Richard's insight practice - Discussion
Just organizing what I've done so far and creating a practice thread.
Okay I've been doing many different practices: Noting "arising of thoughts", "gone", staying as "shinkantanza" (do nothing), "viewing all senses at the same time", "jhana jogging", "no-self" 2nd gear KFD concentration practices. They all work in their own way.
I started off with horrible concentration and after months of practice with audiodharma.org audio streams and in 2008 I got a first jhana. I started insight practice after that but it was weak and more like concentration instead. I started noticing that 2nd and 3rd jhanas with piti and sukkha while I was attempting vipassana. Once I got to noting more consistently (after being recommended to this site:grin
, I could just let go of the noting in the later part of the mediation sittings and hook up with the vibrations of the senses. Once that happened there was a shift where I thought my head would explode (probably A & P). Continuing to note I still didn't feel any dark night symptoms until I noted more accurately the 3 characteristics. The noting was too much focused on impermanence and ignoring not-self, and especially dissatisfaction. Once I started noting dissatisfaction after every mental striving a lot of my habitual enjoyments and negative mental habits were appearing obsolete due to the obvious dissatisfaction. This dissatisfaction lasted at least 3 weeks earlier this year. Once I started noting at work more, shifts happened and there was a gradual feeling that I could get relief while noting the most unpleasant emotional arisings. This became more confident even when dealing with difficult people (Cluster B types
).
This site helped with understanding no-self along with 2nd gear practices:
Anatta
Once equanimity started appearing it was like bursting for air in a sunny ocean after being down in the murky depths. The feeling of sanity was very encouraging. It was so encouraging that I started getting lazy. The equanimity was literally vibrating in my skull and the reactive part of the mind loved to go dormant giving the senses more vibrancy. The equanimity left me satisfied before, during and after fun activities. Yet this equanimity fades and has to be regenerated. I fell into reobservation which was 10 times worse than the dark-night experiences I had before. Thankfully they only lasted a couple of nights and equanimity would return again and again feeling more natural. Reobservation still happens but it's more like a vague unease or restlessness that reappears but with less force than before.
Now more recently looking at Nick's blog and some of his comments plus Tommy's experiment and I was getting a little confused while using Shinzen Young's instructions for Shinkantanza "just sitting" (which are similar but slightly different in approach) to just staying with all your senses at the same time. Both of these practices have been a help. With Shinkantanza I can let habitual thoughts go where they please and I ended up concentrating up to equanimity instead. I knew that wasn't really the practice because there's still too much habitual concentration intention. Now with applying the same practice but allowing all the senses to appear as they are at the same time it's easier to see the meditative striving for meditative states being similarly stressful as any other mental striving.
So yesterday I decided to return to basic noting (despite wanting to avoid it as too much striving) with the knowledge in the prior paragraph. Before I noted I just easily let go of any striving and stayed with all the senses (including taste) and then started noting. As I started noting I could tell when a new thought was arising but as the thought started it was very weak and then I noticed that the senses were still clear in awareness during this arising. When the thoughts made more thoughts and got more intense then they would start obscuring some of the senses. While noting the arising and the passing away a sense of elation started coming back again. So my practice now will be focused on staying with the senses first and then noting cessations or allowing shinkantanza. The noting nudges me in the right direction despite some interference with awareness.
Okay I've been doing many different practices: Noting "arising of thoughts", "gone", staying as "shinkantanza" (do nothing), "viewing all senses at the same time", "jhana jogging", "no-self" 2nd gear KFD concentration practices. They all work in their own way.
I started off with horrible concentration and after months of practice with audiodharma.org audio streams and in 2008 I got a first jhana. I started insight practice after that but it was weak and more like concentration instead. I started noticing that 2nd and 3rd jhanas with piti and sukkha while I was attempting vipassana. Once I got to noting more consistently (after being recommended to this site:grin
, I could just let go of the noting in the later part of the mediation sittings and hook up with the vibrations of the senses. Once that happened there was a shift where I thought my head would explode (probably A & P). Continuing to note I still didn't feel any dark night symptoms until I noted more accurately the 3 characteristics. The noting was too much focused on impermanence and ignoring not-self, and especially dissatisfaction. Once I started noting dissatisfaction after every mental striving a lot of my habitual enjoyments and negative mental habits were appearing obsolete due to the obvious dissatisfaction. This dissatisfaction lasted at least 3 weeks earlier this year. Once I started noting at work more, shifts happened and there was a gradual feeling that I could get relief while noting the most unpleasant emotional arisings. This became more confident even when dealing with difficult people (Cluster B types ). This site helped with understanding no-self along with 2nd gear practices:
Anatta
Once equanimity started appearing it was like bursting for air in a sunny ocean after being down in the murky depths. The feeling of sanity was very encouraging. It was so encouraging that I started getting lazy. The equanimity was literally vibrating in my skull and the reactive part of the mind loved to go dormant giving the senses more vibrancy. The equanimity left me satisfied before, during and after fun activities. Yet this equanimity fades and has to be regenerated. I fell into reobservation which was 10 times worse than the dark-night experiences I had before. Thankfully they only lasted a couple of nights and equanimity would return again and again feeling more natural. Reobservation still happens but it's more like a vague unease or restlessness that reappears but with less force than before.
