Andrzej and Delson Podcast 3 Everyday Awareness

Here we are in our third conversation, and yes, I think if you haven't followed us from the first two conversations, just a brief introduction to the both of us. I'll start with myself and then I'll give it to you. So my name is Delson Armstrong, and I am a meditation teacher. I started teaching TWIM in 2020 or 21, and since then I've also started teaching Kriya Yoga and Dzogchen and Mahamudra in different ways. I don't really call it Dzogchen or Mahamudra traditionally, but allowing people to go to that space that is generally called Rigpa. Yeah, I've been teaching since 2020 or 21, and I've been traveling all over the world, teaching people in different capacities in Europe, in America, in India and parts of Asia.

And I'm the author of A Mind Without Craving and some books on dependent origination and so many other things, yada, yada, yada, yada. So, Andrzej, how would you like to present yourself? Yes, I've been practicing for 10 years and my progress with meditation was quite good. In terms of it was quite quick and understanding some stuff, and I've been teaching people for six years right now in Poland, and I focused mainly on just awareness. Awareness is like my, it's something like that, but I also don't put a name on this, like Dzogchen or on Mahamudra, because when I first started my meditation practice with just simple Vipassana, then I switched to Jhanas in TWIM, and thanks to TWIM, I just did great progress very fast and experienced Nibbana.

And then, when I experienced nirvana, I realized that, oh, we can teach this in a different way, and it's like I was just going more into effortless awareness, like without object stuff, etc., and then I find that the best meditation is non-meditation, and then I found, oh, there is a Dzogchen and they teach something like that. But I was less interested in concept, but experiencing on my own, and looking for best methods to just stay aware. So the best method is just don't practice awareness, but it sounds like a contradiction, and it is, and it's not.

But we can just tell more about it later on this podcast, on this podcast, so, and I've met Delson thanks to that craft few months ago, and I asked could we do some retreat in Poland and meet Polish people with these beautiful teachings, not only the Jhanas, because we decided together that we just share more broadly our teaching, depends on needs of our students. And we both, I think, terrible in marketing, because last time we forgot that we do retreat and we did two podcasts. So this time is to say that we are organizing this retreat in Poland in October from 11 to 20.

It's a nine day silence retreat. We're going to start with metta and Jhanas, and we will see where this leads us together for word method and teachings, and we warmly welcome everyone who is interested in Buddhism and meditation and awakening and wants to see more clearly what is going on in their lives. Can you put some information? Yeah, yeah, so I'm going to actually share my screen so people can understand how to get to the website and then register for the retreat. So here we are in my browser. We're going to go to delsonarmstrong.com, so you can see we're at the home page, and then we go to Events, and there are upcoming events. So the retreat, here you can see, Meditation Retreat in Poland, 11th October to 20th October. You can go to view the event, and here we are, contact for registration. I would urge all of you to go ahead and copy this and create an email and just say you're interested in registering for this 10-day meditation retreat.

And we will take it from there. So we still have a few spots left. We have a maximum of 20 participants, so I would urge all of you to go ahead and register. So there we are, now we've done the marketing, and so let's get into some interesting dialogue about everyday awareness. We were just talking before we started about everyday awareness and what that might look like. So how would you define what we mean by everyday awareness? Wow, that's a difficult question at the beginning, because my idea was, because one of my students inspired me to be more marketable, like show about stuff, because when I started meditation I started for something, and when we go for the retreat we also go for something, and of course sometimes we don't know what for. We go on this retreat, and some of us was thinking, maybe thinking about awakening and awareness of everyday use, and I thought that will be really nice to explain and try to convey some idea about this stuff.

Why this retreat is hopeful for you and what you can get from this retreat, even if the main goal is not getting anything, just be aware. Because what I can explain or say about everyday awareness is just be. Because before I started meditation, I had the idea that all my life is the story that I have of myself.

It's like when we think about the self, we usually direct our attention to our idea of who we are, what we've done, what we are planning to do, how we can find ourselves in relation to other people, how we compare. Am I higher, am I lower in this, and I'm better, worse, the same, equal, and like that, and all this. It's fine to be like that, but when we, in this collection of different stories, different ideas about the self, we are really liable to suffer. And when I started to meditate, I quickly noticed that we have like two minds. One mind is the voice in the head, the thoughts, not only the voice but also there are some like images, pictures that the mind shows, and there is the space, and the voice and pictures are presented in this space. Like, I think the space is the closest way we can try to say what is awareness, because awareness is not a space, because the space also is in awareness. Would you say? Because our awareness is just be present.

