Forum: Daniel's Practice Hut

Hello everyone,
first of all, thank you Daniel for this strict, practical corner. I have not been posting for a while because I felt the same way you are.
I am currently reading Alan Wallace´s "Balancing the Mind" because for the practice I do I need to visualize, which is dealt with in the book. I want to ask who has experience with visualisations and how to stabilize them. I have only been doing samatha on physical sensations before I started my current practice and it is a bit difficult, still. It is a visualisation that involves movement which makes it more difficult.
Do you attend visualized objects as if they were real, I mean having tactile qualities, etc. as well? How do you cut out aspects of the object other than
the visual information?
In "The Attention Revolution" Wallace states that it can cause mental agitation when one uses visualisations as a means for developing concentration, which I can confirm. So how do you get rid of this?
I am greatful for any replies.
Thank you,
Martin

I just noticed that had forgotten something. I also wanted to ask if excitaion and laxity are things to me monitored moment to moment like when doing vipassana . What I mean is if excitation can change into laxity as fast as vibrations occur or if they are acting more gradually. I am sometimes not so clear which one is present and then it seems to be jumping from one to the other. Any advice?
Best wishes,
Martin

Dear Martin,

Both good questions.

1) Visualizations: I have tended to use kasina objects: dots of primary colors both of paper and on computer screen (take a dot character and make it of some huge font and you get a kasina disk that glows nicely), candle flames, pentagrams, tarot cards, and other objects. I have found these material supports of value initially until I can get the learning sign and counter sign. I find that when off retreat my visualization skills drop off dramatically, but I don't practice them every day. When 5-10 days into a retreat, I can really visualize well, with the mind made malleable through strong concentration, things do what I wish with little effort and will often surprise me how much detail will arise without my even asking for it. Thus, very strong concentration and lots of hours pays off, in my experience. I stick to the colors and shapes themselves like glue to the exclusion of nearly everything else as much as possible. After all, this is concentration practice. I haven't found these exercises causing much agitation, particularly candle flame and kasinas.

2) Anxiety and laxity are made of sensations, and so they are good objects for vipassana like everything else. Notice the individual sensations that make them up rather than caring about exactly which is which, as it is more complex than that.

Helpful?

Daniel

just wanted to add, to daniel's reply, in direct response to your question, that the way to cut out aspects of an object other than those you wish to perceive (for concentration's sake) is to simply ignore the perception of them. neither attend to nor investigate those percepts; just don't pay attention to them, focusing hard in a mesmerising way on the stuff you want (visual data), and the other stuff will start to fade from view.

I also use my computer screen for kasina objects. I've had great success with using power point to create a wide variety of simple kasinas of various colors and backgrounds. I simply format a slide background with a color I like, then draw a circle and choose another, contrasting color to fill it and then play around with sizing it until I find combinations that work for me. I have also found that placing a smaller circle in the center of the kasina that is the same color as the slide background makes it easier to focus.

I added photos of some of the kasinas I have created to a photo albumn titled "Kasinas" under the Photos tab by converting the slide format to an image file. It doesn't work as well in this format, and you lose the flexibility to resize, change colors, etc. that you have when in PowerPoint format - but this gives you an idea of what I described earlier.

The black and white image of the monk is not my creation. Someone emailed it to me some time ago and I don't know who to credit it to. I've used it several times but find the simple circle/dot combination works better for me.

It works well for me - hope it proves useful to others.

John

Wow,
thank you all for the input! I have started in January with a more esoteric technique of meditation and the visualisation is still not as familiar as just attending bodily sensations.
I appreciate the kasinas you posted, John! I will definately try out kasina-based samadhi if this helps the visualisation.
Thank you Tarin and Daniel for your advice, too. Srangely enough, I did not think about applying insight when encountering excitation and laxity. As for the simple ignoring of unwanted aspects of objects I think I have to deepen concentration further in order to make this work because they tend to be more intensive than the visualisation.
For the practice I am basically visualizing the air moving in and out of an energy point while breathing. I am supposed to focus on the visualisation of the process and not on the bodily sensations, which is sometimes quite difficult. I am practicing 4-6 hrs daily, so I thought I´d have this challenge solved already. The quality of my meditation is good, I think, but I want to make it more effective by tuning attention as much as possible.
Thank you so much and best wishes,
Martin