Now more recently looking at Nick's blog and some of his comments plus Tommy's experiment and I was getting a little confused while using Shinzen Young's instructions for Shinkantanza "just sitting" (which are similar but slightly different in approach) to just staying with all your senses at the same time. Both of these practices have been a help. With Shinkantanza I can let habitual thoughts go where they please and I ended up concentrating up to equanimity instead. I knew that wasn't really the practice because there's still too much habitual concentration intention. Now with applying the same practice but allowing all the senses to appear as they are at the same time it's easier to see the meditative striving for meditative states being similarly stressful as any other mental striving.
So yesterday I decided to return to basic noting (despite wanting to avoid it as too much striving) with the knowledge in the prior paragraph. Before I noted I just easily let go of any striving and stayed with all the senses (including taste) and then started noting. As I started noting I could tell when a new thought was arising but as the thought started it was very weak and then I noticed that the senses were still clear in awareness during this arising. When the thoughts made more thoughts and got more intense then they would start obscuring some of the senses. While noting the arising and the passing away a sense of elation started coming back again. So my practice now will be focused on staying with the senses first and then noting cessations or allowing shinkantanza. The noting nudges me in the right direction despite some interference with awareness.
I agree. "Stay" would be the wrong word. After last night it's clearer to me that what we normally look at as the self is like you say: a zooming in on phenomena to look for what is to like or dislike. All thoughts feel like they have a wanting behind them and it's clear how pervasive habituation really is and how impersonal many decisions are and how foreign some reactivity is when you're clearly looking at it. 
Just allowing the reactivity to subside and let the senses (which are already working) come to the foreground on their own illuminates the remaining tension that's there. That remaining tension just feels like wanting without any particular object which is quite dangerous in the wrong environment. I have more respect for how much of a dark veil strong emotions are. Just thinking about a hateful person in my past and exacting revenge is a perfect way to blow mindfulness out of the water. That book by Thich Nhat Hanh "Understanding our mind" and how he uses gardening as a metaphor for developing new habits is the key. Developing a habit of a peaceful mind and making choices and actions based on a clear mind over and over again will atrophy the old habits (probably not completely) and strengthen the new habits. There are only two ways I can see now. You have to either develop a strong desire to change habits (which is exhausting mentally) or conserve energy from wasted mental movements and use them towards those same worthwhile goals.
There's still enjoyment in noting and it's important to note with more subtlety so one is not in a "meditation practice" but just getting on with life. Relax the body fabrications and then relax the mind fabrications to allow the clear seeing. At this point I don't see wanting disappearing so it makes sense to then find something that's worth wanting:
Yogi toolbox Good Practice
Venerable Ayya Khema
Yogi toolbox Lifestyle Approach
Never mind! That answered my question. Wow what an embarrassment of riches.
Just allowing the reactivity to subside and let the senses (which are already working) come to the foreground on their own illuminates the remaining tension that's there. That remaining tension just feels like wanting without any particular object which is quite dangerous in the wrong environment. I have more respect for how much of a dark veil strong emotions are. Just thinking about a hateful person in my past and exacting revenge is a perfect way to blow mindfulness out of the water. That book by Thich Nhat Hanh "Understanding our mind" and how he uses gardening as a metaphor for developing new habits is the key. Developing a habit of a peaceful mind and making choices and actions based on a clear mind over and over again will atrophy the old habits (probably not completely) and strengthen the new habits. There are only two ways I can see now. You have to either develop a strong desire to change habits (which is exhausting mentally) or conserve energy from wasted mental movements and use them towards those same worthwhile goals. There's still enjoyment in noting and it's important to note with more subtlety so one is not in a "meditation practice" but just getting on with life. Relax the body fabrications and then relax the mind fabrications to allow the clear seeing. At this point I don't see wanting disappearing so it makes sense to then find something that's worth wanting:
Yogi toolbox Good Practice
* Noticing the difference between superficial feelings and core drives.
