tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25932346317299220882024-03-16T10:58:08.096-04:00Life in B Flat(Science and Spirituality)I was deep in meditation. I asked, "Is there a plan for my life? What is the plan!?" I heard a voice say "It's in the key of B", and I saw the symbol for a flat in musical notation. The plan for my life is in the key of B flat! I understood this immediately. I have a record of Pete Fountain playing the clarinet. It's a clarinet tuned to the key of B flat. I like to improvise on my guitar along with the record. The plan for my life is: "We're improvising!".anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09701008088467238503noreply@blogger.comBlogger364125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2593234631729922088.post-28511465411559345862024-03-14T01:32:00.001-04:002024-03-16T10:57:15.584-04:00Stop Making the Story About Yourself<!-- Stop Making the Story About Yourself -->
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As you experience various situations in daily life, you will tend to think about how the situation affects you, and about how you relate to the situation. This creates a story about you, a story where you are the main character, the victim or the hero. Most people are constantly making stories about themselves. This perspective on reality is what causes <a target=_blank href="https://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2023/07/how-i-define-dukkha-suffering.html#dukkha_def_ease_def">suffering</a>.
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If you observe the activity of your mind, the stream of consciousness, during meditation and daily life, you will see this happening, you will see how you make yourself suffer by making everything about you. When you understand how you make yourself suffer, you will also understand how to stop it.
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You will see that when you stop making the stories about you, when you stop taking everything personally, when you stop focusing on yourself, when you stop thinking "I don't like this", "I don't want that", "I want this", I like that", when you stop making yourself the central character in everything that happens, you stop making yourself suffer. But you need to experience it from inside your mind, you need to feel how one way of thinking is suffering and how a different way of thinking doesn't make you suffer.
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<a target=_blank href="https://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2023/07/practicing-mindfulness-in-daily-life.html">Mindfulness</a> can help people give up the habit of making themselves the main character in every story. When you are mindful, your mind is in the present moment, you are just aware of what you are doing as you are doing it. You are not imagining, your mind is not wandering, you are not carried away by thoughts, emotions, impulses, sensory experiences, etc, you are not making stories about you that cause you to suffer. Then, when dukkha arises, you can see how you have caused it by making the story about yourself. But if you change the story, let go of that plot, think about the situation without yourself as the main character in the story, you don't suffer. This requires just a tiny change in perspective, a relaxation, a letting go, (not a lot of analytical thinking, not anything mystical, not anything non-dual), and you don't have to suppress anything - just notice the difference in how you feel. The point of mindfulness is not to concentrate the mind as a means of suppressing thoughts and emotions etc, the point is to provide a contrast where dukkha is absent so that when dukkha arises, the contrast is clear and when you return to mindfulness that contrast is also clear. <a target=_blank href="https://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2020/10/easy-meditation.html">Meditation</a> that is <a target=_blank href="https://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2020/08/preparing-for-meditation-with.html">relaxing</a> can also help provide a quiet mind that helps you to maintain mindfulness and experience the contrast.
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And then, when you are not making the story about you, you can respond to situations with compassion and reason instead of selfish emotions.
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On another forum, someone asked about Buddhist beliefs about the soul. Below is my brief reply, an expanded version follows.
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<blockquote>In Buddhism consciousness is believed to continue after death, and can be reborn, and experiences karma (experiences the consequences of one's action) from previous lives. However consciousness flows/propagates as a sequence of cause and effect and is not a property of some constant separate unchanging thing. Like a wave that flows through water is not separate from the water. The first stage of awakening, stream-entry, occurs when you are freed from identity-view - the belief that the self is a thing.
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If you watch the activity of your mind you will notice that thoughts, emotions, impulses arise fully formed into consciousness. We don't really see where they come from or how they are formed. Most people recognize emotions are beyond our control. If you try to meditate you will notice distracting thoughts so you don't control your thoughts either. Even if feel like you are using your mind to solve a problem, where did the impulse to do that come from?
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And the sense of self, as an observer or experiencer or as a role in various situations like school (student), work (employee/supervisor), with family (parent/child/sibling), with friends, as a sports fan, a driver of a car, an owner of a house etc etc, or the characteristics we believe we have, smart/dumb, winner/loser, rich/poor, nice, mean, arrogant/humble or the sensations we experience form moment to moment, hot/cold, comfortable/uncomfortable, smells, bodily sensations etc - all these are constantly changing. And the feeling of self is no different from other thoughts or emotions that arise from unconscious processes.
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And if you watch the activity of the mind you see that one thought or emotion or impulse leads to another by association, memory, or reason in a chain of cause and effect with no one in control until something distracts you onto a new tangent.
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Without things to observe, to see, hear, smell, touch, (or thoughts, emotions and impulses to observe) there would be none of those sensations occurring. There would be no consciousness of them. Consciousness does not exist separately from the things it is aware of - like a wave in water is not separate from the water.
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If you look closely you see there isn't a thing that is a self that you can find nor can you find anyone in control in your mind. These beliefs are formed not by religious dogma but by simple observation of the mind.</blockquote>
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Here is an expanded version I wrote for this blog.
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<blockquote>In Buddhism, consciousness is believed to continue after the death of the physical body and can be reborn and continue to experience karma (the consequences from one's actions) from previous births. However, consciousness flows or propagates as a sequence of cause and effect and is not a property of some constant separate thing. It is like the way a wave that flows through water is not separate from the water. The first stage of awakening, stream-entry, occurs when a person is free from identity-view - the belief that the self is a thing.
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If you watch the activity of your mind, you will notice that thoughts, emotions, impulses, and sensory experiences arise fully formed into consciousness. We don't really see where they come from or how they are formed. Most people recognize emotions are beyond their control. And when you try to meditate you will notice distracting thoughts arising which shows you don't control your thoughts either. Even if you feel like you are using your mind to solve a problem, where did the impulse to solve the problem come from? The activity of the mind arises from unconscious processes, in Buddhist terminology these processes are part of what is called "the aggregates of clinging".
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It might seem like the unconscious mind, the source of thoughts, emotions, and impulses is the self. But this source is not unified, one part might be sending the impulse to meditate while another is sending out distracting thoughts. One part might be trying to accomplish a purpose to gratify the ego while another might be sabotaging it because of fear of the consequences of success. The unconscious mind is not a unified thing, it is an aggregate of different functions.
