” and “closed”. For example, let’s say you are looking at a wall that has hundreds of dots painted on it. In concentration meditation, you look at just one dot, and you look at it so fiercely that you don’t even see the other dots. This develops your powers of concentration. In awareness training, or insight meditation, you try to be as aware of all the dots as you can be. This increases your sensitivity, awareness, and wisdom, in that sense.

In concentration meditation, you put your attention on one object—a rock, a candle flame, your breathing, a mantra, the heart prayer, and so on. By intensely concentrating on a single object, you as subject gradually become “identified” with that object. You start to undercut subject/object dualism, which is the basis of all suffering and illusion. Gradually, higher and higher realms of existence, leading toward the ultimate or nondual dimension, are all made obvious to you. You transcend your ordinary self or ego, and find the higher and subtler dimensions of existence—the spiritual and transcendental.

However, this is reaching the higher dimensions by “brute force”, so to speak. And although concentration meditation is said to be very important, by itself it doesn’t uproot our tendencies to create dualism in the first place. In fact, it just ignores them, it tries to bypass them. It focuses on one dot and ignores all the others. Concentration meditation can definitely show us some of the higher realms, but it can’t permanently install us at those higher realms. For that, you have to look at all the dots. You have to investigate all of experience, with detachment, nonjudgmentalism, equanimity, and crystal clear awareness.

Q: That’s insight or awareness meditation.

A: Yes, that’s right. The Buddhists call concentration meditation shamatha and awareness meditation vipassana, ordhyana and prajna. The former leads to samadhi, or one-pointed concentration, the latter to satori, or transcendental awareness and wisdom.

The point about any of these meditation practices—and there are others, such as visualization, koan, contemplative prayer, and so on—the point is that they are all actually doing two important things. One, they are helping to still the dicursive, rational-existential mind, the mind that has to think all the time, the mind that has to chatter to itself all the time and verbalize everything. It helps us quiet that “monkey mind”. And once the monkey mind quiete down a bit, it allows the subtler and higher dimensions of awareness to emerge—such as the psychic, the subtle, the causal, and the ultimate or nondual.  That is the essence of genuine meditation. It is simply a way to continue evolution, to continue our growth and development.

THE PSYCHIC LEVEL

Q: Could you describe the levels of meditation, and how they are experienced? What actually happens at each stage?

A: When you practice meditation, one of the first things you realize is that your mind—and your life, for that matter—is dominated by largely subconscious verbal chatter. You are always talking to yourself. And so, as they start to meditate, many people are stunned by how much junk starts running through their awareness. They find that thoughts, images, fantasies, notions, ideas, concepts virtually dominate their awareness. They realize that these notions have had a much more profound influence on their lives than they ever thought.

In any case, initial meditation experiences are like being at the movies. You sit and watch all these fantasies and concepts parade by, in front of your awareness. But the whole point is that you are finally becoming aware of them. You are looking at them impartially and without judgment. You just watch them go by, the same as you watch clouds float by in the sky. They come, they go. No praise, no condemnation, no judgment—just “bare witnessing”. If you judge your thoughts, if you get caught up in them, then you can’t transcend them. You can’t find higher or subtler dimensions of your own being. So you sit in meditation, and you simply “witness” what is going on in your mind. You let the monkey mind do what it wants, and you simply watch.

And what happens is, because you impartially witness these thoughts, fantasies, notions, and images, you start to become free of their unconscious influence. You are looking at them, so you are not using them to look at the world. Therefore you become, to a certain extent, free of them. And you become free of the separate-self sense that depended on them. In other words, you start to become free of the ego. This is the initial spiritual dimension, where the conventional ego “dies” and higher structures of awareness are “resurrected”. Your sense of identity naturally begins to expand and embrace the cosmos, or all of nature. You rise above the isolated mind and body, which might include finding a larger identity, such as with nature or the cosmos—”cosmic consciousness”, as R. M. Bucke called it. It’s a very concrete and unmistakable experience.