Venerable Ayya Khema
Since each one (feelings-pleasant, painful and neutral) disappears to give room to another one, could we then say that each time one disappears and gives rise to another one that the “me” has disappeared as certain entity and arises as new one? It never occurs to us to say a thing like that but that would be logical, wouldn't it?
Yogi toolbox Lifestyle Approach
"This is where the Buddha ran into the central paradox of becoming, because the craving and clinging that provide the moisture do not have to delight in the field or the resultant becoming in order to bear fruit. If the mind fastens on a particular set of possibilities with the aim of changing or obliterating them, that acts as moisture for a state of becoming as well. Thus the desire to put an end to becoming produces a new state of becoming. Because any desire that produces becoming also produces suffering, the Buddha was faced with a strategic challenge: how to put an end to suffering when the desire to put an end to suffering would lead to renewed suffering.
His solution to this problem involved a paradoxical strategy, creating a state of becoming in the mind from which he could watch the potentials of kamma as they come into being, but without fueling the desire to do anything with regard to those potentials at all. In the terms of the field analogy, this solution would deprive the seed of moisture. Eventually, when all other states of becoming had been allowed to pass away, the state of becoming that had acted as the strategic vantage point would have to be deprived of moisture as well. Because the moisture of craving and clinging would have seeped into the seed even of this strategic becoming, this would eventually mean the destruction of the seed, as that moisture and any conditioned aspects of consciousness the seed might contain were allowed to pass away. But any unconditioned aspects of consciousness—if they existed—wouldn’t be touched at all." Thanissaro Bhikkhu: The Paradox Of Becoming.
His solution to this problem involved a paradoxical strategy, creating a state of becoming in the mind from which he could watch the potentials of kamma as they come into being, but without fueling the desire to do anything with regard to those potentials at all. In the terms of the field analogy, this solution would deprive the seed of moisture. Eventually, when all other states of becoming had been allowed to pass away, the state of becoming that had acted as the strategic vantage point would have to be deprived of moisture as well. Because the moisture of craving and clinging would have seeped into the seed even of this strategic becoming, this would eventually mean the destruction of the seed, as that moisture and any conditioned aspects of consciousness the seed might contain were allowed to pass away. But any unconditioned aspects of consciousness—if they existed—wouldn’t be touched at all." Thanissaro Bhikkhu: The Paradox Of Becoming.
Never mind! That answered my question.
Wow what an embarrassment of riches.
Shinkantanza 1 hour: Allowed all the senses to be as they are. It seems to work in a reduction of mental stress. The trick is to avoid intending or trying to stop automatic thoughts. The only weird thing was that in a diffuse focus I couldn't feel my hands. Once you focus on them they come back. 
I'm noting all day. Noting is improving by staying with the vibrations of experience (95%) and then noting 1Hz (5%).
I'm noting all day. Noting is improving by staying with the vibrations of experience (95%) and then noting 1Hz (5%).
Did a little bit of retooling.
1 hour Great perfection (let senses appear in foreground)/Shinkantanza (let go of intentional noting)/HAIETMOBA (only note total experience):
Big relief. As I started with the above instructions in order the jhanas started appearing on their own with no object other than awareness. My brain likes to talk about the dharma and describe the experience so mental noting was replaced with HAIETMOBA which is like noting all sensations at the same time and that pure equanimity that first blew my mind a month ago came again except with little effort necessary and a feeling of normality like I'm getting used to it. The only concentration necessary is to ask "How Am I Experiencing This Moment Of Being Alive?" when the mind wants to describe the experience. The beauty of HAIETMOBA is the computation power needed to do it is less than basic noting. Of course when noting is done properly then I expect all the practices lead to the same result. My vision was a little distorted like having doors warp and melt. I was blinking but it happened even then because the concentration was so spot on. Once attention is allowed to include all senses the vision returned to normal. HAIETMOBA sends you into the senses much like quick noting so the brain feels a little bit of concentration tension but much less than with individual noting. The sense of self is still there but it feels like it's erroding. I'm just going to do this all day and as much as possible to see if there is any tiredness.