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And the sense of self, as an observer or experiencer or as a role in various situations like school (student), work (employee/supervisor), with family (parent/child/sibling), with friends, as a sports fan, a driver of a car, an owner of a house etc, or the characteristics we believe we have, smart/dumb, winner/loser, rich/poor, nice, mean, arrogant/humble etc, or the sensations we experience from moment to moment, hot/cold, comfortable/uncomfortable, smells, pleasure/pain or bodily sensations etc, all these are constantly changing. The sense of self or the feeling of being is no different from other thoughts or emotions that arise from unconscious processes. All those selves, the student self, the worker self, the family member self, the sports fan self, the smart self, the nice self, the mean self, the happy self, the angry self, the hot self, the hungry self, come from the aggregates, the unconscious processes that generate other thoughts, emotions, impulses, and sensory experiences.
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When you experience how fleeting all these selves are, you see how unreal each is. Each movement of the mind creates a different self - which one is the real one? Your attachment to self diminishes and you <a target=_blank href="https://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2023/07/how-i-define-dukkha-suffering.html#dukkha_def_ease_def">suffer</a> less when you experience this.
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And if you watch the activity of the mind you see that one thought or emotion or impulse leads to another by association, memory, or reason in a chain of cause and effect with no one in control until something distracts you onto a new tangent.
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Without things to observe, to see, hear, smell, touch, etc (or thoughts, or emotions or impulses to observe) there would be none of those sensations occurring. There would be no consciousness of them. Consciousness does not exist separately from the things it is aware of - like a wave in water is not separate from the water.
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If you look closely you see there isn't a thing that is a self that you can find in your body or mind, nor can you find anyone in control in your mind.
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Yet, the ego, our idea of the self, is the source of much of our suffering. If we are not shown proper respect, or if we lose a contest, or if we experience some misfortune that makes one seem to be a loser, we suffer because those events hurt our self image, our ego is hurt. If you watch your mind carefully, you will see that most suffering has the ego involved. Feeling successful in life depends on getting what we want and avoiding what we don't want.
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But the ego is not a real solid material thing, it is an abstract concept. Yet we act as if it is a real thing that we have to defend from insult and injury. The ego is just a product of the same unconscious processes that produce any thought, emotion, or impulse. When someone can see this in their own mind, when they see how suffering is caused by their egoistic emotions and they recognize that those emotions are not chosen but arise from unconscious processes unasked for and uninvited, they understand that those emotions are not truth, those emotions are not an inevitable aspect of reality. Different people in the same situation might have different emotional reactions. Egoistic emotions are not inevitable like some laws of nature. When people realize that egoistic emotions are not reality, that the ego (the self) isn't a real thing, it becomes much easier for them to let go of egoistic emotions and they suffer much less. Recognizing "It is the ego coming from the aggregates" can end a lot of suffering.
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The belief that the ego, the self, is not an actual thing is obtained not from religious dogma, but by simple observation of the mind.
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<a target=_blank href="https://mohitvalecha.wordpress.com/2016/06/15/stepping-on-a-frog/">https://mohitvalecha.wordpress.com/2016/06/15/stepping-on-a-frog/</a>
<blockquote>Once there was a monk who specialized in the Buddhist precepts, and he kept to them all his life. Once when he was walking at night, he stepped on something. It made a squishing sound, and he imagined he had stepped on an egg-bearing frog.
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This caused him no end of alarm and regret, in view of the Buddhist precept against taking life, and when he finally went to sleep that night he dreamed that hundreds of frogs came demanding his life.
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The monk was terribly upset, but when morning came he looked and found that what he stepped on was an overripe eggplant. At that moment his feeling of uncertainty suddenly stopped, and for the first time he realised the meaning of the saying that “there is no objective world.” Then he finally knew how to practice Zen.</blockquote>
If you want to know what this story really means you can follow the link.
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What I want to discuss here is that this story illustrates an important principle of how to let go of attachments and aversions, how to let go of <a target=_blank href="https://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2023/07/how-i-define-dukkha-suffering.html#dukkha_def_ease_def">unpleasant emotions</a>.
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The monk was upset when he thought he stepped on a frog, but when he found out it was an eggplant he wasn't upset any more.
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When you are upset and it is due to a misunderstanding, if you clear up that misunderstanding, you can let go easily and you won't be upset any more.
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When people are upset, usually it is their ego that is making them upset, but they don't notice it because it feels like a normal and unalterable fact of reality that they should be upset in that situation. That is the fundamental misunderstanding of most suffering, we think our emotions reflect reality when they are really produced by the ego, by egotistic and egocentric thinking (identity-view, <a target=_blank href="https://www.lionsroar.com/on-enlightenment-an-interview-with-shinzen-young/">Sakkaya-ditthi</a>).
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But if people examine their feelings and see their reaction is somehow due to egotistical or egocentric thinking, then they realize they are being silly, they don't have to be upset. And they can let go.
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Sometimes it's hard to see how our ego is hurting us because these ways of thinking are so ingrained we don't even notice them, we just think "this is reality and it is not always nice."
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But if you can examine your thinking and see how it is really your ego that is causing the trouble, you see it was just a misunderstanding (you thought it was an inevitable aspect of reality but then you realized it was just your ego), and you can let go. Then reality is a lot nicer.
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It might be hard to understand how it can be so easy to let go of unpleasant emotions just by recognizing the involvement of ego in suffering, so I will provide an example.
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One day I walked to the grocery store. Often when I would go out for a walk, I would walk in my neighborhood and it would be a pleasant walk. It was a residential neighborhood, there wasn't much traffic, there were birds singing, and cute rabbits in nicely landscaped yards. But that day I needed to go to the store and instead I had to walk on streets with a lot of noisy traffic, past storefronts on streets with litter. It wasn't very nice. I didn't like it. It was better to walk in the residential area than the business district. Then I recognized it was my ego that was upsetting me. This idea that it is better to walk by the houses rather than the busy streets is egoic thinking. The word "better" is saying something about winners and losers. If you have what is better, you are a winner, if you have something worse, you are a loser. I realized it was my ego that didn't like the walk to the store, my ego (<a target=_blank href="https://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2020/10/the-five-aggregates-of-clinging.html">the aggregates</a>) wanted to do what was better and not what was worse. When I understood that, the feelings of better and worse disappeared. I (the aggregates) felt like the walk to the store was not better or worse, just different. It had it's own flavor of familiarity, there were people in the cars and stores, it enabled me to get the groceries I needed, etc. It wasn't all good, but it wasn't all bad ether. Really, it wasn't good or bad. The problem was my unconscious egoistic reaction.
