Hi Travis,
Travis Gene McKinstry:
katy steger:
However, if someone is like me and gets easily lost in the hindrances of worry and restlessness, then that fourth jhana cannot arise (to me) because one it too agitated and one starts to clock-watch and the practice loses sincerity...
Interestingly enough this happens to me a lot. Not when doing simple noting practices though… and not after I tried that 'buddies breathing' exercise…. What do you plan to do (if anything) about the restlessness? I think I could benefit from your ideas.
Well, I do treat the restlessness because, to me, the mind and physical brain are impressionable and both mind and brain can take actions based on what goes into them, and mind and brain can especially take action based on what thoughts are habituated and that habituated thoughts and feelings become exponentially growing mental pathways as can be seen in post-traumatic stress disorder of people and animal brains.
So if my brain is not in an equanimity resulting from kindly cultivation (versus cold-hearted detachment), then it may be in other places habituating and training itself in unskillful states and taking action in those unskillful states, states that are ultimately not beneficial for me or others.
So to treat this, I have to know a little about the restlessness (or worry, etc):
I. Is the restlessness apparently and mostly physical?
a) If I am stiff or sluggish or ruminating uselessly, I should exercise some. Lack of moving around in the day is one of my leading causes of restlessness. (Then the sight of an animal caged/stalled a good bit of the day, can raise one's compassion (and action) regarding why they, too, may be testy/rambunctious: no matter how safe and well fed, many animals, ourselves included, benefit from the ability to move about at will.)
b) A reasonable diet is also good for me. I have the luxury of choosing to not eat after noon or three p.m. each day and this creates an empty stomach in the evening, good sleep, and an early rise the next day. But I also still go out with friends (last night), eat late and heavy, and know this will affect mediation and my body and mind.
I've also learned that after eating, there is some conceit that arises, overconfidence; this pointed me to see that there is some softness, gentle temper in me when I have an empty stomach (not a starved one). Conceit is a severe agitation (to see oneself as better/worse than another or to compare at all) but it's commonly so habituated in the mind, that its gratification and pain can be hard to detect. Or one uses self-negative conceit to offset self-aggrandizing conceit like a buddhist "sale of indulgences" : )
II. If the restlessness is apparently and mostly mental, then I have to ask what am I putting into my mind and what am I doing with that information.
If I read the news in tranquility, I can learn some things and act more clearly. If I read the news and become afraid/angry/worried, then my mind and body have to deal with both bodily aches in tension as well as mental ignorance and mental obfuscation, I will stop learning and start embellishing.
So these are some beneficial ways I can treat restless and other unskillful mental states, including grasping at "skill". By NO means have I made the above knowledge consistently applied (e.g., wise attention, wise mind), but working with friends and being candid about these things has really help changed my mind's default positions for states that are definitely nicer all around, for me and usually people around me, dependents and colleagues. It's ongoing, rewarding work and I depend on friends to help me: If I am tempted to do something or do something unskillful, usually a friend offers a countermeasure by role-modelling a better action, versus lecturing me from cool on-high or esoteric guru-like (a ridiculously conceited position, but also a natural mental positioning on 'the path' and one can compassionately bear it when another is passing through it, like others have been patient with mine), and I have done the same for friends.
After treatment, and in my case, after a few years now of applying such treatment as diet, exercise and meditation, to help the mind and brain after a hindrance arises (and probably I take action from that hindrance-mind), then, for me, the question of "In what conditions is the mind safe and benevolent if it is not fully enlightened?"
arises and now I have a sincere regard for the brahmavihara practices, where equanimity is the condition for sati--- the extraordinary practice of "how to do anything/how anything is done/the nature of wise-doing", e.g, after the ecstasy, then the laundry action suggested in Kornfeld's book title. I think I could benefit from your ideas.
Me, too. What are yours?
Please excuse my long-windedness. I'm working on it, but it's hard to see that in my long posts... maybe in two years I will be shorter-winded.