EDIT: This was a help also:
1 hour Great perfection (let senses appear in foreground)/Shinkantanza (let go of intentional noting)/HAIETMOBA (only note total experience):
Big relief. As I started with the above instructions in order the jhanas started appearing on their own with no object other than awareness. My brain likes to talk about the dharma and describe the experience so mental noting was replaced with HAIETMOBA which is like noting all sensations at the same time and that pure equanimity that first blew my mind a month ago came again except with little effort necessary and a feeling of normality like I'm getting used to it. The only concentration necessary is to ask "How Am I Experiencing This Moment Of Being Alive?" when the mind wants to describe the experience. The beauty of HAIETMOBA is the computation power needed to do it is less than basic noting. Of course when noting is done properly then I expect all the practices lead to the same result. My vision was a little distorted like having doors warp and melt. I was blinking but it happened even then because the concentration was so spot on. Once attention is allowed to include all senses the vision returned to normal. HAIETMOBA sends you into the senses much like quick noting so the brain feels a little bit of concentration tension but much less than with individual noting. The sense of self is still there but it feels like it's erroding. I'm just going to do this all day and as much as possible to see if there is any tiredness.
EDIT: This was a help also:
1 hour cessation noting practice: Just allowed the natural senses to be in the foreground. I inclined the mind towards all vibrations and inclined the mind towards the gaps between vibrations and felt very restful throughout the day. There's still a little bit of addictiveness to the waves which may have to do with dopamine. The withdrawal symptoms are still less than in the past and despite feeling a little like...
...the mind lets go into tranquillity.
...the mind lets go into tranquillity.
Just for fun I decided to do pure samadhi practice for an hour. I found that it was easy to stay with the breath and any cognitive interruptions didn't last long. It was like a teflon brain. Unfortunately (or fortunately) I got no jhana factors at all and I could tell the brain felt like it didn't need the practice and it just hurt my head with large 3rd eye pressure in the forehead. Even relaxing the tension while still practicing was painful (hello 3 characteristics!). The closest thing to a "jhana" now is simply doing the Shikantanza/Great perfection/HAIETMOBA (whatever you want to call it) practice and enjoying the vibrations in the senses. I can get the same results with quick light noting practice. Even those nice feelings are not something to attach to. They are starting to feel a little crude. It's almost like your brain likes basic table wine, but then when you try above average wine the basic won't do. I'm assuming when I try outstanding wine then the above average won't do either.
The next step is to keep presence in the senses all day and especially when on the computer, reading, working, and talking to people. I can still "checkout" and attach to thoughts in those activities so more clear seeing is needed to get back to reality.
The next step is to keep presence in the senses all day and especially when on the computer, reading, working, and talking to people. I can still "checkout" and attach to thoughts in those activities so more clear seeing is needed to get back to reality.
Note on old habits: I used feel sorry for myself a lot in the past and just recently I tried going in that same direction again. This time my tears were a lot less, the pain was less and the clouding of experience reduced. It lasted maybe 30 seconds and then I'm back to normal again. It seems freakish but at the same time quite healthy. This makes getting into a positive mood much easier. For those just starting on the practice after around 4-5 years (sooner if you do retreats) it really does get better.
Shikantanza: It's getting easier and easier to dwell in the senses. Some recent troubles with family members that recur regularly are now feeling less of a bother. I get less worked up. The drama is less engaging. I'm also noticing that fear and inhibition is starting to weaken in a more noticable way. I seem to care less and less what people think of me, and (even better) I care less and less what "I" think others think of me. In the past I could feel a harsh reactivity in the chest when thinking about the judgments of others and now I'm identifying less and less with it. The rest and elation is becoming less explosive and more normal. When I think about things I would like to achieve in the future, I'm more interested in what I'm doing about it now. I need less instant gratification.
In the past I could feel a harsh reactivity in the chest when thinking about the judgments of others and now I'm identifying less and less with it. The rest and elation is becoming less explosive and more normal. When I think about things I would like to achieve in the future, I'm more interested in what I'm doing about it now. I need less instant gratification.
Shikantanza: I think I had a turning point last night. I continued the practice as usual but I noticed that letting go is becoming much easier. I saw non-conceptually that 99% of my internal thinking and talk is about likes and dislikes even in indirect ways. By letting go of having to like or dislike anything it led to a jhana like experience except with no effort. The experience was so beautiful I was crying tears of joy with gratitude and relief. It was like the best clear indication of the three characterisitcs except with this practice there was nothing to do and nothing to achieve. Just let go. Unfortunately the experience was so overwhelmingly good that my brain wanted to conceptualize it and rehearse the results. Of course I let that go to and I want to keep letting go all day. I have to be careful because this letting go wasn't something that had to be done it was done all by itself simply by clear seeing. This was just a beautiful taste but the new habit has to take time to settle. The only real effort in this practice is to use willpower to keep seeing just for the sake of it. The concentration object (if I can even call it that) is just awareness or nothing. I didn't have to "concentrate" on it. It just happens on it's own. The last layers of fear and inhibition are starting to crack.