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This kind of thing can happen many times a day. We have ingrained in our thinking that if we get what we want and avoid what we don't want, we are successful, and if we don't get what we want and can't avoid what we don't want, it is a failure. If you are mindful, if you watch the activity of your mind in meditation and daily life, and can see how every little twinge of dukkha, every little craving or aversion, every little liking and disliking, wanting and not wanting, is your ego is making you suffer, you can let go each time. It sounds simple, but this kind of thinking is so ingrained, it seems like an aspect of reality rather than something you are doing to yourself. You have to be alert to how you feel and then examine your feelings and see what role the egoistic and egocentric thinking (identity-view) is playing. If you do it, you can remove a lot of gloom from reality.
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<a target=_blank href="https://inquiringmind.com/article/2701_w_kornfield-enlightenments/">https://inquiringmind.com/article/2701_w_kornfield-enlightenments/</a>
<blockquote>As Ajahn Chah described them, meditative states are not important in themselves. Meditation is a way to quiet the mind so you can practice all day long wherever you are; see when there is grasping or aversion, clinging or suffering; and then let it go.</blockquote>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9cDSDM7V7-UVtk2Enu6jQkh4CeM0OcSdKs2nlqmHb7GSOoMM7CBu0zgOEhrDY5At8eV6ssXK0RozkXdEdoUINizmI8n4xOQe9V6zWomlhAD2-gePb-aFG25sc4oLR_B-p8JZc0O5OGaE/s1600/duck-rabbit.jpg" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9cDSDM7V7-UVtk2Enu6jQkh4CeM0OcSdKs2nlqmHb7GSOoMM7CBu0zgOEhrDY5At8eV6ssXK0RozkXdEdoUINizmI8n4xOQe9V6zWomlhAD2-gePb-aFG25sc4oLR_B-p8JZc0O5OGaE/s320/duck-rabbit.jpg" width="320" height="240" data-original-width="968" data-original-height="726" /></a>
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When you look at the image above, you might see it as the profile of duck facing toward the left or as the profile of a rabbit facing toward the right. When what you see changes from one to the other, you experience a perceptual shift. Once you see this shift, you can't unsee it.
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There are a number of perceptual shifts produced by meditation and mindfulness that lessen suffering and cause changes in behavior. None of these perceptual shifts have anything mystical about them. They are easy to understand intellectually but they are not transformative unless one sees the truth of them in their own mind. For example:
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<li>Before you begin a meditation practice, you may see events as the cause of <a target=_blank href="https://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2023/07/how-i-define-dukkha-suffering.html#dukkha_def_ease_def">suffering</a>. For example, if someone says something unkind, it might hurt your feelings and you would see the person and their words as the cause of your suffering. But after you begin a meditation practice, you may come to see that such events are not the cause of your suffering, the cause of suffering is your reaction to the event. This doesn't mean you ignore problems, it means you can respond to them with compassion and reason rather than out of control selfish emotions.
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There are many other types of perceptual shifts caused by meditation and mindfulness
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<li>At first you may notice that sometimes you are aware of emotions and other times you keep them bottled up inside yourself - suppressed. Later, when you <a target=_blank href="https://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2023/05/observing-mind.html">observe the activity of the mind</a> or when you cultivate <a target=_blank href="https://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2020/10/metta-meditation.html">metta</a> or <a target=_blank href="https://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2020/10/a-quick-guide-to-producing-bliss-with.html">bliss</a>, you notice there is something inside you like a switch or a valve or a gate that you can open to let emotions flow or close to suppress emotions. You notice that suppressing emotions makes you feel worse - the larger part of suffering comes from resisting emotions rather than the emotions themselves. So you try to keep the emotional gate open as much as possible, in daily life if you can, and when you are trying to concentrate in meditation or in mindfulness.
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Opening the emotional gate doesn't mean obsessing over every unpleasant emotion you can think of or remember. It means that if a situation arises that upsets you, you <a target=_blank href="https://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2020/08/preparing-for-meditation-with.html">relax</a> and you look for the emotion being held in, and let it out, let it into consciousness so you are not suppressing anything, and the unpleasant feeling, the "I don't like" or "I don't want" aspect fades.
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<li>Unpleasant emotions and cravings at first seem involuntary. Later they seem to be more like habits that you engage in inadvertently and with attention and effort you can give up the habit and stop making yourself suffer by staying <a target=_blank href="https://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2020/08/preparing-for-meditation-with.html">relaxed</a>, staying mindful in the moment - neither suppressing thoughts, emotions and impulses nor getting carried away by them - not mistaking the stories they try to tell you about good and bad, right and wrong, winning and losing as having anything to do with reality.
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<li>At first you think emotions are about reality, for example: in such and such a situation it is right to get angry, later you realize those kinds of stories are not reality, they are just a dream about how to make yourself suffer.
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<li>At first you get upset over problems, you might dislike or get angry at people and events. Later you realize you cannot learn to stop suffering without actually suffering and so you stop judging people and events because <a target=_blank href="https://www.lotsawahouse.org/tibetan-masters/geshe-langri-thangpa/eight-verses-training-mind">they help you to make progress</a>, and because you feel compassion for people who are themselves suffering.
<li>
<p>At first it seems normal to be immersed in your thoughts, emotions, impulses, and sensory experiences. Later, after practicing mindfulness in meditation and in daily life, you notice the distinction between mindfulness (observing your thoughts, emotions, impulses and sensory experiences - observing your environment, the sensations in your body, and the activity of your mind) versus being immersed. You see that being mindful, observing, creates a sense of detachment. You see that most suffering comes from immersion. Later the difference immersion and mindfulness becomes more like the difference between dreaming and being awake. Even later you see that the detachment leads to non-attachment, and mindfulness becomes the new default.