And, I don’t have to tell you, this is an extraordinary relief! This is the beginning of transcendence, of finding your way back home. You realize that you are one with the fabric of the universe, eternally. Your fear of death begins to subside, and you actually begin to feel, in a concrete and palpable way, the open and transparent nature of your own being.

Feelings of gratitude and devotion arise in you—devotion to Spirit, in the form of the Christ, or Buddha, or Krishna; or devotion to your actual spiritual master; even devotion in general, and certainly devotion to all other sentient beings. The bodhisattva vow, in whatever form, arises from the depths of your being, in a very powerful way. You realize you simply have to do whatever you can to help all sentient beings, and for the reason, as Schopenhauer said, that you realize that we all share the same nondual Self or Spirit or Absolute. All of this starts to become obvious—as obvious as rain on the roof. It is real and it is concrete.

THE SUBTLE LEVEL

Q: So what about the next general stage, the subtle level?

A: As your identity begins to transcend the isolated and individual bodymind, you start to intuit that there is a Ground of Being or genuine Divinity, beyond ego, and beyond appeals to mythic god figures or rationalistic scientism or existential bravery. This Deity form can actually be intuited. The more you develop beyond the isolated and existential bodymind, the more you develop toward Spirit, which, at the subtle level, is often experienced as Deity Form or archetypal Self. By that I mean, for example, very concrete clarity and brilliance of awareness.

The point is that you are seeing something beyond nature, beyond the existential, beyond the psychic, beyond even cosmic identity. You are starting to see the hidden or esoteric dimension, the dimension outside the ordinary cosmos, the dimension that transcends nature. You see the Light, and sometimes this Light literally shines like the light of a thousand suns. It overwhelms you, empowers you, energizes you, remakes you, drenches you. This is what scholars have called the “numinous” nature of subtle spirit. Numinous and luminous. This is, I believe, why saints are universally depicted with halos of light around their heads. That is actually what they see. Divine Light. My favorite reading from Dante:

Fixing my gaze upon the Eternal Light
I saw within its depths,
Bound up with love together in one volume,
The scattered leaves of all the universe.
Within the luminous profound subsistence
Of that Exalted Light saw I three circles
Of three colors yet of one dimension
And by the second seemed the first reflected
As rainbow is by rainbow, and the third
Seemed fire that equally from both is breathed.

That is not mere poetry. That is an almost mathematical description of one type of experience of the subtle level. Anyway, you can also experience this level as a discovery of your own higher self, you soul, the Holy Spirit. “He who knows himself knows God,” said Saint Clement.

Q: And the actual experience itself?

A: The actual experience varies. Here is one example: Say you are walking downtown, looking in shop windows. You’re looking at some of the merchandise, and all of a sudden you see a vague image dance in front of your eyes, the image of a person. Then all at once you realize that it is your own reflection in the shop window. You suddenly recognize yourself. You recognize your Self, your higher Self. You suddenly recognize who you are. And who you are is—a luminous spark of the Divine. But it has that shock of recogniztion— “Oh, that!”

It’s a very concrete realization, and usually brings much laughter or much tears. The subtle Deity form or Light or Higher Self—those are all just archetypes of your own Being. You are encountering, via meditative development, and beginning a direct encounter with Spirit, with your own essence. So it shows up as light, as a being of light, as nada, as shabd, as clarity, numinosity, and so on. And sometimes it just shows up as a simple and clear awareness of what is—very simple, very clear. The point is that it is aware of all the dots on the wall. It is clearly aware of what is happening moment to moment, and therefore transcends the moment. It transcends this world, and starts to partake of the Divine. It has sacred outlook, however it might be expressed. That’s the subtle—a face to face introduction to the Divine. You actually participate in Divinity, and in the awareness and wisdom of Divinity. It is a practice. It can be done. It has been done, many times.

THE CAUSAL LEVEL

Q: That’s very clear. So what about the next level, the causal?

