*Notes from a talk by Michael Stone at Centre of Gravity on July 19, 2012 on day 11 of a 12-day intensive.

Integration

If you pare down the Heart Sutra to meditation instruction, it says, “Sit like a Buddha.” And then when you get a feeling for the Heart Sutra there’s no “like”—it’s just: Sit Buddha!

Buddha means to be awake. It comes from the word “bodhi” —the bodhi mind is an awakened mind. The Buddha is not a person but a way of being here and now.

You are the place, the empty place where the entire world converges.

To feel that in sitting practice means there’s listening and sound—you can feel the restlessness (dukkha) when listening to a sound sometimes, as if the sound is somehow outside of you, as if it’s over there. But when you’re paying attention to what you’re saying about listening to the story you’re telling about the sound that occurs—all that’s left is the images you create. And when you can drop those pictures there’s no separation between listening and sound—then you’re in samadhi or integration. There is spaciousness, intimacy and love (not an idea of love, but the feeling of being held by the universe).

Then the mind comes in and tries to figure out what just happened and the experience dissolves.

~

Editor: Brianna Bemel

 

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