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<li>At first it seems like your mind is you, you think your thoughts, opinions, emotions, and impulses are yours. You think you are using your mind when you try to solve a problem. Later you see that thoughts, emotions, impulses, sensory experiences, and feelings of self arise from unconscious processes, they pop into awareness unasked for, uninvited. You don't see how they are formed or where they come from. Even when you are trying to solve a problem you don't know where the impulse to solve the problem came from. You realize thoughts, emotions, and impulses are not yours, you don't control them. You don't control your mind so your mind cannot be you.
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<li>Still later, when you observe the activity of the mind, you see that the moment to moment activity of the mind is a constantly changing sequence of cause and effect. An event or a thought may lead to another thought or invoke a memory that might cause an emotion that might produce an impulse etc. etc. You see there isn't anyone in control, all there is just cause and effect.
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<li>At this point you may feel like you are just an observer of mental activity without any agency, but later you realize observation creates the observer. Without anything to see, there would be no seeing, no observing of sight. This is true for the other senses, and it is also true for all mental activity. Without thoughts there would be no observing of thoughts etc. etc. So you see there is no observer separate from the process of perceiving, no experiencer separate from experiencing. The feeling of being an observer and the feeling of having no self both arise from the same unconscious processes from which all mental activity arises.
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<li>Another similar perceptual shift happens if you notice your sense of self, your feeling of being, you will notice that it changes from situation to situation. In school you think of yourself as a student. At work you think of yourself as an employee. When you are with your parents, your children, your friends, you have a different sense of self in each situation. When you think of different issues or topics that you often think about, you will notice you have a different sense of self with each of those. The same is true for emotions and emotional issues you experience. And if you keep observing you will see that the feeling of self is actually influenced moment to moment by every sensory experience, by everything you see, hear, and feel. You will see that every moment of experience produces a unique sense of self. This is another way of seeing that experience creates the experiencer. You see there isn't a separate continuous constant self apart from experiencing/observing.
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<li>Knowing that observing creates the observer you then notice, for example, when you see, if you just see and stay mindful, and you don't get carried away by thoughts, emotions, and impulses, you don't assume, because you see, that there is a seer, you just see without any observer necessary. When you are fully involved in experiencing, there is no experiencer.
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<li>Initially you think the ego is you, and is the good guy in all the mental stories the mind weaves, and who is someone who must be defended from insult and injury at all costs. Later you realize the ego is an opinion that is the main character in the plot to make yourself suffer. This disenchantment helps you to let go of selfish attachments and aversions arising from egocentrism and egotism.
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<li><a target=_blank href="https://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2019/09/aspects-of-meditation.html#asp_med_surrender">Surrender</a>, accepting emotions, not resisting emotions, is one level of non-attachment.
<p>But another perceptual shift goes beyond surrender.
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If you observe the activity of your mind, you may see that the stream of consciousness is simply a sequence of cause and effect. One thought or emotion, or impulse, or memory, leads to another until something sets you off on a new tangent. There isn't a unifying entity to be found in the various independent unconscious processes that produce the stream of consciousness (thoughts, emotions, impulses, sensory experiences, feelings of self and no self). And you may also see how the ego, (the idea of that entity which can't be found generated by those unconscious processes) is involved in most suffering - you understand how suffering arises in your mind - it arises from impersonal processes, you do not choose it or ask for it, it isn't you or yours, it isn't an objective truth. When you see it this way, there can be a perceptual shift, and you see there isn't anyone in a position of responsibility that could be identified to surrender, accept, or not resist.
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After the perceptual shift, you don't feel like there is anything that needs to be accepted because it isn't on you. You no longer see yourself as the central figure in the story to which <a target=_blank href="https://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2023/07/how-i-define-dukkha-suffering.html#dukkha_def_ease_def">suffering</a> is happening because the premises on which suffering is based are undermined.
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You suffer less because you see that the old way of thinking, the thinking that produced the suffering, was based on a misunderstanding of the cause of suffering and on a misunderstanding of what the self is.
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You realize you suffered because you felt some responsibility for something. But when you recognize that feeling was based on misunderstandings, you suffer less.
</ul>
These perceptual shifts come from observing the activity of the mind, in meditation and in daily life, and observing how dukkha arises and fades and how the ego is involved in dukkha (this is equivalent to observing the three characteristics and dependent origination). These perceptual shifts result in less suffering and in changes in behavior. They change one's approach to dealing with problems, and reactions to problems involve less emotional lashing out. They allow people who want to be more rational and compassionate to be so, people who don't desire those qualities will not automatically gain them by making these perceptual shifts although some might change their attitude if they do make these perceptual shifts.
<p>
<b>Summary</b>
<p>
When you watch the activity of the mind you see that:
<ul>
<p>
<li>Emotions are not reality. You don't have to believe the story that says you should, for example, be angry.
<p>
<li>The situation is not the problem, the problem is your reaction to the situation.
<p>
<li> When you notice unpleasant emotions and cravings arising, you find you can relieve much suffering by opening your emotional gate - by accepting emotions rather than suppressing them.
<p>
<li>Unpleasant emotions and cravings that at first seem involuntary later seem to be more like habits that you engage in inadvertently and with attention and effort you can give up the habit without suppressing them.
<p>
<li>You cannot learn to stop suffering without actually suffering and so you stop judging people and events because they help you to make progress, and because you feel compassion for people who are themselves suffering.
<p>
<li>Thoughts, emotions, impulses, sensory experiences, and feelings of self arise from unconscious processes, they are not yours, you don't control them. You don't control your mind so your mind is not you.
<p>
<li>The moment to moment activity of the mind is a constantly changing sequence of cause and effect, there isn't anyone in control, all there is just cause and effect.
</ul>
<p>
At this point you may feel like you are just an observer of mental activity without any agency,
<ul>
<li>But then you notice without anything to see, there would be no seeing, no observing of sight. Observation creates the observer.
<p>
<li>Every moment of experience produces a unique sense of self. Experience creates the experiencer. There isn't a separate continuous constant self or apart from experiencing/observing.
<p>
<li>When seeing just see. When you are fully involved in experiencing, there is no experiencer.
<p>
<li>The ego is an opinion that is the main character in the plot to make yourself suffer. This disenchantment helps you to let go of selfish attachments and aversions arising from egocentrism and egotism.