A: You’re sitting there, just witnessing everything that arises in the mind, or in your present experience. You are trying to witness, equally, all the dots on the wall of your awareness. If you become proficient at this, eventually rational and existential dots die down, and psychic dots start to come into focus. Then, after a while, you get better at witnessing, so subtler objects or dots start to show up. These include lights and audible illuminations and subtle Deity forms and so on. If you continue simply witnessing—which helps you disidentify from lower and grosser forms, and become aware of the higher and subtler forms—even subtle objects or subtle dots themselves cease to arise. You enter a profound state of nonmanifestation, which is experienced like, say, an autumn night with a full moon. There is an eerie and beautiful numinosity to it all, but it’s a “silent” or “black” numinosity. You can’t really see anything except a kind of silvery fullness, filling all space. But because you’re not actually seeing any particular object, it is also a type of Radical Emptiness. As Zen says, “stop the sound of that stream.” This is variously known as shunyata, as the Cloud of Unknowing, Divine Ignorance, Radical Mystery, nirguna (“unqualifiable”) Brahman, and so on. Brilliant formlessness, with no objects detracting from it.

It becomes obvious that you are absolutely one with this Fullness, which transcends all worlds and all planes and all time and all history. You are perfectly full, and therefore you are perfectly empty. “It is all things and it is no things,” said the Christian mystic Boethius. Awe gives way to certainty. That’s who you are, prior to all manifestation, prior to all worlds. In other words, it is seeing who or what you are timelessly, formlessly.

That’s an example of the causal level; that’s jnana samadhi, nirvikalpa samadhi, and so on. The soul, or separate-self sense, disappears, and God or separate Deity form disappears, because both—soul and God—collaps into formless Godhead. Both soul and God disappear into the Supreme Identity.

THE NONDUAL LEVEL

Q: So that leaves the nondual level.

A: In the previous causal level, you are so absorbed in the unmanifest dimension that you might not even notice the manifest world. You are discovering Emptiness, and so you ignore Form. But at the ultimate or nondual level, you integrate the two. You see that Emptiness appears or manifests itself as Form, and that Form has as its essence Emptiness. In more concrete terms, what you are is all things that arise. All manifestation arises, moment by moment, as a play of Emptiness. If the causal was like a radiant moonlit night, this is like a radiant autumn day.

What appear as hard or solid objects “out there” are really transparent and translucent manifestations of your own Being or Isness. They are not obstacles to God, only expressions of God. They are therefore empty in the sense of not being and obstruction or impediment. They are a free expression of the Divine. As the Mahamudra tradition succintly puts it, “All is Mind. Mind is Empty. Empty is freely-manifesting. Freely-manifesting is self-liberating.”

The freedom that you found at the causal level—the freedom of Fullness and Emptiness—that freedom is found to extend to all things, even to this “fallen” world of sin and samsara. Therefore, all things become self-liberated. And this extraordinary freedom, or absence of restriction, or total release—this clear bright autumn day—this is what you actually experience at this point. But then “experience” is the wrong word altogether. This realization is actually of the nonexperiential nature of Spirit. Experiences come and go. They all have a beginning in time, and an end in time. Even subtle experiences come and go. They are all wonderful, glorious, extraordinary. And they come, and they go.

But this nondual “state” is not itself another experience. It is simply the opening or clearing in which all experiences arise and fall. It is the bright autumn sky through which the clouds come and go—it is not itself another cloud, another experience, another object, another manifestation. This realization is actually of the utter fruitlessness of experience, the utter futility of trying to experience release or liberation. All experiences lose their taste entirely—these passing clouds.

You are not the one who experiences liberation; you are the clearing, the opening, the emptiness, in which any experience comes and goes, like reflections on the mirror. And you are the mirror, the mirror mind, and not any experienced reflection. But you are not apart from the reflections, standing back and watching. You are everything that is arising moment to moment. You can swallow the whole cosmos in one gulp, it is so small, and you can taste the entire sky without moving an inch.

This is why, in Zen, it is said that you cannot enter the Great Samadhi: it is actually the opening or clearing that is ever-present, and in which all experience—and all manifestation—arises moment to moment. It seems like you “enter” this state, except that once there, you realize there was never a time that this state wasn’t fully present and fully recognized—”the gateless gate”. And so you deeply understand that you never entered this state; nor did the Buddhas, past of future, ever enter this state.

