| | 22/6/12
Still pre-path.
It's been a long time but I have not stopped practising. A little bit without aim maybe, but beneficial nonetheless. I want to ramp it up and try to achieve stream entry within 3 months.
It's been about three months since I started on a different tack. This is using Kasina, as partly described at the hamo project combined with helpful tips from Nick.
http://thehamiltonproject.blogspot.com.au/2010/12/nicks-current-candle-flame-kasina.html
I use a plate but most of the time 4.5' by 3' inch paper/cardboard plain brown box. It has a few grains of colour, kinda like recycled paper. It contained my wallet that my in law bought for me from the sub continent. The grains if held at slightly less than arms length hold the eye's attention more than a evenly coloured cermic dish.
The focus is on what is described below. It happens about 10-15 mins in when I practice on the train, a little earlier when I practice by myself in peace and quiet.
“What I mean by 'the sense of seeing' is, literally, what it is to experience seeing directly; to perceive is to be engaged in a lively activity and is what is meant by paying attention....
…..To apprehend perception directly is necessarily also to apprehend that apprehension is occurring, and to experience in such a manner is to experience cleanly and clearly, entirely engagedly and encompassedly, incuding the bodily sense of such experience. To see not just what the eye sees but what it is to see is therefore to see cleanly and clearly, entirely engagedly and encompassedly, including the bodily sense of such seeing. Seeing in this manner engages the energies which otherwise fuel the proliferating tendency, and so avoids such proliferation. Further, experiencing seeing as a bodily sense leads to deeper insight into what the body is, and what perceiving is. “
I cannot sense any of the bodily experience but I do sense the perceiving of perception. With this, in some moments I have developed the technique of just seeing what the eye is focusing on. It is hard to explain but the effect of this technique is to refine perception and and times this carries over to be able to see subtle tendencies of the mind. So I had been doing this as a practice for 2-3 months without any other aim. At times insights into myself and particularly the nature of how my thoughts would arise, but they would come unexpectedly and not leave a lasting effect as a change of behaviour.
About 2 weeks ago I realised that the lack of aim is not helping progress. I looked up some of the advice given to me, and a few particular points from the Hamo blog really helped me - http://thehamiltonproject.blogspot.com.au/2011/10/yogi-experiment-riding-wave.html. In particular,
“Paying attention has been conditioned by ignorance of what is happening for a lifetime. Simply realize that all phenomena, all sense contact is arising and being perceived without any effort on anyone's part and relief is yours. Look at phenomena simply from that angle. They are arising without effort. When one tries to perceive them, focus on them with some sort of mental effort overlayed, tension results. Drop the attemp to focus and simply recognise there is no need to focus.
Simply realize that it is all presenting itself, giving rise to consciousness by itself, without any effort whatsoever. 'You' let go of that illusory control and let the wave (sense contact) carry you away. Ride the wave. In fact there is nothing to ride the wave, there is just the wave, let the wave ride itself. You stop fighting the oncoming tsunami and its formidable currents. It rides itself instead by just simply recognizing that awareness, a bombardment of sense contact at all sense doors simultaneously cognised by one's brain, is happening without any of your input anyways, without 'you' entirely, effortlessly, at all times.
There is no need to fabricate 'paying attention'. It's already occurring at the senses. Recognize this fact and the salty water ceases pounding 'you' in the ear, as 'you' don't exist at the point of unsegregated, unobjectified sense contact. Drop all 'focus' and simply recognize what is happening without the need to focus on one part of the field of experience over another. Let the entire field of experience show itself without the need to selectively focus on fabricated 'parts' of it. Stop cutting up the entire field of experience!
What happens to the experience of 'you' then?”
I have been doing this successfully about 5 days ago at work for a few moments. At home I find it near impossible to do, even on the weekend. Which means I am more focused at work because I have to do so many tasks, and this aids me in paying attention to phenomena as it arises. At home, I just want to chill and maximised pleasure, leaving me in a funk.
When this technique has worked, it left me sad and worried, perhaps a natural fear arising when I realise for a moment there is no “me”.
Unfortunate, lately I have lost this ability to “ Drop the attempt to focus and simply recognise there is no need to focus.” because my mind is searching to GET the same effect of seeing things arise and pass as opposed to applying the technique of “Drop the attemp to focus and simply recognise there is no need to focus.” - (but pay attention to what is arising and passing)
Perceiving of perception has greatly aided the technique of [“Drop the attemp to focus and simply recognise there is no need to focus.”- (but pay attention to what is arising and passing)], because I am practising the art of just looking, really just looking even though this happens in flashes here and there. For example yesterday morning at work for a period of about 10 mins I could see phenomena arise and pass.
Another technique that has helped me along was that I decided to initially, when my concentration is weak to just notice what I can notice, without chasing an ideal I had. The ideal is to be able to notice everything, but I just cannot do this, it just makes me frustrated and blame myself. Focusing on what I can notice, and being OK with it has shifted my attention to accept what I can notice, which is much better than getting caught up in my own stories. |