<hr>
<p>
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<p>
The Buddha taught that tranquility and insight are two <a target=_blank href="https://www.dhammatalks.org/books/NobleStrategy/Section0012.html">qualities of mind</a> that should both be cultivated.
<p>
Tranquility yields immediate benefits - you should feel tranquil after your first meditation session. Insight yields benefits that accumulate over time. As you observe the mind, you gradually learn how to let go of attachments and aversions.
<p>
In my view, tranquility involves two factors: relaxation and quieting the mental chatter. Relaxation occurs when the <a target=_blank href="https://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2018/04/the-parasympathetic-nervous-system-and.html">parasympathetic nervous system</a> is active the sympathetic nervous system in inactive. Mental chatter is reduced when the <a target=_blank href="https://sites.google.com/site/chs4o8pt/meditation-1#h.pi82ppmk6xf9">default network</a> in the brain is inactive and the experiential network in the brain is active.
<p>
The parasympathetic nervous system can be activated and the sympathetic nervous system can be deactivated with <a target=_blank href="https://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2020/08/preparing-for-meditation-with.html">relaxing meditation</a>.
<p>
The default network in the brain can be deactivated and the experiential network can be activated through relaxed concentration in meditation and through mindfulness in daily life. When the mind is focused on something occuring in present moment, the experiential network becomes active and the default network becomes inactive. The focus can be on an object of meditation as in the relaxing meditation in the previous paragraph, or it can be some type of <a target=_blank href="https://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2023/07/practicing-mindfulness-in-daily-life.html">mindfulness practice</a>.
<p>
Tranquility is beneficial in itself (most people would prefer to feel tranquil and serene rather than stressed and upset)
<p>
And tranquility also assists in developing insight. When the mind is tranquil you do not get distracted and carried away by thoughts, emotions, impulses, sensory experiences, or the ego so you can observe the activity mind much better when the mind is tranquil. Observing the activity of the mind is how insight is acquired.
<p>
Insight can be explained in various ways and different people take different approaches to it. My approach to insight is to understand suffering so that one can reduce it as much as possible. The way to do this, in my opinion is to <a target=_blank href="https://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2023/05/observing-mind.html">observe the activity of the mind</a>.
<p>
In my opinion the essence of Buddhism is that it tells how to bring about an end to suffering. It seems to me the simplest way to do that is to cultivate tranquility and then observe the activity of the mind, see how suffering arises and fades and then use that knowledge to reduce the amount of suffering you experience.
<p>
In a very simple way of saying it, insight comes from observing suffering arising and fading which is the same as noticing when tranquility is disturbed and then returning to tranquility.
<p>
My approach is similar to that of Ajahn Chah which <a target=_blank href="https://inquiringmind.com/article/2701_w_kornfield-enlightenments/">Jack Kornfield</a> described as:
<blockquote>
As Ajahn Chah described them, meditative states are not important in themselves. Meditation is a way to quiet the mind so you can practice all day long wherever you are; see when there is grasping or aversion, clinging or suffering; and then let it go.
</blockquote>
<p> My article on <a target=_blank href="https://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2023/05/observing-mind.html">Observing the Mind</a> describes how I recommend cultivating insight.
<p>
I've <a target=_blank href="https://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2023/07/letting-go.html#letting_go_full_depth">written about</a>
how fully letting go of emotions requires paying attention to even faint emotions that are barely on the edge of consciousness and bring them into awareness, and also feeling the full depth of emotions. Over time these two skills become an automatic habit and the result is like having the door to emotions entirely and constantly open so that when an unpleasant <a target=_blank href="https://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2023/07/how-i-define-dukkha-suffering.html#dukkha_def_ease_def">emotion arises</a> you are just waving goodbye to it as it passes out the door. It isn't exactly pleasant, but the emotion doesn't hang around and cast a cloud over reality either. This is like the way Shinzen Young describes the Bhanga-nana (dissolution) the stage after A&P where, as he describes it, you see arising and fading as simultaneous. The consequence is that those unpleasant emotions don't linger in the back of your mind causing trouble. That comes from bringing them out and feeling them to their full depth. Without all that trouble, without the dukkha aspect of all things causing you suffering, what remains is ... nice.
<p>
I don't claim to have perfected this and I don't know if it leads to the perfect 100% end of suffering, but it is ... nice.
<p>
A lot of time spent <a target=_blank href="https://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2023/05/observing-mind.html">observing the mind</a> and dukkha in particular (in meditation and daily life) is needed to get to this point. At first suffering seems involuntary, then after a lot of observation you begin to feel more like it is a habit that you are doing automatically, so you begin to try to change your habit. You notice that suppressing doesn't really help, relaxing while feeling emotions to their full depth does help, and bringing them out fully into consciousness even if they are just faint inklings in the back of the mind helps too. Somewhere in there can be a lot of very unpleasant feelings coming out so you don't try to do it all at once, you give yourself a rest when you need to - meditation that <a target=_blank href="https://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2020/08/preparing-for-meditation-with.html">produces tranquility</a> can help. And emotions can hide under layers of other emotions so sometimes you have to <a target=_blank href="https://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2020/09/when-you-cant-find-tranquility.html">dig through the layers</a> to find what you need to let go of. But in time you get out a lot of baggage and become somewhat desensitized, and eventually bringing out and letting out becomes a habit and you notice your mood is a lot lighter and it's ... nice.
<p>
Ultimately, letting go means being relaxed and while bringing into consciousness and feeling to their full depth (in their entirety) feelings that are unpleasant, so faint they are barely conscious, or buried under layers of other emotions, and not getting carried away by thoughts emotions, impulses, sensory experience, or ego, so that they don't take over your mind and body. Being relaxed with a quiet mind while observing the mind makes this possible.
<hr>
<p>
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<p>
Practicing mindfulness in daily life is a way of meditating in daily life. It means being relaxed and in the present moment - not being lost in thought or trying to solve problems or worrying about the future or analyzing the past, or being carried away by your impulses and emotions. When practicing mindfulness and you find your mind wandering you bring it back to the present just as you do during meditation.
<p>
There are many <a target=_blank href="https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.010.nysa.html">many different ways</a> you can be in the present moment. You can use a different technique at different times and in different situations.