In Dzogchen, this is the recognition of mind’s true nature. All things, in all worlds, are self-liberated as they arise. All things are like sunlight on the water of a pond. It all shimmers. It is all empty. It is all light. It is all full, and it is all fulfilled. And the world goes on its ordinary way, and nobody notices at all.

Here’s another installment in a series of emails that took place between Michael and one of his senior students beginning in August of 2009. May you find the exchange interesting and enriching.

____

July 14, 2010

Student: Each time you point at infinity, you have to, as teacher, point to a concept which is only a “thing” representing infinity, rather than the whole of infinity itself. Put another way, your words can’t ever sum up what they’re pointing out. Doesn’t this kind of make teaching impossible? For example, saying “you are what was before the first thought” creates a boundary since even the idea of before draws a distinction between itself and an after. Are there any words that aren’t like bricks?

Michael: It might be helpful to look at this from two angles. First, everything, even words, are expressions of the Infinite. The same applies to bricks: sourced from and expressions of the Infinite in every way. Second, and this is where we typically run into trouble, any thing can act as a “brick” if we see it as substantial and fixed. Once we fall into this trap, words used for teaching, even though they may be poetic, can become merely crude pointers for teacher an student alike. Seeing this trap can get us past it. Getting past it we find that we are continually offered an audience with the Mystery where Being and experience are revealed as an expression of this moment; of this immediacy that is prior to thought and feeling… and we are That.

Student: How are Being and experience the same?

Michael: Experience is consciousness that has registered the meaning of any movement. Being, on the other hand, is the infinite, free-functioning availability of a continually choiceless Awareness. Both Being and experience are forever dancing together as stillness that is creatively revealing itself as movement; Emptiness being continually birthed as form, so to speak.

Student: Okay, but if no movement is registered in experience, is this staying as pure awareness?

Michael: Essentially. Letting stillness arise throughout the experience of one’s body offers a felt sense of Awareness.

Student: Is the registering of movement a slight contraction of the Witness?

Michael: No. The contraction of the Witness shows up as an interpretation of whatever is moving. Ego is expressed here at the birth of this contraction. An un-contracted Witness, on the other hand, is like a mirror, reflecting all that arises in the open field of Awareness without any interpretation. This mirror, so to speak, is stillness, and stillness is non-other than a way of describing the fundamental quality of Awareness. And yet it is still, as a mirror, subjective and participatory in that it is expressed as the slightest contraction of Awareness.

Student: So the Witness, isn’t the final stop?

Michael: Technically, no. The Witness is simply the end of the line when it comes to subjectivity. Past the Witness there is only the swirl of what in Zen we call, Suchness; an Infinite grace of no-thing-ness that shows up as every-thing-ness.

According to the research conducted by Britta Holzel, mindfulness meditation can have benefits for health and performance, including improved immune function, reduced blood pressure, and enhanced cognitive function.

By using a framework approach to understand the mechanisms of mindfulness, Holzel and her co-authors point out that what we think of as mindfulness is a multi-faceted mental practice that encompasses several mechanisms rather than being a single skill.

The authors of the study specifically identify four key components of mindfulness that may account for its effects: attention regulation, body awareness, emotion regulation, and sense of self.

via Buddhist Channel | Buddhism News, Headlines | Healing & Spirituality | Meditation improves quality of life.

This post was originally offered in June of 2008 as part of the book, 

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There is a difference between consciously aligning our lives from stillness and not feeling any need to get out of bed in the morning. A commitment to stillness doesn’t mean that we should absolve ourselves of any directed activity. This is simple laziness, which is nothing other than avoidance, and avoidance is an attachment to something other than what is arising in the present moment. All practitioners can fall prey to their attachment to nonattachment. This clinging to nonclinging impedes Awakening as well as anything else on the Path and is quite a common ailment among even the most experienced of those who meditate. It is possible for any of us to grasp at our sense of the Absolute. Even those of us teaching can find ourselves attached to our teaching. Instead of still seeing ourselves a students of the Dharma who happen to be a little further along the Path than the people who see us as teachers, we can begin to think of ourselves as being beyond the need to practice. Being wary of this hazard deepens our practice as well as our approach to expressing ourselves fully through conscious living. But the fact remains, whether we are attaching to the Absolute or to the world, we are still locked into, and caught by, the cause of all suffering—attachment. In the end, these and all other forms of clinging are what force us off the summit and back down the slopes that we’ve previously climbed, thus preventing the unfolding of Awakening.

