Italie 2011-01_Aucune relation au contenu de la conscience (Italie 2011, jour 1)

in the way that i teach meditation uh i teach this with the way i teach meditation is really the hardest kind and i teach the hardest kind right from the very beginning um so the hardest kind of meditation is meditation without an object so so you if you have meditation on the breath which is very good to do so you then you you have a that you're focusing on the in breath or the out breath or the abdomen going in and out or the tip of your nostrils but you have something you're focusing your attention on which is moving to the breath or you can focus your mental you can use a a mantra or a word or or an image or whatever so the way that i t the way that i teach meditate is called meditation without seed so what we're doing is we're meditating on consciousness itself directly but consciousness is not an object so we get ourselves in a bit of a tricky situation because we want to meditate on consciousness but then consciousness is not an object so if i tell everybody focus on my watch everybody you can do it because you can see it it's easy concentrate on my watch and when your attention goes away from my watch bring it back to my watch that's easy right but in this case what we're meditating on is that which is not an object because you can't consciousness is not enough you can't see it you can't locate it in any particular place so so the very interesting so we're doing here is very interesting is we're meditating on that which can't be seen right from the beginning interesting exercise how can you focus on that which you can't see so usually i think in the traditional schools what they do they start people out from the beginning you know on meditating on on objects mantras breath foreign body and all that and then when they get very good at all those things then they all then they finally get to the point where they let go of all that and they just meditate on zero but i start people off with zero and the reason i do it is because i'm an enlightenment teacher i'm not a meditation teacher so i don't i don't have a arsenal of meditation techniques created techniques starting from very simple i just started out with that so so we don't focus we're not focusing on the breath we're not focusing on anything particular but what we are focusing is on what we want to try and focus on is the nature of consciousness itself which is not an object consciousness is not an object consciousness is not an object so you so so so basically something which is you right we're or all of something aren't we right otherwise have the conversation right so you can't say i'm nothing otherwise i wouldn't be able to talk would i there has to be a certain conglomeration of factors have to come together and make it possible to have a conversation right so i must be something i can't be a nothing right you know how some spiritual teachers say well i don't exist so you say well how how come you're how can you say that then because somebody or something has to exist in order to be able to say i don't exist i don't exist and people go wow that's cool they don't realize that actually doesn't make any sense it's completely irrational it couldn't possibly be true if you didn't exist you wouldn't be able to say anything right something has to be there in order to in order to put words together right there has to be some kind there has to be some there has to be sentience there has to be consciousness there has to be cognition there has to be memory there has to be experience in time all those things have to be there in order in order to put those words together so so somebody's saying i don't exist doesn't make any sense right everybody follow that so so the interesting thing here is is to say that something which is us something is meditating on nothing and that's interesting i think i just think it's very interesting if you just think about something meditating on nothing and you wear the something whoever whoever you are you're the something that's meditating on nothing now why this how this gets very interesting is because something which is you right you are the something are always thinking about this or thinking about that some things are always thinking about something right isn't that true aren't isn't it true that you as something are always thinking about something so there's something is always thinking so there's all your something is always relating to some kind of object in the form of thoughts and memories whatever or whatever isn't that right so your awareness which is the awareness that you're projecting outward when you're focusing your attention on this or that or the other thing when you're focusing your attention you're always focusing your attention on an object that has a relationship to time and history right everybody follow so it gets very interesting once when something which which is always focusing his or attention on this that or the other thing suddenly he's focusing on nothing it's it's like whoa whoa whoa whoa wait a minute because for your whole life something is taught to focus on this focus your attention on this focus attention on that focus your attention on the other thing right we're busy all the time thinking about this thinking about that worrying about this you know in inspired moves and depressed moves and everything and you're always thinking about something focusing your attention on something this that or the other thing right so now something suddenly is deliberately meditating on zero or nothing whatsoever which is consciousness which is not an object so you see if consciousness is not an object how do i relate to consciousness if it's not an object then you make it simple you just say zero because because at least technically we can relate to zero as a mathematical figure so 0 means nothing so then something is meditating on nothing that's you you and i we are the somethings because we're the accumulations and conglomerations of karmas and experiences and all the rest of it and memories etc so so we're the something that's meditating on nothing and that's what makes this very interesting is when the something meditates on nothing or absolutely not nothing whatsoever or absolute zero and that's the key here is to stay focused on absolutely nothing whatsoever and it's not easy i mean it can be easy if you get very good at it but since since for 99.9999999999999 plus another 99999 of your conscious life and your dreaming life you're always focused on this that or the other thing learning how to focus on no thing whatsoever is like whoa it's like what is that i don't even know how to relate to focusing on nothing whatsoever because i'm always focusing on something so now we're talking about focusing on nothing whatsoever and that is something you have to work at you have to learn how to do and also you have to learn how to get comfortable because a lot of people ooh you know what do you mean focus on i think it's completely and people feel it's unnatural and it's very weird but it actually can become very natural once you get used to it once you get good at it so in terms of where to focus your attention it's unknown thing whatsoever that's why it says have no relationship to the content of consciousness and we're going to be talking a lot about that over the last 10 days but the idea is no relationship to the content of consciousness which in this case we're talking about focusing our attention on nothing whatsoever so something which is you is focusing on nothing whatsoever so if you as something focus on nothing whatsoever what happens what's what if you just think about what's going to happen you can't you're not going to get any feedback right because if you're focusing on objects you're always getting feedback about you but who and what you are in relationship to objects time experiences people whatever it is you're always getting feedback but if you keep on focusing on nothing whatsoever the feedback is going to start diminishing ultimately this disappear altogether and you and if you can stay with this you can have moments where it all disappears where this is another another manifestation what i was speaking about a few minutes ago but if you keep on doing you'll have moments where the something disappears because you're not that you can't see yourself anymore you're not it's nothing nothing it can reflect back who and what you are anymore and eventually if you stay with it the you disappears altogether also you know at least what you traditionally consider to be yourself based on all memory and experience and what you find and if it's deep enough you find that interestingly enough everything that you normally consider to being you disappears but interestingly enough you're still there