The experience is like AUTOMATICALLY letting go of something painful simply because it isn't necessary to function normally. The letting go also has a refreshing feeling of "there is nothing to need". Of course the "I" wants to feel like this all day but the "I" must be reminded that it is not needed to do this. There is also something deathlike in that I feel more and more accepting of death and imperfection in life. The near feeling before this nice experience is "I'm okay in just dying right here" except it's not suicidal but just deep acceptance that death is a natural part of life.
EDIT: This might be 4.2/4.3/4.4 Equanimity according to Daniel's Jhana/Nana table. At least the descriptions feel right.
The experience is like AUTOMATICALLY letting go of something painful simply because it isn't necessary to function normally. The letting go also has a refreshing feeling of "there is nothing to need". Of course the "I" wants to feel like this all day but the "I" must be reminded that it is not needed to do this.
There is also something deathlike in that I feel more and more accepting of death and imperfection in life. The near feeling before this nice experience is "I'm okay in just dying right here" except it's not suicidal but just deep acceptance that death is a natural part of life.EDIT: This might be 4.2/4.3/4.4 Equanimity according to Daniel's Jhana/Nana table. At least the descriptions feel right.
This particular quote from AEN's book is really helping me to get away from subtly manipulating thoughts. There's more room to allow thoughts without feeling guilt if there's a lot of thoughts. Less pain is good.
11 th December 2010
We often think that thought is obscuring our 'experience of Nowness' or 'experience of
Presence'...
As if the present moment is what is actually present in the absence of thought.
But have we actually look at thought itself... the actuality of thought.
Isn't thought itself an arising happening now? If we look nakedly at the manifestation of
thought... we discover it to be of the similar vivid intense presence as that which is
experienced in the absence of conceptual thoughts.
Thought too is Presence, is Nowness, is Awareness, whatever you want to call it (they
aren't an inherent substance but merely words pointing to the vivid and insubstantial
arisings of the moment)... it is vivid, bright, clear, though insubstantial (like anything
else). It is non-dual: there is no separation of a thinker and thought... there is just the
vivid appearance of thought.
Maintaining awareness, 'living in the now', presence, and so on, therefore does not
require getting rid of thought or 'remaining in the gap of no-thought' like what many
teachers teach.
Maintaining presence can be done 'within' thought itself... by dropping all striving (to
maintain any particular state of presence), resistance and clinging, and simply and
mindfully letting all experiences including thoughts to arise and subside in its own
luminous and empty nature.
Remember as I said before: thoughts aren't the problem, clinging is.
By being awake 'within' thoughts, we stop ourselves from getting lost in our thought
stories... we are present to the entire field of experience rather than narrowing our
focus on our mental chatter. Whatever arises is allowed to unfold and then subside on
its own without clinging or rejecting.
We often think that thought is obscuring our 'experience of Nowness' or 'experience of
Presence'...
As if the present moment is what is actually present in the absence of thought.
But have we actually look at thought itself... the actuality of thought.
Isn't thought itself an arising happening now? If we look nakedly at the manifestation of
thought... we discover it to be of the similar vivid intense presence as that which is
experienced in the absence of conceptual thoughts.
Thought too is Presence, is Nowness, is Awareness, whatever you want to call it (they
aren't an inherent substance but merely words pointing to the vivid and insubstantial
arisings of the moment)... it is vivid, bright, clear, though insubstantial (like anything
else). It is non-dual: there is no separation of a thinker and thought... there is just the
vivid appearance of thought.
Maintaining awareness, 'living in the now', presence, and so on, therefore does not
require getting rid of thought or 'remaining in the gap of no-thought' like what many
teachers teach.
Maintaining presence can be done 'within' thought itself... by dropping all striving (to
maintain any particular state of presence), resistance and clinging, and simply and
mindfully letting all experiences including thoughts to arise and subside in its own
luminous and empty nature.
Remember as I said before: thoughts aren't the problem, clinging is.
By being awake 'within' thoughts, we stop ourselves from getting lost in our thought
stories... we are present to the entire field of experience rather than narrowing our
focus on our mental chatter. Whatever arises is allowed to unfold and then subside on
its own without clinging or rejecting.
Where I am now with no self is that experiences and thoughts are known. This knowing doesn't have a substance or location. You can't grasp at it or conceptualize it. It just is. It's not solid. A thought of a "thinker" is just another thought. The "thinker" thought doesn't conceptualize other separate thoughts. It's just another thought. This is pretty fun, though there are deeper realizations.