One of the most important conversations I have ever had with any of my teachers involved this issue. During a silent retreat, I had an experience in meditation that left me in a state that still, even after all these years, leaves me breathless. It was like I’d just melted away, and what was left was just the shimmer of life and the Knowing that this shimmer was, for lack of a better term, me. It was an experience similar to ones I’d had years before I ever started to meditate, but this event left me even more off-balance. All things in my awareness seemed to exist in a certain poignant disarray. All that I witnessed was within my Awareness, which was nothing other than me. Paradoxically, it was as if nothing mattered since all things were imbued with beautiful and boundless grace and yet all things were filled with meaning. For several days, this state of deep, silent awareness carried itself through my sleep, my eating, and my sitting. The chores that I did around the meditation hall each morning became less of a concern, and I started to miss areas that I normally swept clean. But I didn’t care. At one point I even chose to sleep through morning meditation since nothing really mattered to me. I was filled with a certain feeling of open completion; nothing needed to be done. Everything was forever finished.

I lingered in this spaciousness as I approached the door to my teacher’s sitting room before one of our meetings. There was the distinct sense arising within me that, for the first time, there were no questions to ask him. There was only the shimmer. I felt nicely stuck in this expansive state of consciousness. I entered his room, bowed to the alter and then stepped sideways, positioning myself directly in front of him. I looked into his eyes and was amazed at how I felt totally anaesthetized to any gain or loss, honor or disgrace, praise or blame, pain or pleasure—there was no ego to be found. Returning his stare, I paused for a moment. I then bowed deeply to my teacher, who sat perfectly upright in full lotus. After my bow, I adjusted myself into a position that awkwardly mirrored his while his eyes kept staring through me. I didn’t feel scared or on edge like usual. I didn’t worry about appearing like I was progressing along the Path. I just sat, reflecting my teacher’s presence, quietly wondering what could be better than for me to stay like this. How remarkable it seemed that I was so unattached, unbothered, uncaring, and unmoved by this life. Surely this must be it, I thought. I must be done.

“Not if you’re looking to awaken beyond name and form,” my teacher said. I’d either accidentally lost control of my inner-dialog, or he had just read my mind. Both seemed equally plausible. Suddenly, all my bliss started to drain from me like water out of a bathtub. I started to get apprehensive and more than a little bit fearful. Where was all of my openness going? Within a few seconds, it felt like a balloon had popped and all of my hard-won freedom was gone.

“You can’t stay there,” he smiled.

“Why not?” I asked. “Isn’t that the whole point?”

“Living from deep stillness is not the same as clinging to deep stillness.” Then he smiled, and as usual, it felt like I was totally exposed in his presence. “We call this attachment to nonattachment ‘Zen sickness,’” he said. “And there is a cure for it.” I was amazed. No words. Then, just like the moment before when I thought he’d read my mind, he said, “Get to the zendo on time each morning, and make sure that your sweeping improves. Do all of this with your full awareness and don’t get distracted by the feeling of stillness. It will make a difference to everyone.”

I remember humbly bowing to him. I felt so much gratitude knowing that he’d helped push me back on the Path just when I was about to get lost. He showed me that having no ego is not the goal of my meditation. Rather, using ego as a tool, instead of always getting tooled by it, is the result of a committed practice. No matter what, we continue to practice nonattachment in order to awaken for the sake of the whole. Practicing stillness means that we must take the experience of a still mind, which is the same thing as a witnessing awareness, and infuse it into and through every bit of activity that we do, no matter how we might feel about it. We simply, and consistently, let go of all things that show up. We don’t grasp experiences because they feel like Enlightenment, nor do we avoid them because they don’t. We just practice nonattachment.

