Nothing Can Damage Your Being

A man asks about what the relationship is between heart, consciousness, awareness and attention. Rupert suggests that awareness and consciousness are the same things; attention is the focusing of awareness; heart is another name for consciousness and awareness, but it is more evocative.

A man still feels very localised. He’d like to experience being more expansive. Rupert suggests that everything in the world ‘is’, just as ‘I am’. This essential being is the fundamental nature of everyone and everything. Being is the ground.

A man asks about non-meditation without having trodden the progressive path first. Rupert suggests that impurities of the mind don’t need to be burnt by discipline because the nature of mind is already pure. However dark the movie, the screen is transparent. There is some separating out of our self from the content of experience, but it needn’t take twenty years.

A man shares that his inner experience is limited, but he has a longing to connect with his inner child. Rupert suggests that he come to these gatherings as often as he can and allow the community of friends to coax this small boy out of his hiding place. Rupert then talks about the power of the community.

A man asks how to shake off his separate self and recognise his true nature again. Rupert suggests he doesn't need to shake off his identity. It’s an old habit that comes back. It’s natural. Just go back to being when you become aware that you are caught in experience.

A man asks what happens when the mind gets involved in remembering to return to being. Rupert says that the mind can make a concept that mimics the experience of being. It’s the screensaver, not the screen. He suggests that he ask, ‘Can I say from my experience that I am?’ In that pause, we don’t refer to a memory or concept. We refer to being.

A man, who shares that the words ‘I am’ has become more important to him, asks if there is a simplicity in those words that evokes something deeper. Rupert suggests that the words ‘I am’ are not ambiguous, like ‘consciousness’ or ‘source’ can be. We can ask anyone, ‘Can you say from your experience that ‘I am?’ Everyone can say that.

A man asks about the phrase 'before our mind creates the world, our world creates our mind', as well as the somatic dimensions of this path. Rupert suggests that he has changed over the last few years since coming to retreat. He may not be living a life of bliss, but the trauma held in his body is gradually being dissolved in the peace of his true nature. Traumas are deep in the body, and it takes time to soak the body in being.

Regarding trauma, a man asks if the screen can be damaged in relation to the screen and movie. Rupert responds that nothing can damage the screen, regardless of the trauma. Nothing could damage the space in the room, which is a metaphor for your being that exists before and beyond experience.

A woman asks how to align her meditation and art practices. Rupert suggests that her art process is how she loses herself, not registering as a separate self. He references sports playing as a similar process. We must integrate that flow experience into their everyday life.

A woman speaks of her own perfectionism, which caused her to abandon many projects. She wonders if others like athletes don't suffer from this kind of sabotage. Rupert suggests they do when not in the game. During the game they're in flow, but after they suffer from this looking back and perfectionism.

A woman asks about Rupert’s experience when engaged in a conversation with someone who is asking a question. Rupert suggests that he pays full attention.

A man, who enjoyed previous discussions on sports and writing, shares that his hold back is a stammerer, which he thinks may be the reverse of the flow state in sports. Rupert speaks of a time in his life when he had a stammer, which only happened with certain types of men, like his father. He says he learned how to breathe through it, and understood that it was directly related to fear.