Okay my Shikantanza practice has been changed with ruthless dependent origination reminders thoughout the day and during meditation. When sitting and doing nothing it's easier to get a handle on the vibrations in the senses and especially on the skin. When clinging/stress appears I just look at that as a sign that deep down the body believes in an inherent self. By understanding universal impermanence and letting go it's almost like instant relief and jhana factors start to rev up. The body sense appears to focus here and there while other parts of the body seem to disappear while the focus is somewhere else. In my sittings I'm feeling tingling sensations deeper in the throat and the back of the head. The sense of self appears to be a little version of me mimicking meditation while I meditate and is mimicking what I do throughout the day. This is definitely like the Wizard of Oz and pulling back the curtain. Similar to stories of the Buddha the brain assulted me with violent and super lusty female sexual images and movements doing it to me every which way and I just barely saw through them and didn't get lost in them. Psycho people were trying to shoot me with ridiculously scary smiles. Wow that was hard! You have to let go of everything. The Amygdala is packed with shit, lust, and over the top fears. That was almost overwhelming at times What's cool though is that there's more hope now that sexual desire and paranoid fears can be overcome with more practice. I can also see that with diligent mindfulness dieting might be more doable. You have to feel the aversion and craving and start letting go ASAP before the action takes place.
There was a point where the mind felt like it went into overdrive and the sense of self started to shrink like a collapsing star. Unfortunately there was some fear residue and the self narrowed to a singularity but didn't completely collapse. Seems like a near miss. Still I feel like I have replaced my butter knife with an exacto knife so I'll be continuing with this practice.
What's cool though is that there's more hope now that sexual desire and paranoid fears can be overcome with more practice. I can also see that with diligent mindfulness dieting might be more doable. You have to feel the aversion and craving and start letting go ASAP before the action takes place.There was a point where the mind felt like it went into overdrive and the sense of self started to shrink like a collapsing star. Unfortunately there was some fear residue and the self narrowed to a singularity but didn't completely collapse. Seems like a near miss. Still I feel like I have replaced my butter knife with an exacto knife so I'll be continuing with this practice.
Day practice: After yesterday I've continued with the viewing of dependent origination on everything. Even viewing how my computer screen is made up of small parts helps with the letting go. As soon as any clinging starts appearing I remind myself of the impermanent nature of the object and it's easy to let go. Letting go repeatedly eventually leads to strong concentration and a peak experience but when the experience returns to normal a few hours later it's still a good experience. I can see how it can normalize. When I ran out of work I was given some extra work and coworkers were shocked at my lack of complaining. It's been the smoothest normal day in my life so far. No reason to stop letting go.
It's been the smoothest normal day in my life so far. No reason to stop letting go.
Similar smooth day today. The difference is that when old mental habits wanted to come back they weren't as powerful and I actually caught some wrong speech developing in my mind and some quick compassion came out that was unexpected and beautiful that prevented me from saying something unskillful. It's almost like even the thinking of it was unpleasant and it needed to be dropped. A couple of days ago my normal equanimity felt more like driving on a good solid road but with a few bumps and potholes. Now it's like driving on a newly paved road. Less sticky in DhO parlance.
I definitely recommend introducing dependent origination reminders before letting go of clinging. It smooths it out with small doses of dispassion. It works pretty quickly. Just think about the impermanence of everything in you and around you and see how everything is built from tiny particles and realize that clinging to anything that isn't permanently solid leads to the same result. I'll still have to see how this plays out at work. Right now people are projecting stress on my facial expressions that I don't feel. I'm also trying to fabricate some smiles which I can see (like Shinzen's focus on the positive) magnifies the enjoyment so I can savour the results of letting go of clinging. This is definitely a nice shift. The confidence comes from knowing that I know what to do if old negative habits come back. I can see there's still more room for dispassion to continue. Staring out of the window at work and it was natural to feel more non-dual. The scalp and facial muscles are relaxed.
I definitely recommend introducing dependent origination reminders before letting go of clinging. It smooths it out with small doses of dispassion. It works pretty quickly. Just think about the impermanence of everything in you and around you and see how everything is built from tiny particles and realize that clinging to anything that isn't permanently solid leads to the same result. I'll still have to see how this plays out at work. Right now people are projecting stress on my facial expressions that I don't feel.
I'm also trying to fabricate some smiles which I can see (like Shinzen's focus on the positive) magnifies the enjoyment so I can savour the results of letting go of clinging. This is definitely a nice shift. The confidence comes from knowing that I know what to do if old negative habits come back. I can see there's still more room for dispassion to continue. Staring out of the window at work and it was natural to feel more non-dual. The scalp and facial muscles are relaxed.