Any one of us can practice this kind of letting go when we do anything that turns off the chattering mind. I’ve noticed this to be particularly true in those individuals involved with extreme sports, since the excitement of their activity takes them, for a little bit of time at least, out of their habitual identification with thinking. Other kinds of athletes also know the importance of stillness when they are in the midst of intense activity. Put simply, their experience of being in “the Zone,” as they say, is the same open stillness that we experience in meditation. In this openness there is no longer an identification with the mind’s activity. A mind that isn’t caught by habitual activity is one that is still. Mental silence arises spontaneously as we practice any activity where we are totally present with what is happening. In these moments we can recognize a depth and beauty of experience that is entirely quiet, void of any articulation, absent of any movement. No movement means no time. No time means no thought. No thought means stillness. Stillness means no ego. When the ego perceives a loss of its voice it predictably will fight the stillness since it will equate stillness and the silence that it brings with its own death.

Yet there are three things we can do in order to keep the ego’s fear from pushing us back down the Mountain of Spirit. First, it helps to commit and recommit to a disciplined stillness practice in order to break the massive inertia of ego. Whether you want to sit or not, you just do it. Whether it makes you happy or tense isn’t the point, you just do it. Second, it helps to have a deeply realized practitioner to add structure, focus, and guidance to your practice. Find a teacher who knows what they are doing and whose words and actions correspond with your internal sense of integrity. Third, it helps to associate with a community of individuals who are also committed to the intention of Awakening. Meditating with a group is an amazing way to ground a stillness practice since everyone is there for everyone. This togetherness amplifies what resonates most deeply for all participants, and if those involved are climbing the Mountain, its beauty can’t help but be revealed.

Here’s another installment in a series of emails that took place between Michael and one of his senior students beginning in August of 2009. May you find the exchange interesting and enriching.

____

July 10, 2010 (#17) 

Student: Can you say that where there is no other, there is none?

Michael: There is none. But there is, also, a paradox of the All showing Itself through this no-thingness. So it’s more accurate to say that there is “not one and not two,” or as the Advaita Vedanta tradition says, neti neti. One might also simply call it a mystery where a profound openness in which no-thingness shows itself as everything-ness. No-one and no-thing can return to this Truth since doing so would reify the delusion of separation: “I” can not return to this “Truth” since I, and you and we are this Truth.

There is, therefore, no return… no hiding… no escape… no abiding… no things… no self… no other… no anything… especially no 8-track tapes.

Student: Haha! But the thought keeps coming up that “I” keep “returning” to “delusion.”

Michael: You don’t return anywhere. “You” and “I” are delusion. We are also the subtle and overt grace of Spirit in action. We’re it. We’re everything. We are heaven and earth and everything in between.

As the talk progresses, Michael elaborates on Zen’s Grave Precepts: Not killing, not lying, not misusing sexuality, not lying, not abusing intoxicants, not criticizing others, not being arrogant, not being greedy, not harboring anger and not diminishing the Triple Treasure (Buddha, Dharma and Sangha). By doing so, he points out how we can examine our own tendencies toward harming ourselves and others in very subtle ways. Making amends if we have gotten off track, it is suggested, can be a powerful antidote to suffering as long as we don’t attach to an outcome.

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Click on the player below, in order to listen to Michael McAlister’s talk.

Commuter Zen #68

(Story of Betinho Massero should have been attributed to Jeff Foster)

Here’s another installment in a series of emails that took place between Michael and one of his senior students beginning in August of 2009. May you find the exchange interesting and enriching.

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July 8, 2010 

Student: Free will and fate seem to be opposing, but are cooperative. Is there an explanation for this, or would any explanation be untrue?

Michael: Both free will and fate are constructs on the level of mind, therefore any explanation would only be pointing back to the origination of delusion. However, free will and fate remind us of interdependence since both depend on this body, this body’s needs and, of course, time. Sounds heady but it’s really quite simple. Think of it like this: what is beyond all of mind’s creations looks at any apparent conflict between or among mind’s creations and just smiles. Sometimes it even laughs so hard that space comes out its non-nose.