It sounds silly, but it's really powerful and it's very mundane. So awareness is just to know what is going on. But in experience, going outside of the stuff that we can read and listen to, is to see that all this stuff that is arising, like your hand is moving, your lips are talking, the thoughts are rising in your head, are just personal process. So you see that you have no control. It doesn't mean you don't exist, because some people say, "Oh, am I exist?" It's not about question, do you exist or not exist, but who is in the charge in this stuff? Because when we say I, we always go to the place that

this is something stable, like I control what I say, I control what I think, what I do, and that's why I have a guilt, that's why I'm proud of it, I'm going to get enlightened, I'm not enlightened, and stuff like that. And awareness is the most simple thing, I think, and at the same, most complicated to see in the world, because this is like our natural state. But yeah, it's very natural, it's very natural. It's like being born again without all this identity that we have and see the words for the press for the first time just differently.

The same word differently, that's my word about this. And what do you want? Do you want to say something more? Yeah, I would add that. When we talk about everyday awareness, this has a lot of evidence in even the traditional Theravada practices. When we talk about from the Pali Canon, just to give people that understanding that, hey, this is not something that we're just making up, or this is something that's a new age thing, if you want to look at it from the perspective of what the Buddha taught as well, he talked about the luminous mind. He says luminous is the mind, monks, luminous is the mind, but due to adventitious defilements the mind is covered up. So what is that covering up? It's a filtration of our ego structure. It's a filtration of our identification systems. And you go back to Satipatthana Sutta when he talks about the four foundations of mindfulness

That is awareness, that is the movement of awareness. You're noticing how your movement of attention is going. But beyond that, if you were to just relax into the presence of mind in this moment, then there's nothing else to be done. And the Buddha says that if you did this for an entire week, you would be fully enlightened, and all these other interesting ideas. So I resonate with what you're saying, which is a lot of people are chasing an experience, they're chasing enlightenment, they're chasing this idea of what awakening is, but how does somebody know what they want when they've never experienced it? So in other words, it's a projection of what they think it is. And I don't know who the teacher was.

Either it was Chogyam Trungpa or it was Suzuki Roshi. I could be very wrong about who the person said this, but the quote is great. It says that enlightenment is the ego's greatest disappointment, which means we practice, we do all kinds of things, and then we come to the end, so-called end, and realize, oh, it isn't what my ego expected. It isn't all this, you know, fireworks, and everything is going to be wonderful all the time, and so on and so forth. We still have to deal with stuff. We still have to deal with our jobs, breakups

Problems in our relationships, or money issues, or whatever it is, life isn't going to become just suddenly transformed in that sense. But at the same time, by accessing this everyday awareness, this space, this field to function from, there's a different quality of experience that arises. Even when things are difficult, even when situations are getting out of hand, even when you notice emotions coming up, the awareness blankets all of that. It's like, you know what's going on: things are bad, or things are good, or things are going great, whatever it is, but none of that really has a big effect on the movement of this everyday awareness, because it's always there. You take apart all the filtration systems of the ego structure and identity, and that's what remains: the luminous mind, or non-reflective awareness, whatever we want to call it. Yes, this is what I wanted to say, that every hour everyday awareness, like, or this awakened awareness

is not something that is going to be produced by the retreat, by meditation, but this is something what's left when we cut wood is not important, but this is very difficult, because as you said, we don't know what we are assigned for, and when we are in a state of better, like better of the indo for, in the state of ignorance, for the, I don't have a better word for now, we have a problem to just see what is really important. Because I saw in myself that the first time I heard about enlightenment, I thought, oh, that's really nice, if I got it I'm going to share with people, that's good, that will be very good stuff to share, and just be proud of it. And I didn't know what I was telling, and what was I assigning for with the staff, because later on I just discovered that this is like ego deconstruction. Then it's not something we like building, a new person, but deconstruct what we know about self and see the reality as it is, simple as impersonal process, which is both exciting

and anxious for ego, because my first time when I got to the place when the self was gone, it was full of anxiety, and then the self came up again because I had anxiety, and I was like scared, because only the stuff, only I know, I knew that the self and the structure was gone for a moment. The first time it wasn't like a nice experience, it was like a terrifying experience. And when we need some time to accustom ourselves and do it at our own pace to see that