Just re-reading an article on the AEN blog which I didn't fully understand before but I do now, in regards to thoughts. BTW I recommend reading all of it:
Dialectic of reflection and presence
My experience of the above even while typing and thinking is that it's like the thought bubble fills in the gap of a lack of mindfulness. That's why it's hard to do because it's about maintaining it all the time but at the same time not blowing tons of energy with noting or fabricated concentration. Thinking while mindful feels so different than thinking without mindfulness.
So this connects the noters and non-noters with the same prescription to be present to all phenomena. As soon as the practice is objectified and attached to it's just another divide being created.
In the meantime if it's hard to keep being present during thoughts because of the speed of mental activity in work or other emotionally turbulent situations then proceed as follows:
Yet cognitive therapy will still have a sense of separation so one should keep going in the practice while not avoiding responsibilities:
And I can stay present in all this typing. I don't have to "own" the knowledge. The confidence comes from doing which is similar to the jhana factors in dealing with laziness & doubt.
Dialectic of reflection and presence
The ultimate practice here is learning to remain fully present and awake in the middle of whatever thoughts, feelings, perceptions, or sensations are occurring and to appreciate them, in Mahamudra/Dzogchen terms, as Dharmakaya -- as an ornamental display of the empty, luminous essence of awareness. Like waves on the ocean, thoughts are not separate from awareness. They are the radiant clarity of awareness in motion. In remaining awake in the middle of thoughts -- and recognizing them as the luminous energy of awareness -- the practitioner maintains presence and can rest within their movement. As Namkhai Norbu (1986) suggests:
"The essential principle is to ... maintain presence in the state of the moving wave of thought itself ... If one considers the calm state as something positive to be attained, and the wave of thought as something negative to be abandoned, and one remains caught up in the duality of grasping and rejecting, there is no way of overcoming the ordinary state of the mind.”
"The essential principle is to ... maintain presence in the state of the moving wave of thought itself ... If one considers the calm state as something positive to be attained, and the wave of thought as something negative to be abandoned, and one remains caught up in the duality of grasping and rejecting, there is no way of overcoming the ordinary state of the mind.”
It is a dualistic fixation, the tension between "me" -- as self -- and "my thoughts" -- as other -- that makes thinking problematic, tormenting, "sticky," like the tarbaby to which Brer Rabbit becomes affixed by trying to push it away. Thoughts become thick, solid, and heavy only when we react to them. Each reaction triggers further thought, so that the thoughts become chained together in what appears to be a continuous mind-state. These thought-chains are like a relay race, where each new thought picks up the baton from the previous thought and runs with it for a moment, passing it on again to a subsequent thought. But if the meditator can maintain presence in the middle of thinking, free of grasping or rejecting, then the thought has nothing to pass the baton on to, and naturally subsides. Although this sounds simple, it is advanced practice, usually requiring much preliminary training and commitment.
"It's possible to make thought itself meditation... How do we go into that state? The moment you try to separate yourself from thought, you are dealing with a duality, a subject-object relationship. You lose the state of awareness because you reject your experience and become separate from it.... But if our awareness is in the center of thought, the thought itself dissolves... At the very beginning... stay in the thoughts. Just be there... You become the center of the thought. But there is not really any center -- the center becomes balance. There's no 'being,' no 'subject-object relationships': none of these categories exist. Yet at the same time, there is... complete openness... So we kind of crack each thought, like cracking nuts. If we can do this, any thought becomes meditation... Any moment, wherever you are, driving a car, sitting around, working, talking, any activities you have -- even if you are very disturbed emotionally, very passionate, or even if your mind has become very strong, raging, overcome with the worst possible things and you cannot control yourself, or you feel depressed... if you really go into it, there's nothing there. Whatever comes up becomes your meditation. Even if you become extremely tense, if you go into your thought and your awareness comes alive, that moment can be more powerful than working a long time in meditation practice.
My experience of the above even while typing and thinking is that it's like the thought bubble fills in the gap of a lack of mindfulness. That's why it's hard to do because it's about maintaining it all the time but at the same time not blowing tons of energy with noting or fabricated concentration. Thinking while mindful feels so different than thinking without mindfulness.
So this connects the noters and non-noters with the same prescription to be present to all phenomena. As soon as the practice is objectified and attached to it's just another divide being created.
I would like to close with a few final considerations for Western students of the further reaches of contemplative awareness. From anecdotal evidence, stabilizing the pure presence of rigpa in the ongoing realization of self-liberation appears to be quite rare, even among dedicated students of Dzogchen/Mahamudra. This tradition flowered in Tibet, a far simpler and more grounded culture than ours, which also provide a social mandala, or cohesive cultural context, that supported thousands of monasteries and hermitages where meditation practice and realization could flourish. Yet even there, years of preliminary practice and solitary retreat were usually recommended as the groundwork for full nondual realization which was sometimes described as the golden roof that crowns the entire spiritual enterprise.
