Ep. 306 – The Spacious Heart: Transcending Duality Through Meditation and Sound

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spk_0 What does that mean?

spk_0 Perfection.

spk_0 The Third Zen Patriarch writes about it in this quite astonishing line for me, the most amazing line, in all of Zen Literature.

spk_0 Where he says to be enlightened is to be without anxiety about non-perfection.

spk_0 To not be anxious about non-perfection is to be enlightened because it's not perfect by your idea.

spk_0 It is perfect in the way that it is.

spk_0 When we touch spaciousness, we discover that in letting go, there arises a natural compassion, the great heart of Abhuda.

spk_0 In this, we find that the true place of peace is one of trust and open spacious heart in the very midst of our life.

spk_0 Says Jack Cornfield in this practice steeped episode of the Heart Wisdom Podcast.

spk_0 306. The Spacious Heart.

spk_0 Transcending duality through meditation and sound.

spk_0 This, I can say, is a heart wisdom like you have never heard before.

spk_0 Packed full of many meditations and something that I have never experienced Jack doing before.

spk_0 Him leading a deeply resonant guided sound journey into the spacious heart of awareness.

spk_0 This is part two from last week and took place on July 12, 1993 at Spirit Rock Meditation Center.

spk_0 It is truly a vibratory journey tapping into mantra, the healing power of sound, letting go of perfectionism and learning how to handle the weather of the heart in ease, spaciousness and grace.

spk_0 But before we dive in to this meditative sound journey, I have some really exciting housekeeping for you this week.

spk_0 As I've been sharing Jack's Sacred Journey home, a retro course of unearthed lost tapes from a 1990 retreat in Yucca Valley is underway now.

spk_0 If you sign up when this podcast releases, you can join in for the second live Q&A call.

spk_0 But if you're listening after the fact, this is an evergreen course, self-guided, take a your own pace, and you get lifetime access.

spk_0 So if you want to join Jack in a vintage 1990 retreat, head to jackcornfield.com and sign up for the Sacred Journey home.

spk_0 And here is something many of you have been waiting quite some time for, and we are releasing to podcast listeners first.

spk_0 Jack will be back on land at Spirit Rock teaching a day long retreat on November 22nd.

spk_0 Inner technology for outer technology. This day long retreat will focus on how we can use the inner technology of spirituality to meet the ever changing outer technology of this brave new world we're stepping into.

spk_0 I do not believe there will be an online counterpart live stream for this.

spk_0 So if you want to sign up for this and join Jack in person at Spirit Rock meditation center, please head to jackcornfield.com and go to the events page.

spk_0 So there we go. Thank you for being here as always.

spk_0 I'm Ganesh Honored Open the Door, episode 306 of The Heart Wisdom Podcast, The Spacious Heart.

spk_0 Transcending duality through meditation and sound with jackcornfield.

spk_0 May you be happy and healthy. May you be safe and protected. May you help others through your authenticity.

spk_0 And may you transcend duality into the spacious heart of loving awareness. Namaste.

spk_0 What I'd like to do is lead a little meditation that gives you a sense of spaciousness.

spk_0 So make sure that you're seated in a comfortable way.

spk_0 We'll be for 15 or 20 minutes.

spk_0 Meditation comes from one of the great texts called the Sutra of Great Liberation.

spk_0 It begins there being really no duality. All separation is untrue.

spk_0 Until duality is transcended enlightenment cannot be attained. The whole of samsara, all of the worlds and nirvana as an inseparable unity are one's own mind.

spk_0 To know this, look within your own mind. When one seeks the nature of one's mind, it is found to be quite intelligible, although invisible.

spk_0 In its true nature, mind is naked, immaculate. Being of the voidness, timeless, transparent, containing all things yet not limited by them.

spk_0 To know if this is so or not, look within your own mind.

spk_0 So just listen with your eyes closed gently. First to the words as I speak.

spk_0 Forget your breath and body for a few moments.

spk_0 The usual way we meditate and just listen to sound.

spk_0 To know if this is so or not, look within your own mind.

spk_0 The soft sounds in the room.

spk_0 The distant sounds of children's voices on a summer evening.

spk_0 The sound of these bells.

spk_0 Let yourself rest at ease and just listen with an open and careful attention.

spk_0 And as you listen, let yourself sense or feel or imagine in any way you can that your mind is not limited to your head.

spk_0 But rather that your awareness or consciousness expands beyond your head to be as big as this room and bigger open like the sky, space without boundaries.

spk_0 There is no inside or outside.

spk_0 Rather let the sounds arise in the great vast space of your own consciousness.