just knowing what is, knowing our true nature, is in fact the best thing we can do for ourselves in this life, because everything someday ends and all these struggles we have will be gone. And I really like to think about that, of death, every day, because it helps me to do what is really important in life, and it always reminds me that everything is impermanent. So all this, my struggle with life, when I think maybe I die tonight, will be, oh, and maybe it's not so important, this stuff. This also can help grow our awareness

during the day, and what is really helpful to have awareness more natural, because when we start meditation the awareness is not always like something natural. Even then, we go to the place that eventually, or finally, the awareness starts to be really our natural state. We need to go for the place that we can say, like, a hellish one, the ego state, because we need to convey ego to let go the stuff, because the voice in the head is trying to get somewhere, and the voice in the head is trying to get some states, trying to get some benefits from this practice. And it's good, because maybe you're going to sign for this retreat. So then we need to go to the second step, to let go this voice in the head, and this is really difficult, because some of this stuff is really let go and some is not. It's really difficult to let go. I don't... and I think

in the end it's really difficult to let go the meditator, yeah, practice itself, to clinging to practice, to Dhamma, to see that what's left, it's always there, and there is no step, even though, but this is half true, because we need to do some steps at the beginning to to god to this truth that the last step is to realize that there is no step, there is no, and in this realization we go to this true of the art enlightenment. It doesn't mean that you're gonna feel good every day, because it doesn't mean feeling something. It means that you know what is going on, truly know what is going on, just experience your pain, your struggles, with maybe just a little more grace than before. Yeah, yeah. Well, it's interesting you mentioned being able to see reality as it is, and if you think about how the Buddha has defined what reality is, that is to say, in our everyday experience

It's conditioned. Everything that we experience is because of some kind of cause and condition, or series of causes and conditions, and by virtue of the fact that they are conditioned, or they have some level of causality, ultimately it is impermanent, it is unstable, and it is liable to pass away. Therefore it is suffering. It is dukkha, or a sense of unease about things, and then you start to see, oh, this is because there is an ego identification with this experience. The moment we unclutch and let that go, then there is freedom in that moment. You mentioned death a little earlier, and this is something I tell people as well, which is, when you're meditating

really what you're doing is learning how to die with grace and with ease, because in the formal sitting practice, in which you go through the process of the jhanas, which have their own level of importance and validity, which is to say, you deconstruct the layers of your ego structure. You start with the senses. You let go of the senses. You go deeper and deeper and deeper. You let go of even the mind, and you come to the nibbana dhatu, the space that is the unconditioned, the paraconscious, as I say, beyond consciousness and unconsciousness. And that's what probably will happen at death. Some of you might be aware of this, but I recently went through a near-death experience.

I was caught up in a flood. And the only thing that was present in my mind was this primal awareness of the instinct to survive. And like, how do I get out of this? I wasn't thinking about the Buddha, or the Dhamma, or the Sangha. I wasn't thinking about gods. I wasn't thinking about anything. I was just thinking, I have to decide, I have to do something right now. And that's the process of everyday awareness, is like what is present right now, establishing mindfulness in front of me, as it was called in the Satipatthana Sutta. This means that that awareness is present in good times and in bad times, but it isn't affected one way or the other. It is just going to allow you to act

depending upon the content, depending upon the context, and what is appropriate for every given situation. So when we are dying, when we are in the process of death, I mean, it's a great way of looking at it. Like, if you were to die today, what really matters? I had a retreat with our mutual friend, Doug Kraft, who was co-leading it with me in California earlier this couple of weeks ago. And one of the things I asked people was, when you

see through all of the impermanence of identifying with this, that, or the other, five aggregates, whatever you want to call it, all of that. What is left? When you let go completely, what is left? And that is, in some ways, our natural state, as you said, our true nature. Yeah. That's when you were talking about your story with death and this primary awareness and thoughts about trying to survive it. I think it's good to say again about these two minds. Yes, this is because this illustrates

really well what we are trying to do because we're not trying to change experience because we had we don't have a control of experience of course we can have some impact on this experience by having a good choice and meditate and keeping precepts and etc and just behave in a way that is more skillful than less skillful but eventually we want to discover the place from we see because when we have this voice in the head we have ideas uh we talk we we talk and move and we are aware from this place i don't know it's not a place because there is no location but for the better i don't have a better word for say the place from we watch when we see world and when our attention is catch in a stream of thoughts and it's like one thought leads to the second thoughts and the next thoughts and next thoughts next fault and next folks and we live in this thoughts for a long time i remember myself when i