In the meantime if it's hard to keep being present during thoughts because of the speed of mental activity in work or other emotionally turbulent situations then proceed as follows:
The question for modern Westerners, who lack the cultural support found in traditional Asia and who often find it hard to spend years in retreat or even to complete the traditional Tibetan preliminary practise, is how to build a strong enough base on which this golden roof can rest. What kind of preliminary practices or inner work are most relevant and useful for modern people as a groundwork for nondual realization? What special conditions may be necessary to nurture and sustain nondual presence outside of retreat situations? And how can this spacious, relaxed quality of presence be integrated into everyday functioning in a speedy, complex technological society like ours, which requires such high levels of mental activity and mental abstraction?
Since unresolved psychological issues and developmental deficiencies often present major hurdles to integrating spiritual realizations into daily life, spiritual aspirants in the West may also need to engage in some degree of psychological work, as a useful adjunct to their spiritual work, and perhaps as a preliminary practice in its own right. (Welwood, 1984, 2000). Perhaps for Westerners genuine nondoing and letting-be can only be fully embodied in a healthy, integrated way once one has learned to attend to bodily feelings and grapple with one’s personal experience in a Focusing-style reflective manner.[Link] That is why it is important to understand the uses and limitations of psychological reflection, and to study its role as a stepping-stone both toward and “back” from nondual presence – as a bridge, in other words, that can begin to unlock deeper qualities of being and help to integrate them more fully into everyday life.
Since unresolved psychological issues and developmental deficiencies often present major hurdles to integrating spiritual realizations into daily life, spiritual aspirants in the West may also need to engage in some degree of psychological work, as a useful adjunct to their spiritual work, and perhaps as a preliminary practice in its own right. (Welwood, 1984, 2000). Perhaps for Westerners genuine nondoing and letting-be can only be fully embodied in a healthy, integrated way once one has learned to attend to bodily feelings and grapple with one’s personal experience in a Focusing-style reflective manner.[Link] That is why it is important to understand the uses and limitations of psychological reflection, and to study its role as a stepping-stone both toward and “back” from nondual presence – as a bridge, in other words, that can begin to unlock deeper qualities of being and help to integrate them more fully into everyday life.
Yet cognitive therapy will still have a sense of separation so one should keep going in the practice while not avoiding responsibilities:
While psychotherapy and meditation both led to a freeing of mental and emotional fixations, the meditative approach struck me as the more profound and compelling of the two, because it was more direct, more radical, more faithful to the essential nature of awareness as an open presence intrinsically free of grasping, strategizing, and the subject-object split altogether. At the same time, the reflective dialogical process of psychotherapy provided a more effective and accessible way to work on the issues, concerns, and problems of personal and worldly life – which meditators often tend to avoid dealing with. Yet I had doubts about the ultimate merits of an approach that did not address, and was not designed to overcome, the subject-object struggle that lay at the root of most human alienation and suffering.
And I can stay present in all this typing. I don't have to "own" the knowledge. The confidence comes from doing which is similar to the jhana factors in dealing with laziness & doubt.
Okay so I tried the new approach to let go of the past thoughts, future thoughts and even the present projections in a 2 hour meditation. I felt very good after this. Whatever negative mood I was in vanished. By squeezing myself down to the present moment as close as I could the mental formations were very jumpy and obvious to note. The jhanas didn't really appear and could barely start but that was okay. The concentration was enormous anyways. I could see how my mind was quickly (and quietly) moving into subtle thoughts on progress and analysis along with the usual interruptions. My eyes were open and some of my senses like vision and hearing were very clear. Any ear worms (which I get lots) vanished during this practice. To expand on the practice I started noting the aggregates I understand and I did this at a much slower pace. Just allowing the commentary to be there and to remind myself that the thoughts aren't a "me" which removes the stickiness of clinging.
With Tommy's suggestion I'll look into dependent origination in further detail and Greg Goode's Direct Path user guide which looks really meaty.
With Tommy's suggestion I'll look into dependent origination in further detail and Greg Goode's Direct Path user guide which looks really meaty.
I haven't been doing much meditation recently. I have lots of projects on the go. Reading The Direct Path by Greg Goode just keeps pointing back to the same consciousness that knows the senses and thinking. The clinging is going away more naturally. Watching Cloud Atlas just hammered in the point of interdependence and conceptual barriers but a movie only goes to the surface. Just the questioning of enlightenment and most phenomenal questions lead to that they are known. This creates a sense of wanting to abandon the questions (clinging).