spk_0 There is no solid body, just space and sounds come and go like clouds or bubbles.

spk_0 Let go of boundaries.

spk_0 And as you listen to sound, let yourself sense or feel or imagine in any way you can that your mind is not limited to your head.

spk_0 You are not limited to all things, you are not limited by them.

spk_0 And as you listen, let yourself sense or feel or imagine in any way you can that your mind is not limited to your own consciousness.

spk_0 Let yourself sense or feel or imagine in any way you can that your mind is not limited to your head.

spk_0 You are not limited to all things.

spk_0 Sounds come and go like clouds.

spk_0 The mind remains open without foundries.

spk_0 Voices appear in one park and bells in another.

spk_0 The mind in its true state is naked, clear, timeless.

spk_0 As you pay attention, the wakefulness of the space of awareness,

spk_0 let yourself also be aware of the breath.

spk_0 There is no inside or outside.

spk_0 The breath moves like a breeze.

spk_0 It breathes itself.

spk_0 And in the same space of mind, there is a coolness or pressure like a breeze moving in the center.

spk_0 Sounds come and go and the breath moves like a breeze without foundries.

spk_0 Sounds come and go and the breath moves like a breeze moving in the center.

spk_0

spk_0 You feel quite carefully.

spk_0 There are points and areas of pressure, temperature, sensation that float in an open sea or space of attention.

spk_0 There is no head, no back, no arms or legs.

spk_0 Just pressure, warmth, tingling, sensations that float slowly,

spk_0 the breath moves like a breeze.

spk_0 It sounds arise and dance in the space.

spk_0 Nothing inside or nothing outside.

spk_0 Let the mind be perfectly at ease.

spk_0 Open, containing all things.

spk_0 Neither moving toward or away from like the space of sky.

spk_0 Sounds come and go the breath moves like a breeze in space.

spk_0 The body floats, not solid at all, just pressure and temperature areas of experience floating in space.

spk_0 Be come aware of the thoughts and images that arise in paths.

spk_0 Words come and go, pictures appear like the sun's air for the sunrise who pass away.

spk_0 The space, the sky of mind contains them all.

spk_0 They come from nowhere and they vanish back into silent.

spk_0 Thoughts arise in paths.

spk_0 Sounds come and go, no inside and no outside.

spk_0 In this open space, be aware also of moods and feelings like beautiful colors in the water.

spk_0 Like changes in the weather, joy and sorrows, thoughts and images arise and pass away like the breath and sounds.

spk_0 Arising and leaving no trace.

spk_0 Rest in the great spaciousness.

spk_0 In its true state, mind is found to be quite intelligible, although invisible.

spk_0 In its true state, mind is clear and vacuous like the sky without boundaries or limits.

spk_0 Make it immaculate, not made of anything, being of the voidness, allowing for all things.

spk_0 Yet in no way limited by them, to know if this is so or not, rest at ease.

spk_0 Listen and look within your own mind.

spk_0 The next time you hear the bells, when they fade away, allow your eyes to open and notice the appearance of form and color around you in the same great open and clear space of mind.

spk_0 Now inside or outside, just this which arises in the great space that holds it all.

spk_0 Thoughts come and go, the breath moves like a breeze, rising like clouds and bubbles.

spk_0 Mind is silent and open.

spk_0 Love.

spk_0 Kabir says, this way, are you looking for me? I am in the next seat, my shoulders against yours.

spk_0 It is not far away what we seek, the peace, openness, nearer than nearer.

spk_0 Did you have a sense of that of how the boundaries can open some of you?

spk_0 There is a quiz.

spk_0 What about kindness?

spk_0 From that sense of space.

spk_0 What is the source of action or compassion?

spk_0 You just be in a moment to arise and come to play.

spk_0 You just be.

spk_0 The action will be called out of us by circumstance.

spk_0 Because you know that you are not separate from anything.

spk_0 Three answers, connected answers, anything else.

spk_0 Julian of Norwich, wonderful saint and poet, wrote some lines which T.S. Eliot quotes or uses in his last great epic poem, The Four Quartets.

spk_0 The vision of a mystic, really, the heart of a very deep realization, she writes, all shall be well and all manner of things shall be well.

spk_0 All shall be well and amazing thing to say, even in death, even in suffering, she sees the exquisite and absolute perfection of the world.

spk_0 The perfection of all things in harmony, even in the face of war and famine and the horrors that we see around Bosnia or the Holocaust or other grave, grave injustices, the famines in Africa.

spk_0 What does that mean? Perfection.

spk_0 It is perfect in the way that it is. I read you a story.