<ul>
<li> The simplest technique is to just be aware of what you are doing as you are doing it.
<p>
<li> Or you can notice your breathing like you are <a target=_blank href="https://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2020/10/easy-meditation.html">meditating</a>.
<p>
<li> You can notice each movement you make. You can say to yourself a word or two to describe each movement such as "stepping", "reaching", "grasping", "moving", "placing", etc.
<p>
<li> Or notice or count your steps when walking.
<p>
<li> You can notice everything you <a target=_blank href="https://www.amazon.com/Guide-Unified-Mindfulness-Happiness-Anywhere-ebook/dp/B092HMTFZW/">see or hear or feel</a>.
<p>
<li>You can focus your attention on your emotions. (That can be helpful, but overdoing it, dwelling on unpleasant emotions can be unhelpful.)
<p>
<li> Read slowly so you can read mindfully.
<p>
<li> Do puzzles or play word games slowly so you can do them mindfully.
<p>
<li> One way to practice mindfulness in daily life is to <a target=_blank href="https://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2023/05/observing-mind.html">watch the activity of your mind</a> (thoughts, emotions, impulses, sensory experience, and sense of self the ego) and the feelings in your body that accompany emotions and impulses. Take note when <a target_=blank href="https://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2023/07/how-i-define-dukkha-suffering.html#dukkha_def_ease_def">dukkha</a> arises and observe it. Notice what causes it to arise and what causes it to fade. Notice how the sense of self (the ego) is <a target=_blank href="https://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2023/05/observing-mind.html">always changing</a> and is often intimately involved in dukkha. In this way you observe the three characteristics: dukkha, impermanence (arising and fading), and anatta (there is no permanent unchanging self), and you learn to break the sequence of dependent origination by relaxing and <a target=_blank href="https://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2023/07/letting-go.html">letting go</a> at the moment of dukkha arising. Being relaxed helps you notice when dukkha arises because you see how dukkha disturbs your relaxed state, and it help you notice when you let go because you return to the relaxed state.
</ul>
<p>
The benefits include breaking the habit of believing the stories your thoughts, emotions and impulses tell you about reality, that you have to be afraid, or angry or jealous, or this or that. When you are free from those mental habits, you can react to life with wisdom and compassion rather than out of control emotions.
<p>
In order to have the presence of mind to stay mindful in daily life you need to have a calm quiet mind. <a target=_blank href="https://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2020/08/preparing-for-meditation-with.html">Relaxing meditation</a> is very helpful at producing such a quiet focused mind.
<p>
In the artcle <a target=_blank href="https://inquiringmind.com/article/2701_w_kornfield-enlightenments/">Enlightenments</a>, Jack Kornfield explains that Ajahn Chah has a very similar philosophy:
<blockquote>
His approach to enlightenment was not based on having any particular meditation experience, no matter how profound. As Ajahn Chah described them, meditative states are not important in themselves. Meditation is a way to quiet the mind so you can practice all day long wherever you are; see when there is grasping or aversion, clinging or suffering; and then let it go.
</blockquote>
<p>
<h3>How Mindfulness Eases Suffering</h3>
<p>
Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn <a target=_blank href="https://sites.google.com/site/chs4o8pt/meditation-1#h.a8wwp8h5c0dd">explains</a>:
<blockquote>
And the interesting thing — and this is the study — when they put people through eight weeks of MBSR [mindfulness based stress reduction], this narrative network decreases in activity and this experiential network increases in activity and they become uncoupled. So they’re no longer caught together in such a way. So this one can actually attenuate and liberate you a little bit from the constant thinking, thinking, thinking — a lot which is driven, of course, by anxiety and, "What’s wrong with me?" The story of me is often a depressing story. And a fear-based story. We’re like driving the car with the brake on, with the emergency brake on. And if we learn how to just kind of release it, everything will unfold with less strain, with less stress and with a greater sense of life unfolding rather than you’re driving through it to get to some great pot of gold at the end, which might just be your grave.
</blockquote>
<p>
<h3>The Four Establishments of Mindfulness</h3>
<p>
Practicing mindfulness continuously all day (for at least a week) is, for practical purposes, equivalent to the third or fourth <a target=_blank href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_stages_of_awakening#Path_and_Fruit">stage of awakening</a>.
<p>
In the Sattipatthana Sutta, The Sutra on the Four Establishments of Mindfulness, The Buddha said: "Should any person practice these four foundations of mindfulness in this manner for a week, then one of these two fruits may be expected by him: highest knowledge here and now, or if some remainder of clinging is yet present, the state of non-returning."
<p>
<a target=_blank href="https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.010.nysa.html">https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.010.nysa.html</a>
<p>
<blockquote>
MN 10 PTS: M i 55
Satipatthana Sutta: The Foundations of Mindfulness
translated from the Pali by
Nyanasatta Thera
...
<b>Thus he lives</b> contemplating mental objects in mental objects internally, or he lives contemplating mental objects in mental objects externally, or he lives contemplating mental objects in mental objects internally and externally. He lives contemplating origination factors in mental objects, or he lives contemplating dissolution factors in mental objects, or he lives contemplating origination-and-dissolution factors in mental objects.[25] Or his mindfulness is established with the thought, "Mental objects exist," to the extent necessary just for knowledge and mindfulness, and he lives detached, and clings to nothing in the world.
...
Verily, monks, whosoever practices these four foundations of mindfulness in this manner for seven years, then one of these two fruits may be expected by him: highest knowledge (arahantship) here and now, or if some remainder of clinging is yet present, the state of non-returning.[28]
<p>
O monks, let alone seven years. Should any person practice these four foundations of mindfulness in this manner for six years... five years... four years... three years... two years... one year, then one of these two fruits may be expected by him: highest knowledge here and now, or if some remainder of clinging is yet present, the state of non-returning.
<p>
O monks, let alone a year. Should any person practice these four foundations of mindfulness in this manner for seven months... six months... five months... four months... three months... two months... a month... half a month, then one of these two fruits may be expected by him: highest knowledge here and now, or if some remainder of clinging is yet present, the state of non-returning.