Student: That’s a great visual! Where is the origin of delusion anyway? Is it before the question, or before the answer?

Michael: The origin of delusion is… drumroll… birth. The birth of anything opens up an opportunity for delusion. Even the birth of realization can lead to the birth of understanding which often leads to the birth of delusion. And delusion, like anything that is born, eventually dies. Realizing what is prior to all births will point to what is forever unborn, unmade and uncreated.

So our work is kinda’ like spiritual “birth control,” I guess. Another horrific metaphor that probably doesn’t work too well, but you get the idea if you can recognize that open field prior to all that is ever born.

Student: What it points to is that which is unreachable, right?

Michael: “You” will never reach it. What is prior to “you” is it.

Student: Because once you have “reached” something, as a thing, it is found to be an illusion? You can keep chasing, keep chasing, keep finding nothing but air….is this right? Is this why you say to someone who has “understood” something in sangha, “now let it go?” Ultimate truth is unknowable? But aren’t there some truths that one can return to again and again, and still find to be true? Spiritual birth control…hmmmm…. no, I don’t get it. I’ve been trying for 5 minutes. I give up.

Michael: That giving up is the doorway. Now enter it.

Transcendence restores humor. Spirit restores humor. Suddenly, smiling returns. Too many representatives of too many movements – even many very good movements, such as feminism, environmentalism, meditation, spiritual studies – seem to lack humor altogether. In other words, they lack lightness, they lack a distance from themselves, a distance from the ego and its grim game of forcing others to conform to its contours. There is self-transcending humor, or there is the game of game of egoic power. No wonder Menken wrote that “Every third American devotes himself to improving and lifting up his fellow citizens, usually by force; this messianic delusion is our national disease.” We have chosen egoic power and politically correct thought police; grim Victorian reformers pretending to be defending civil rights; messianic new paradigm thinkers who are going to save the planet and heal the world. They should all trade two pounds of ego for one ounce of laughter.

~ Ken Wilber (from One Taste: 12/7)

This felt sense of the Absolute leads us onto the path of an expanding consciousness that can be mapped. Michael starts the discussion by pointing out gross level awareness, then moves on to the subtle level, the causal level and then into what can be referred to as nondual Suchness. As a side, he also notes that the causal Witness is also referred to turiya while nondual Suchness is termed turiyatita in Hinduism. From here Michael suggests that our practice can become unbalanced when we become more interested in “becoming” than simply “being.” When we stabilize ourselves in simply Being, he suggests, the Becoming takes care of itself, with a little help. But the opposite is not necessarily true. This aspect of Michael’s teaching flies in the face of some other contemporary teachers’ work.

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Feel free to subscribe to this podcast on iTunes.

Click on the player below, in order to listen to Michael McAlister’s talk.

Commuter Zen #67

Here’s another installment in a series of emails that took place between Michael and one of his senior students beginning in August of 2009. May you find the exchange interesting and enriching.

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July 1, 2010

Student: I’m uncovering a seeming paradox and curious about what you think.

Michael: Fire away.

Student: Although you as teacher can point to truth, experience has to be planted here specifically in order for any understanding to bloom.  It happens like this: you teach, there is some level of understanding (or not), it is experienced randomly and in its own time, then by grace, understanding takes root deeply. But why does it take root through the person, when there is also no one to do the understanding?

Michael: Sometimes it helps to think of it like this: our understanding is nothing other than the Universe meeting itself in an experience we mistake as our own. I mean it is our own, but we don’t own it. Our desire to evolve is a very simple organizing principle that parallels the Universe’s own impulse to evolve. So when a teacher or situation arises that helps us get out of the Universe’s impulse to evolve through us, “understanding” occurs.

Student: So in allowing ourselves to get comfortable with not knowing, the knowing can show up?

Michael: Yes. It’s the same as using an alphabet, as I’ve said, in order to keep losing the alphabet when we are taken away by the grace of great literature. The planting, the rooting, and the expression of the bloom are all a mystery: equal parts delusion and realization.

 But somehow this dance between delusion and realization offers us something so beautiful that it forever exists beyond the boundary of words.