spk_0 The Indian village lived a weaver who was very pious. All day long he would say the name of God and people trusted him when he woe a certain amount of cloth he'd take it to the marketplace.

spk_0 If anyone asked the price, he would say, by the will of rob, this was his name of God. The price is thirty-five cents, the labor of the yarn, the labor is ten cents, the profit by the will of rob is four cents.

spk_0 So the price of this piece by the will of God is forty-nine cents and everyone had such fate and the man they didn't bargain, they just paid what he asked.

spk_0 Now the weaver was in habit of going to the village temple at night to chant praises of God and sing the glories of his name. Late one night chanting, a band of robbers burst in.

spk_0 They needed someone to carry their stolen goods so they said, come with us. The weaver meekly accompanied them with the goods on his head as they do in India.

spk_0 Soon the police gave chase and the robbers were hands, the weaver ran with them but since he was an old man the police soon caught him finding the stolen goods they rested him through him in jail.

spk_0 The following morning he was sent before the judge and accused of burglary. When the judge asked what he had to say for himself, this is what he said.

spk_0 Your honor by the will of rob I finished my meal last night and by the will of rob I went to the temple and there to chant his praises. That is when suddenly by the will of rob a band of robbers burst in and by Rama's will invited me to carry their goods away for them.

spk_0 They put such a load on my head that when by the will of rob the police gave chase I was easily caught. Then by the will of rob I was arrested and thrown in jail and here I am standing before you this morning by the will of rob.

spk_0 The judge said to the policeman, let the man go he is evidently out of his mind.

spk_0 Back home when asked what had happened the pious weaver said by the will of rob I was arrested and tried in court and by the will of rob I have been acquitted.

spk_0 So there is this space of perfection like the astronauts who look down on the earth and see this form of life that we're in and all the forms of life birth and death and joy and sorrow and you know every how often is it that is every hundred million years?

spk_0 There are so some huge comment strikes the earth and wipes out all the dinosaurs and might wipe out all the mammals next time or something.

spk_0 We think we're important in some way the ant people that are here for just a little while.

spk_0 But from some perspective there's a much greater dance going on that we are a part of in some deep profound and timeless way and it's not just this limited body.

spk_0 So how does this connect with compassion there were some very good answers weren't there?

spk_0 In Sanskrit there is a great mantra that Tibetans particularly use it for other Buddhists.

spk_0 Om Manipadni Om Ajul is in the lotus and one meaning is the jewel is a mind and the lotus is the heart.

spk_0 In the Buddha taught he began to teach because he looked out resting in this perfect piece and he saw beings everywhere seeking happiness but often doing the very thing that would bring them to suffering.

spk_0 Haven't you noticed?

spk_0 And so there was this movement in his heart to say no no it's much simpler than that what you seek.

spk_0 Last week we talked about racism the men's retreat that finished yesterday we talked about Greece and sorrow did a grieving ritual and went and wept and went into the trees to pray for some grace to tell each of us how to live in the world.

spk_0 And the Buddha he saw this folly of beings caused by illusion caused by fear by greed by prejudice by hatred and all of this comes out of separation my body my territory my country this sense of separation that we call the body of fear.

spk_0 The fear of loss the fear of being mistreated the fear of those who are different.

spk_0 And when we come to touch spaciousness within that we discover in that letting go that there is a natural compassion the great heart of a Buddha for in the perfection of things in this great perfection there also arises perfect compassion.

spk_0 And you can sense it it said the image of the Buddha is of two wings like a bird lying free in the sky one of clarity of spaciousness and the other of the heart of compassion space and form.

spk_0 Because when we are free of fear which is really what space is about just to breathe and take some space not be so afraid not to be so contracted when we're free of fear there comes a natural response is someone said our connectedness is there right out of the center of our heart.

spk_0 Tick not on talked about it he said in the boats the boat people that left Vietnam.

spk_0 Those boats that had one person on them that was really unafraid when they met the great storms or the pirates they generally made it through.

spk_0 But if there wasn't one person that was in that center in that spaciousness often everyone became crazed and frightened and they didn't make it.

spk_0 Remember that wonderful picture from Tiananmen Square of that one man with his shopping bags coming back from market remember him and there's that long roll of tanks coming down the road and he's standing there in front of the tanks in the tank stop and it's beautiful because it's like he's got his goods from the market there it's not like he's some extraordinary saw do or yogi or something he's just coming from the market and there he's standing there.

spk_0 He's standing in front of the tanks and he says you cannot do this from that place of being unafraid.

spk_0 You know there was a symphony orchestra in Sarajevo. Sarajevo was a center of beautiful culture for 100,500,000 people.

