A Deep Dive Into Thay's Calm-Ease Meditation

The Colors of Liberation | 6 of 6

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The Colors of Liberation

The last half of the Full Discourse on Breathing focuses on liberating our awareness through contemplation on Emptiness, Aimlessness and Signlessness.  However, that does not mean that the three doors are not found in Thay's Calm-Ease meditation.  They are fully present there and we experience them in the meditation.

This is possible because of Emptiness' No-Birth | No-Death or No-Self.  The Calm-Ease meditation grounds our awareness into the moment and we experience Happiness and Peace.  We cannot separate peace and happiness from the three doors of liberation any more than we can experience liberation without happiness and peace.  They inter-ARE.  So when we are sitting in the moment we are experiencing liberation.  

Maybe we haven't let enough go within our beliefs, perceptions and our thoughts to fully see the three doors.  That's okay.  As we let go, our awareness grows.  If the only window to our room is very small, we can only see so much.  

Yet the whole world is still there.  Maybe when the sun shines in we see reds and yellow-greens.  We enjoy them, especially when they begin to move playfully.  If we could let go of the wall supporting the window a little more, the window can expand, broadening our awareness.  "Oh, those colors are leaves.  Nice, there's a Japanese maple."  We continue to enjoy the colors and their dance.  We are able to rest and heal, thus letting go more of the wall's structure.  The window widens more.  "O.  There's the sun!  Hey, the yellow-green is from the tree behind the maple."  The enjoyment continues, we choose to look deeply into our suffering and touching our suffering's root and lovingly offering it the love it needs to heal.  The window of awareness opens more.  "Ah, the wind blows the tree's leaves and makes the yellow-green and the maple's red leaves dance across my window's view. "  You peacefully smile with the realization that - you've enjoyed your growing awareness the whole time.  You can remember the first time you saw the colors dancing and enjoyed them, not knowing what they were.  That joy has never left as your window has grown.  It's the same, consistent joy that has come from experiencing the dancing visual delights of color.   

The three doors of liberation are experienced the same way while sitting and being in the moment.  Maybe they are just blocks of color dancing in your lap or maybe you can start to make out the shape of the leaf.   Either way, peace and happiness are always there.

Does it really Matter How Big Your Window Is?

Thankfully No.  : )  Once you sit and mindfully breathe and gently listen, those colors are dancing right there within the Peace and Happiness.  You don't have to wait, you can enjoy the colors of liberation right away.  It's the enjoyment that intrinsically motivates to sit when you don't feel like it.  Knowing of the joy excites you to sit again.  BEing the joy is who you are.

Wonderment then Gratitude Leading to a Joyous Eruption

When we experience Peace and Happiness during the Calm-Ease mediation, Thay says we are doing it correctly.  When we experience Wonderment followed by Gratitude we become ripe to lean back and "laugh at the sky" with Joy.  These experiences are rooted deeply in liberation.  When you experience any one of these you are seeing the colors of liberation.  

Maybe after awhile of mindful breathing, you are amazed how Peace and Happiness are always available in the moment.  They are constant and you can depend on them.  You will find yourself smiling with delightful Wonderment followed by thankfulness.

Possibly it has been a long difficult day and you have lost your Happiness.  After your kids have settled down to bed, you find a comfortable spot in your home and sit and mindfully listen to the bells that bring you into meditation.  As you begin to listen to your breathing, your thinking mind begins to ever so lightly quiet down.  You decide to continue with your breath so you switch from In-Out to Deep-Slow because when you say Slow, you can really feel your body calm.  Then start "Calm-Ease" by listening to both your in breath and your shoulders.  You exhale with a warm caring smile and share its warmth with your shoulders.  You continue BEing as you sit through "Calm-Ease".  Now it's a Wonderful Moment as you are BEing with all of you.  Your mind is quieted enough to have some concentration.  You experience a deep sense of contentment that blooms into Happiness.  "Ah, that feels so good.  I am home again and there's my Happiness."  You experience Gratitude for the Happiness in your true home.  Your smile now includes Gratitude. 

Perhaps you have including your smile to help relax your facial muscles and help with your overall Ease.  You smiled even though you haven't felt like smiling.  You do this for several days.  Finally today, you sit and as you close your eyes and your smile springs forth and greets you before you say, "In".  You joyously laugh with this welcomed, unexpected experience.  

Each of these smiles bloomed from moments of experiencing the colors of liberation.  You know it because you could simply let go and just BE.    You were wonderfully content to just BE.  There was nowhere else to go, to become or an experienced awareness to obtain.  You had arrived home.  That's a wonderful liberation.

Emptiness of Interbeing

The more your mind was filled with the experience of breathing and feeling your body, the two melded into one whole experience.  The breath provided energy for the body.  The body expanded and contracted for the breath to be.  They were interbeing.  Experiencing both together, you were experiencing the deep peace of interbeing.  For a moment, recall the peace with just experiencing the breath or just the body.  Now compare and contrast that with the peace felt with experiencing the breath and the body as one.  The depth is synergistically deeper.  That is the experience of interbeing.  That is the experience of emptiness. 

Aimlessness

Recall the experience when your awareness with filled with both breath and body.  Did you want to leave that awareness?  How complete did you feel?  Did you feel lacking in anyway?  You were more than enough.  Nothing to gain and nothing to become.  You were experiencing the contentment of Aimlessness.

Signlessness

When you sit, you enjoy your breath.  You enjoy your body.  You enjoy your breathe within your body and your body within your breath.  Neither is more important than the other.  When you look deeply into them, you see life.  Life needs a breath to have a body.  Life needs a body for expression.  It's not the parts that are significant, it is that life has created what ever it needs to continue.  The breath and the body are momentary while life has been continuing.  This realization is wonderment.   Life has created you so it can continue and you get to momentary see life all around you.  Gratitude begins to bloom that you are life seeing yourself everywhere.  It's about then that joy begins to erupt and you tilt your head back and laugh with the sky.  

Colors of Liberation

When you experience any one of these: peace, happiness, wonderment, gratitude and joy from your practice, know you are experiencing the colors of liberation coming in through your window of awareness.

Let's experience colors of liberation in a meditation.

Smile kindly to your in breathe.  -  Enjoy your out breathe.

Smile kindly  -  Enjoy

Breath in deeply  -  Rest in your slowing out breath

Deep  -  Slow

"Hello, my body."  -  "I am sharing my breath with you"

Hello, body.  -  Share breath

Calm body  -  Ease body

Calm  -  Ease

Aware of breath and body as one.  -  Rest in the peacefulness

Breath and body  -  Rest

Aware of breath and body as one.  -  Experience the life within you

Breath and body  -  Life

Aware of breath and body as one.  -  Grateful Life's Energy

 Breath and body  -  Grateful

Just BE  -  You are Home.