was 20, 30, and I was like thinking all the time, thinking and living in these thoughts. And then I started to meditate, and I discovered that outside these thoughts is also space. I also exist. I exist. I don't need to think about myself to be. And when we are in constant thinking, when we see, I don't know if I use this word correctly in a scientific way, but when you see about this stream of thoughts, it's similar to being hypnotized. Like in this, when you... that's, I think, that's why we call this awakening, because when you go and chase one thought, the next one follows, because I must do this, and do this, and I call my friends, and how our friends think about me and what I do, and another, and our attention is narrow, and it's like dreaming. It's like dreaming, even though you are awake, and during the way that you dream something, it's chasing the concept, the concept, the concept, the concept. And what we are trying to do in meditation, what is really difficult

Is just left the concept, because for the mind, for this thinking mind, the voice in the head, the concepts is only stuff that the mind knows, because the conceptual mind is based on concept. Yes. He is afraid to let go this concept, because we have also a concept about meditation. Yeah, about awareness, concept about practice, about who we are. Not only like, oh, it's mine, I'm sorry, it's all good. No, but we need to... what is difficult is just to let go the concept, because the conceptual mind is afraid of dying, because it's the conceptual mind consists only concept and it's built on a concept. So if we want the natural mind and just have a more space for our suffering in life and struggles, what we need to do is only just let go the concepts. Yeah. No, I mean, it doesn't mean that the concepts are not important in our life, because they are important, but believing them like the ultimate truth is something that creates lots of suffering. So

So only when we let go of this stream of concept, what's left is this. Yeah, yeah. And every time we could try to call it, it's by the thinking mind. Yeah. Well, this is it. No, no, no. You need to let go and just experience for yourself, because this is it. You cannot say you are enlightened or not enlightened. It's not about, you know, the name and saying, oh, you are not enlightened. I tell you that's not true. If you think it, I'm enlightened, I would say, oh, that's not true, let go this concept, I'm enlightened, I'm not enlightened, and see what's left. Left is unconditioned. It's as it is, and there is no steps, because the steps do always the thinking mind. Oh, I need to do more steps, I need to learn more, read more, meditate more, get some more. I'm a bad meditator, good meditator.

And this is what I think is our idea with Delson to the retreat in Poland, to show more about this using jhanas or the other path, to show you that this is what you are looking for is always present. Yeah, yeah. It's always present. There's not much we need to really talk about in terms of the everyday awareness. I mean, again, I wanted to invite everybody to say, look, just come for the retreat and you'll see more about this. You can obviously go and see some of the recordings from my retreat with Doug Craft and you get a flavor for what we're going to be doing, but there's much more that we will look into. What I'll say is, like the difference, you really hit the nail on the head when you said this, which is: the mind that says I'm enlightened or I'm not enlightened is the thinking mind. And it's like once you have accessed the luminous mind, that's all you have to do. There's nothing else. That is the true nature.

It's just like the thinking mind needs a concept to boost itself, to say, ah, yes, this is what I have accomplished, or this is who I am, or whatever it might be. So you think about, like, even the jhanas, the Buddha said the jhanas are also fabrications, they're constructed. And so they are there to keep the thinking mind active enough or busy enough until it rests. And then what remains is the luminous mind. So really, that's the space that we want to get into. I'm just thinking, because there's not much we need to speak about this, we could kind of let people know that this is where we're taking them and this is where we want to go.

Is there anything else you would want to say or shift gears to? Yes, yes. And maybe when we say how, maybe this is a good idea to say how to do it. Yeah, what that, think our steps, because yeah, I'm going to repeat myself probably with ego more talk about it because this is so simple experience and there is no steps, like how to say more about it. Of course we can just put more stories, but still it's like story about something, and our idea with Delson is to just show this because it's not about, you know, telling stories about awareness, but the really important fact is just to show awareness.

So I think that we can just say two things for less advanced meditators and for the beginners, stuff that, if you are a beginner and you want to build enough momentum to experience awareness itself, it is good, go for the retreat. I'm now marketing myself, but today I do it consciously, because last time I unconsciously was just skipping this part, but this is really important. It's based on my practice, because when I started meditation, I really focused on continuous awareness. It was like my goal to be really aware in everyday stuff, and I was trying to be aware, and I must say that the most difficult stuff to be aware for me was like being in a social situation, speaking with people. I was like going to my friend, and I was aware that I'm going to my friend.