spk_0 And one of the old men in the city much of the symphony orchestra fled to other parts of Europe.

spk_0 Stade was a cellist some of you may have seen this on TV and in spite of the shellings in the bombings he would go out every day at a certain time of the day and go to a square and open up his case and sit down and play music on his cello for the residents of Sarajevo.

spk_0 The image of the Buddha that's on the wall there is the Buddha with a thousand heads and a thousand arms of compassion and all around him is this flames because life has sorrow and loss and pain as much as it has beauty and love and creativity.

spk_0 They can't be separated. How can you separate birth and death are in the same ticket?

spk_0 You get the ride and you know they tear it in half in the movie this half-sworth and that half-step.

spk_0 So the Buddha sits in the middle of joy and sorrow and hot and cold and day and night and pleasure and pain and sits in the midst of that fire and out of the heart comes a thousand arms to touch the sorrows of others.

spk_0 A heart that is at peace and timeless and from that place this knowing that we are all connected seeing beings who want to be happy doing the things that cause suffering and saying no there's another way.

spk_0 The Buddha called it wisdom to act or move like a bee touching the essence of the flower without harm to it through life.

spk_0 Part of the perfection is the quivering of the heart the tears of love or compassion when we care for another being as ourselves because we are that being.

spk_0 We are unified in that consciousness.

spk_0 I read you a very short poem from Zen Master Issa. Listen to it carefully.

spk_0 Do evaporates and all our world is due. This is the first line. That was that space you could feel it. Do evaporates.

spk_0 Thoughts, sounds, our whole life. Do evaporates and all our world is due. So dear, so refreshing, so fleeting.

spk_0 Now what's important to know about this poem is that it is the poem that he wrote on the death of his child. Listen again.

spk_0 Do evaporates and all our world is due. So dear, so refreshing, so fleeting.

spk_0 What we seek in the end, what we long for is a piece that is not made or created that's not far away that never dies.

spk_0 It is that spaciousness, anything that difficulties in your life to find a place of space, of graciousness, of enjoyment, of what is the 10,000 joys and the 10,000 sorrows.

spk_0 And so again Zen Master Ryokan, he sits in his little hut.

spk_0 He says, listening to the evening rain, the great way I braid his spring flower into a ball, the future. If a visitor brings these questions, I have only the tranquility of the hermitage to offer.

spk_0 Once again, the children and I fight a battle using the spring grasses, now advancing, retreating each time with more refinement to highlight. It's time for the children to return home.

spk_0 The bright round moon helps me endure the loneliness. He's beautiful because he doesn't say that there isn't everything. There's joy and there's loneliness and there's peace and there's all of life.

spk_0 My life may appear melancholy, but traveling through this world I entrust myself to heaven. In my sack three quarts of rice, by the hearth of bundle of firewood. If someone asks, what is the mark of enlightenment or illusion I cannot say, phrase and blame, wealth and honor, or nothing but dust.

spk_0 As the evening rain falls, I sit in my hermitage and stretch out both feet in an answer.

spk_0 So let your eyes close for a moment if you were. Sit.

spk_0 Let yourself be spacious, open at peace.

spk_0 The breath breeze itself, the feelings and thoughts arise like waves of the ocean.

spk_0 Allow yourself to think of a difficult situation in your life now. Conflict, struggle, something that you have sorrow or problem with.

spk_0 Personally, community greater in any way in your life.

spk_0 Let's think of it, ask yourself, how it would be to be more spacious. You might respond in any way necessary, but feel what it would like to have more space in your body, in your breath, in your mind.

spk_0 In your heart.

spk_0 So tonight, these are some of the teachings of space and equanimity, perhaps a bit of a balance to the suffering we spoke of last week, the sorrow's racism, the pains that we experience.

spk_0 And so much in modern times.

spk_0 If the meditation on sound was useful to you, you can work with that. It's a beautiful meditation to do.

spk_0 If it was, you can just go back to your breath and body. Different meditations fit for various temperaments.

spk_0 So simply be respectful of what works for yourself.

spk_0 So let's sit into a little chant to end.

spk_0 The chant is one we do often in the evenings here. It's simply the chant of opening or letting go. It's the sound, aw.

spk_0 And we'll sing that for a little bit and then rest in the space that remains for a bit.

spk_0 Ah.

spk_0

spk_0 Do evaporates and all our world is do. So dear, so refreshing, so fleeting.

spk_0 May you rest in peace, spaciousness this week, and may the movement of your heart that connects you with all things give you the gift of words and actions to touch and yield the world around you.

spk_0 Thank you.

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Ep. 306 – The Spacious Heart: Transcending Duality Through Meditation and Sound

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