Hi there!
I just felt like asking you about what this guy is all about.
As to the man himself, it is certainly appropriate to call him a clever businessman.
His book(s) may be able to wake some people up to the idea of meditation. But then, his insistence on no technique, no practice and not mentioning things such as the progress of insight leads people right into total delusion.
On the other hand, he actually DOES mention a few techniques in his book.
When on the height of A&P >2 years ago, I felt like those were really effective, but I couldn't/can't quite grasp, what they are actually about.
I will quote a few, and hope that you can tell me, what they are about, or which one of those might be really useful.
I consider to not use them as standalone meditation techniques, but rather for short periods of time, when one has nothing else to do (breaks, waiting for the bus, the train, the class to begin, the food to be cooked...).
But before doing so, I'd like to know where this can lead to in the long run, and whether this is detrimental to insight practice.
Also, since the guy has (probably?) copied and recompilated all of the stuff he is selling as his own teaching, I hope that you can tell me where those practices actually originate from or point me to more similar material.
So, here goes: (taken from "A new earth, chapter 11")
The inner body:
Take two or three conscious breaths. Now see if you can detect a
subtle sense of aliveness that pervades your entire inner body. Can you feel
your body from within, so to speak? Sense briefly specific parts of your
body. Feel your hands, then your arms feet, and legs. Can you feel your
abdomen, chest, neck and head? What about your lips? Is there life in them?
Then become aware again of the inner body as a whole. You may want to
close your eyes initially for this practice, and once you can feel your body,
open your eyes, look around, and continue to feel your body at the same
time. Some readers may find there is no need to close their eyes; they can in
fact feel their inner body as they read this.
and from the power of now, chapter 7:
Silence
Are there any other portals apart from those you just mentioned?
Yes, there are. The Unmanifested is not separate from the manifested. It pervades this world, but it is so well disguised that almost everybody misses it completely. If you know where to look, you'll find it everywhere. A portal opens up every moment.
Do you hear that dog barking in the distance? Or that car passing by? Listen carefully. Can you feel the presence of the Unmanifested in that? You can' t? Look for it in the silence out of which the sounds come and into which they return. Pay more attention to the silence than to the sounds. Paying attention to outer silence creates inner silence: the mind becomes still. A portal is opening up.
Every sound is born out of silence, dies back into silence, and during its life span is surrounded by silence. Silence enables the sound tobe. It is an intrinsic but unmanifested part of every sound, every musical note, every song, every word. The Unmanifested is present in this world as silence. This is why it has been said that nothing in this world is so like God as silence. All you have to do is pay attention to it. Even during a conversation, become conscious of the gaps between words, the brief silent intervals between sentences. As you do that, the dimension of stillness grows within you. You cannot pay attention to silence without simultaneously becoming still within. Silence without, stillness within. You have entered the Unmanifested.
Space:
just as no sound can exist without silence, nothing can exist without no-thing, without the empty space that enables it to be. Every physical object or body has come out of nothing, is surrounded by nothing, and will eventually return to nothing. Not only that, but even inside every physical body there is far more "nothing" than "something." Physicists tell us that the solidity of matter is an illusion. Even seemingly solid matter, including your physical body, is nearly 100 percent empty space - so vast are the distances between the atoms compared to their size. What is more, even inside every atom there is mostly empty space. What is left is more like a vibrational frequency than particles of solid matter, more like a musical note. Buddhists have known that for over 2,500 years. "Form is emptiness, emptiness is form," states the Heart Sutra, one of the best known ancient Buddhist texts. The essence of all things is emptiness.
The Unmanifested is not only present in this world as silence; it also pervades the entire physical universe as space - from within and without. This is just as easy to
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miss as silence. Everybody pays attention to the things in space, but who pays attention to space itself?
Whenever I'm doing the "connect with your inner body" thing, I feel that something is happening which is NOT at all equivalent to body scanning.
During my initial A&P-days, I felt that this exercise was enough to make me very present and more balanced and able to handle any current situation. Now it's not that strong.
The silence-exercise seems to have quite a different effect.
I feel like all experience of the sense doors is still arising, but doesn't have real importance. Is this what the AF thing is pointing to?
In some way, I thought that this was essentially a choiceless awareness exercise, but with focus on stillness as a crutch.
In any way, it seems to be more stable than choiceless awareness, that is, it's easier to not be carried away by thoughts here.
The space-exercise seems to be similar to the silence-exercise, but with weaker effect for me.
So, what do you think what those techniques aim at, whether they are helpful in the long run at all, or where exactly they originate from?