<p>
<b>O monks, let alone half a month. Should any person practice these four foundations of mindfulness in this manner for a week, then one of these two fruits may be expected by him: highest knowledge here and now, or if some remainder of clinging is yet present, the state of non-returning.</b>
<p>
Because of this it was said: <b>"This is the only way, monks, for the purification of beings, for the overcoming of sorrow and lamentation, for the destruction of suffering and grief, for reaching the right path, for the attainment of Nibbana, namely the four foundations of mindfulness."</b></blockquote>
<p>
One could interpret this as stating that for practical purposes continuous mindfulness is equivalent to awakening. For practical purposes, when you maintain mindfulness continuously throughout the day you are awakened.
<p>
This might sound too good to be true, but the catch is that practicing mindfulness continuously in daily life is not an easy thing to do and it takes a lot of time and effort and practice to be able to do it.
<p>
But there is a very good reason why practicing mindfulness fully during daily life should have such a good effect.
<p>
We already have skills we need to let go of attachments and aversions and we use them quite often, but we don't recognize what we are doing in context.
<p>
But when you are mindful in daily life, you see how there are some attachments you let go of easily and you see what it is that you do when you let go. And with that recognition and insight, you can apply those skills to stronger and stronger attachments and improve your ability to let go of attachments.
<p>
And when you are mindful in daily life you see how there are some aversions you easily let go of and accept those things you don't like or don't want. And you see what it is that you do when you let go. And with that recognition and insight, you can apply those skills to stronger and stronger aversions and improve your ability to let go of aversions.
<p>
Continuous mindfulness in daily life would also seem to be a clear way to <a target=_blank href="https://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2023/07/how-i-define-dukkha-suffering.html#dukkha_def_ease_progress">measure your progress</a> on the path.
<hr>
<p>
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<a name=letting_go_top></a>
<h3>Contents</h3>
<a href=#letting_go_intro>Introduction</a>
<br><a href=#letting_go_hints>Hints for Letting Go</a>
<br><a href=#letting_go_more>More on Letting Go</a>
<br><a href=#letting_go_full_depth>Experiencing Emotions to Their Full Depth</a>
<br><a href=#letting_go_letting_out>Letting Out and Letting Go</a>
<br><a href=#letting_go_return>Returning to Tranquility is a Way to Recognize You Have Let Go</a>
<br><a href=#letting_go_liking>Liking and Letting Go</a>
<br><a href=#letting_go_2prong>A Two Pronged Approach</a>
<br><a href=#letting_go_ego>Letting Go and the Ego</a>
<p>
<a name=letting_go_intro></a>
<h3>Introduction</h3>
<p>
This post contains hints for letting go of unpleasant emotions and cravings. It is a process you get better at with practice.
<p>
<a target=_blank href="https://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2023/07/how-i-define-dukkha-suffering.html#dukkha_def_ease_def">Emotions</a> for the purpose of this discussion are emotions that arise in the mind in response to thoughts or situations. This excludes emotions due to purely biological causes such as some types of anxiety and depression. Biological causes include genetics, poor diet, and developmental processes that while learned are, for practical purposes, permanent. For example, stress in childhood can result in permanent changes in stress hormone receptor levels that continue throughout adulthood.
<p>
Often with biologically caused non-cognitive emotions there are layers of cognitive emotions that occur in reaction to them. Meditation and mindfulness can help elimnate those added layers. In some cases this may make the non-cognitive emotions seem more like physical sensations instead of a cloud over reality, they become much easier to bear. A similar phenomenon can occur with physical pain, when the mental anguish surrounding physical pain is eased, the pain is easier to bear.
<p>
The full list of steps (below) is for stronger emotions. For little things, sometimes you can just be aware of them, let them express themselves, relax, and they fade in a matter of a second or two.
<p>
And if you start to feel overwhelmed with a lot of strong emotions, you can take a break from observing emotions.
<p>
Letting go does not mean eradicating. An emotion you have let go of may be triggered again in the future. In time, the strength of an emotion may decrease as you let go of it after repeated triggerings.
<p>
<a href=#letting_go_top>(Top of Page)</a>
<p>
<a name=letting_go_hints></a>
<h3>Hints for Letting Go</h3>
To let go of unpleasant emotions:
<p>
<ol>
<li>Remember the problem is not the situation, the problem is your reaction to the situation. (That doesn't mean you should ignore situations, it means if you are non-attached you can respond with reason and compassion rather than out of control emotions.)
<p>
<li>Let out the emotion. Let yourself feel it to its <a href=#letting_go_full_depth>full depth</a>. Notice the physical sensations in your body that accompany the emotion. In many cases this only takes a second and the emotion is over and that's all you have to do. If you are mindful then with experience you will find yourself noticing emotions bubbling up and finding yourself deliberately recognizing you have to let them out, and you do let them out, you experience them to their full depth in your mind and body, and then they fade right away as you expect. If the emotion or the feeling of stress or tension continues you can go on to the next steps.
<p>
<li><a target=_blank href="https://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2020/09/when-you-cant-find-tranquility.html">Dig through layers</a> when necessary. Sometimes the root of the problem is hidden behind other emotions and you have to dig through one or more layers of emotions to understand the root of the problem
<p>
<li>Relax. If you can't just relax, try taking a deep breath, or breathing in a relaxed way. Notice if you feel muscle tension and try to relax the tension. Moving the muscles a few times can help release tension.
<p>
If there are certain muscles that tend to get tense when you are upset, like your jaw, or back, or shoulders, pay attention to those muscles throughout the day and try to keep them relaxed. Emotions express themselves in part through our posture, facial expressions, and tone of voice, etc. They do this by influencing muscle tension. You can't let go of an emotion completely if you have muscle tension caused by the emotion. Sometimes we unconsciously tense our muscles to suppress thoughts and emotions. When that happens, you might not be able to fully let out an emotion until you relax the muscle tension. If there are some emotions that you can't seem to let go of, you might find that relaxing the muscle tension in your frequently tense areas can allow you to be able to let go of them.
<p>
If necessary, use <a target=_blank href="https://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2020/08/preparing-for-meditation-with.html">meditation techniques</a> that include both physical and mental relaxation techniques to help you relax. I find that when I completely relax, I do not feel any unpleasant reactive emotions. Relaxing and staying relaxed when you are upset about a current situation or worried about the immediate future can be very hard. But if you practice relaxing, you can get better at it.