Always when I just go to the flood of my friend I was gone, and then I was 10 minutes after, left is my friend. I was, oh, I'm still awareness, and I was trying so many times to be aware in this, but I was so excited seeing emotions, you know, going into interaction and social interaction, and I got that this is really true. This is really difficult for the beginners to be aware in social situation, because if you are just aware when you sit and drink coffee in the morning, it's not so difficult in this stuff. So the practical stuff that what we can do except just practice every day meditation

is is to go for the retreat because i remember myself when i go when i went from the first retreat and i thought for the first time i felt that my awareness is effortless of course i have lost some of this momentum after some time because it's never it's um the no everything it's it's not so stable after awareness after electric some parts of your momentum you're gonna lost it's completely completely normal but this is the stuff that is really helpful because when you accumulate some hours of sitting in a good environment and you have a good teacher and you have the your mind have good instruction because this is also very important when you are trying to

master your meditation, you need to know that the first start of meditation is the meditation doing by the thinking mind, and if this thinking mind has a wrong idea about the meditation, doesn't know how to meditate properly, it's like application for your computer. If your app is wrong, you get wrong result. So going for a retreat and listening to us, I think we know what to do there. There is some chance that you got some right idea about the practice, which is really helpful, because I started my practice and I was looking for different ideas on the internet, and of course there are plenty useful knowledge, but of course also there's plenty unuseful knowledge, and meditation are different before, and there are many different styles of meditation.

And if you try to put your take from this part, take from this part, and take from freeze, but there is some chance that you're going to do something that doesn't work, that doesn't work, that it not be proper, because it doesn't mean that all these different styles of meditation, they, it doesn't work, but they have a different idea how to work with some stuff. And if we just try to do this and take this from this and this, we build something that, if we don't know the mechanics of the meditation, probably it doesn't work, and I'm saying of my personal experience, because I've done it, it doesn't work when I decide, like going one path, and I met jhanas and Bhante Vimalaramsi, my meditation was like really, I got really good progress, fast progress. Of course that it depends of your environment, of your history, and I don't want to promise you anything, that you got quick progress, because this is not my idea to say something like that, but what I'm trying to say is that

if you want to just go in the natural mind, you need to find a way and stick the way and got progress by progress, step by step, which is where jhanas are very helpful. I know the jhanas, but I wouldn't say I'm master of the jhanas, but I know that Delson is a master of the jhana, so we both can help you, go with these jhanas and understand how to go to the place that you see that there is no step to do. Yeah. The last is just let go. Let go all the, all the steps, let go meditator, meditation, let go the Dhamma, the concept, and see that, oh, oh, this is disappointing. This is it. That's all.

So if you want to be disappointed, come join the retreat. Yeah, no, that's great. That's great. And maybe, just we can close off with, I can give a very short pointing instruction, pointing out instructions for people so they understand what we're talking about to access that everyday awareness in a way that's non-fabricated, non-conceptual.

And the beauty of this is this can be happening anywhere at any time. You could be sitting, you could be standing, you can be eating your food, you can close your eyes, you could keep your eyes open. But let me explain what happens. If you just bring your awareness right here, right now, like bring your attention to this moment right now and just pay attention to where your mind is.

Perhaps it's paying attention to the sound of the air conditioner, or it's paying attention to watching this video, or it's paying attention to my voice. So if you're paying attention to that, what is it that is watching this? What is it that is aware of the movement of awareness? And you won't have any answer. That's what we call emptiness.

You try to trace back what is being aware of this process. And there's nothing there. It's empty. It's empty of any concepts, and yet it's aware. It's giving light to the experience. And this is what's known in some circles as empty cognizance or empty radiance. It's empty of self, because the moment you try to find who is aware, there's no answer. The rational mind goes away, and all you're left with is luminosity. So I think we can close here with that, and let people know: register for the retreat. This time we will put more attention on marketing and stuff. I'm really inspired, because this is really important to people. If you want to sign up, again, we want to remind you that we have three spots, and under this video you'll find links to sign up for this retreat. We are hoping that we will see in Poland, a beautiful place, to meditate together and to just see what it is. Yeah, just experience, because you cannot stop experiencing. Yeah, exactly. And if you just see that you cannot stop your experience and experiencing, you can be quite close to say, uh-huh, this is what it is. Yeah, this is what it is. Yeah, yeah, beautiful. All right, thank you, thank you.