The Breath of Consciousness
Excerpt from a talk during retreat with Pema…
As we move together in a space like this we get to see exactly the cycle in which consciousness moves. Because in our agreement to make love deeply the fire grows and it grows and it grows, but at some point it gets so hot that it flips itself into space.
This is where the breath of consciousness which starts out breathing in breathes out. In this regard it’s very important that we don’t stick to the intensity but that we allow the breathing in and the breathing out to be total.
As you guys have seen there has been a building of the intensity over the days. Today is a peace day. Today is a day of bringing everything home and into peace, same as saying ‘completely letting go’. So today you guys are going to be in silence. Today is a day of solitude, of taking walks and letting the wind blow through you, of drinking water and of using your notebook. It also means that we will not be talking but we can meet up and sit for a meditation, which is just you sitting with yourself in this space. And we will do that a couple of times during the day.
Yeah, so there is completely off with the social thing going on. And there is seeing anything in you in that breathing in that happens when love comes. As you’ve seen the hotter it gets the easier it is, the part of the uniting, of getting together, because the Reality of the One Being becomes apparent.
The moment that the breathing out happens you have to allow that to happen as well so that nothing that rises within that breath in doesn’t disappear into the breathing out. So this day today is about you becoming completely silent and seeing anything that rose within that love which is likely to make anything out of anything; anything which doesn’t want to be alone, anything which doesn’t want to be quiet. And allowing the digestion and just the deep drop into peace, out of existence, out of the intensity.
These cycles are good to know. They are very good to know because we are likely to get caught somewhere in that equation, if we have a preference for life or a preference for death.
What you get to see … how it moves when it moves with its most efficient, where things don’t get to get stuck. Normally when people are out in the world and living their lives they’re not really living because the intensity of life is not there. Going into retreat as you can see, the intensity is there. So a retreat is not a retraction, it’s a fully coming in and fully moving out, and that movement you will come to see here.
There is some clean-up work to do after whatever has been rising in that intensity, as that intensity, and that’s just equal to maintaining silence within yourself. So taking good care, drinking lots of water, taking walks and writing.
The cycle itself can be seen like the deepening in terms of the effortless cultivation when that just moves where it’s the intensity rising and rising, and that becomes a deep deep dropping into the Being. And then at some point it’s time to take care of the practicalities and when the practicalities have caught up to that depth, then comes the silence.
So it’s almost like that deep merging into yourself, into your Being becomes an invitation to remove anything like practical calling in the outside world. So first a hollowing out inwards, then a hollowing out outwards, and then poof silence. And then it goes again, ‘pop’. So that’s how it moves all the time.
That’s how the cultivation moves when it gets to move without the obstruction of clinging anywhere in the equation. In this way the deepening happens, we fall deeply in love with ourselves, with everything around us, and from there even everything disappears. So the individuality, the deepening, the eradication of inner and outer and then the ‘pop’, and then life comes again. Brilliant huh, covers everything.
In this way your nervous system can constantly follow up. Your living lives can constantly follow up. And even your realisation of and as silence can constantly follow up. This is how we avoid that imbalance, spiritual imbalance of just cultivating space or just cultivating existence or just focusing on the world or only focusing on ourselves in that deepening.
As I said that intensity builds, ‘pops’, builds, ‘pops’. Because that is the Pure Tantra. That is the cultivation, life rising turning into space, life rising turning into space.
The complete relaxation of your body today will let that fire burn out, and become silent before it goes again.
Student: I had this morning thoughts coming up of which I thought that they are clarity – is that also just clinging to something, you know, things, like plans?
Aisha: Why don’t you just stay quiet? There is no need to determine what is what, just stay completely quiet with whatever appears, and if plans appear it can just be the inside of what your life wants you to do. So just be quiet, write down that which needs to be written down. Don’t dismiss it, just stay quiet and let it happen, let life happen.
/Pema Salem
