Last night at 3 Jewels we went through two meditations that used the senses as pathways out of our immediate desires. The first meditation was for a sense object that was or is pleasant, so a student put on "Harvest Moon." I sat there itchy, tired, aware of the AC droning on, in a room full of students, in the middle of NYC with a subway rumbling underneath...and then we just very slowly melted these senses down into the song. I was walking down the aisles of an empty grocery store listening to "Harvest Moon" and then my mind was following the guitar chord changes so closely that everything else faded away: the AC noise, the subway rumbling, my jeans bunched up behind my knees, and NYC dissolved, and we were just in the music. My mind 'noticed and examined' where it was traveling as it went inside the song. There was no past or future expectations, just the drowsy sliding chords. My attention toggled between the words and the sound, and then space in between the sound, and then just the silence in the music. I held my mind in that infinite expanse. Then we came back out of meditation with a dedication to someone we loved.
Next we picked an 'unpleasant object.' The AC. Going back in, we drifted toward the droning sound and then noticed that it wasn't actually one long noise but a small oscillating frequency. My mind went closer and closer to the sound until it sounded like a symphony of noises...and then I dropped down the small frequency of my heart beating, which was hard to hear at first, but slowly started arising out of the den of noises. And then we went into the body being supported by this heart beat. The beat continued and we were asked: what did we do to get this body. Just imagine what could I have done. I saw myself saving a drowning baby, I lifted them up and it was coughing and yelling. And then I washing a baby in a bath. Maybe the child was Baby Buddha or a Christian saint or just a really good person. I was taking care of this baby, washing them, preventing them from drowning...again and again. And I couldn't hear the AC or feel the sweat behind my knees, The baby grew up and I shrunk with age into a tiny speck, getting smaller and smaller, and then I was gone.
I came back out of 'unpleasant' meditation and dedicated that toward a loved one. We were told these two meditations are the gateways out of the desire realm and into the form realm, which then hopefully leads to the formless realm, and then even higher. Thank you Venerable Lobsang Chunzom for teaching, Lord Maitreya and Master Asanga for writing this down centuries ago, and 3 Jewels for hosting the "Dance of the Lion" teachings.
Next we picked an 'unpleasant object.' The AC. Going back in, we drifted toward the droning sound and then noticed that it wasn't actually one long noise but a small oscillating frequency. My mind went closer and closer to the sound until it sounded like a symphony of noises...and then I dropped down the small frequency of my heart beating, which was hard to hear at first, but slowly started arising out of the den of noises. And then we went into the body being supported by this heart beat. The beat continued and we were asked: what did we do to get this body. Just imagine what could I have done. I saw myself saving a drowning baby, I lifted them up and it was coughing and yelling. And then I washing a baby in a bath. Maybe the child was Baby Buddha or a Christian saint or just a really good person. I was taking care of this baby, washing them, preventing them from drowning...again and again. And I couldn't hear the AC or feel the sweat behind my knees, The baby grew up and I shrunk with age into a tiny speck, getting smaller and smaller, and then I was gone.
I came back out of 'unpleasant' meditation and dedicated that toward a loved one. We were told these two meditations are the gateways out of the desire realm and into the form realm, which then hopefully leads to the formless realm, and then even higher. Thank you Venerable Lobsang Chunzom for teaching, Lord Maitreya and Master Asanga for writing this down centuries ago, and 3 Jewels for hosting the "Dance of the Lion" teachings.
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