<p>
<li>Try to lighten your mood. Sometimes that means just remembering not to take things too seriously, it can be noticing the pleasant feeling of being relaxed, it can be <a target=_blank href="https://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2020/10/metta-meditation.html">metta</a>, or <a target=_blank href="https://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2020/10/a-quick-guide-to-producing-bliss-with.html">piti (joy), or sukha (tranquil happiness)</a> produced by meditation. I don't recommend pushing metta, piti, or sukha to high intense levels. It can be fun when you first learn how to do it, but I find that becomes tedious and it is nicer just to keep them going at a low level. If you find that any of these techniques have a bad effect on your mood you should cut back or stop doing them and focus more on relaxation.
<p>
<li>Let your barriers down and your borders expand. This is hard to explain in words, it is a feeling one gets, sometimes produced by meditation, where one feels like one is merging into their environment or letting go of their identity. It is not necessarily intense like a psychedelic trip, it can be subtle, but it can be part of letting go because when we are upset the opposite occurs. We put up barriers and contract our borders. We withdraw. We feel separate from others and our environment. To let go, you have to reverse this withdrawal, to reintegrate with our environment.
<p>
<li>Return to a feeling of non-attachment to self. There are different ways to do this, you can try to drop any type of egotistical or egocentric feeling (feel humble and drop any attitudes or poses of outrage, arrogance, anger, pride, defensiveness, victimhood etc). And if you can feel like you don't have a self, you can do that.
<p>
<li>
If you are meditating or practicing mindfulness in daily life, return to the object of meditation or mindfulness, and notice if any continuing or lingering emotional sensations fade as you do this.
</ol>
It can be helpful to meditate or practice mindfulness in daily while trying to be relaxed, with a lightened mood however you choose to do that, with your barriers down and your borders expanded, and feeling non-attached to self if you have a way to do that.
<p>
This way you can practice letting go even if you don't have anything specific to let go of. Then if something comes up you have the skill/habit to let go - if you can remember to do it.
<p>
Also, it's a way of just being non-attached.
<p>
<a href=#letting_go_top>(Top of Page)</a>
<p>
<a name=letting_go_more></a>
<h3> More on letting go</h3>
<p>
<p
<p>
Steps 2,3,and 4 are often elusive because they involve using the nervous system very differently. Especially for strong emotions when thoughts, emotions, impulses, and ego can take over your mind and body.
<p>
This part of letting go involves:
<p>
<ul>
<p>
<li> A. Being mindful of the activity of the mind.
<p>
<li> B. Noticing an emotion arising - letting yourself feel it.
<p>
<li> C. Interrupting dependent origination before you get carried away. This is where
<p>
<ul>
<li>you decide not to let thoughts, emotions, impulses and ego take over your mind and body,
<p>
<li>or where you decide not to make yourself suffer,
<p>
<li>or you decide it is nicer to feel peaceful than upset,
<p>
<li>or that tranquility is more restful and being upset takes too much energy and effort,
<p>
<li>or you just get fed up feeling like crap and you stop,
<p>
<li>or you decide to put your inner adult in charge instead of your inner child.
<p>
<li>or you surrender to reality, you stop resisting facts of reality or facts about yourself that you don't like.
<p>
<li> When you observe the <a target=_blank href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_marks_of_existence">three characteristics</a> and you see that all <a target=_blank href="https://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2023/05/observing-mind.html">mental activity</a> and all things in the physical world are impermanent, not-self (not me or mine), and unsatisfactory, it creates disenchantment and weakens attachments and aversions.
<p>
Repeatedly observing the three characteristics shows you that you can't always control everything, not your mind (thoughts, emotions, impulses, sensory experiences, ego), not your body, not material things, not other people, we can't always avoid what we don't want and we can't always have what we want.
<p>
Eventually it sinks in, particularly when you are suffering, that attachments and aversions are pointless because we can't control everything and clinging does not help us get what we want or avoid what we don't want. It just causes suffering. Changing our attitude, <a target=_blank href="https://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2020/08/preparing-for-meditation-with.html">relaxing</a>, letting go, accepting we just have to muddle through life one way or another, biding our time, not feeling responsible for things we don't control, relieves us of much suffering. And there is really no alternative, the alternative is a delusion and involves much more suffering.
<p>
We can still plan as best we can and try as best we can, but without clinging, we can plan and act with compassion and reason rather than selfish emotions.
<p>
Notice how a slight change in attitude eases suffering and then cultivate that attitude. Notice, particularly when unpleasant emotions or cravings arise, how this attitude eases suffering.
</ul>
<p>
<li>D. Relax while noticing lingering emotions and allowing yourself to feel them to their full depth. This is when you accept your emotions, it's when you let yourself feel them and they sometimes fade, it prevents suppression, it's when you let go. After this you can go back to Step C or on to Step 5 or do both. With step 5 rember not be be attached to feeling good all the time.
</ul>
<p>
Steps A, B, and D seem to me to use the nervous system very differently than step C.
<p>
A, B, and D involve not interfering just observing, they are passive.
<p>
Whereas C involves using the nervous system actively to interrupt the sequence of dependent origination.
<p>
In a sense you have to reverse course twice. In steps A and B you observe passively, in step C you take an active part, then in D you become a passive oberver again.
<p>
This is one reason letting go can be so hard. You have to switch your mental attitude twice, you have to do very different things with your nervous system which takes time and attention and intention at the same time a strong emotion is likely to take over before you get the chance to do or to think of doing any of that.
<p>
But being aware of the process at this level of detail can help, it can help if you understand, are conscious of, what you want to try to do..
<p>
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<p>
<a name=letting_go_full_depth></a>
<h3>Experiencing Emotions to Their Full Depth</h3>
<p>
When observing emotions, I find it helps to try to experience the full depth of the emotion in the mind and in the body. This involves understanding the cause / trigger for the emotion and noticing the sensations in the mind/body that accompany the emotion. The "end" of an emotion is not at the end of a period of time, the end is at the full depth. When you experience it all the way to the bottom, the emotion then begins to fade (although it might be triggered again in the future). If you don't experience it to the full depth, it lingers on in time - consciously or unconsciously.
<p>
I find it's like various bodily functions, like for example burping. At first you might notice a vague sense of unease, then if you pay attention, you feel the pressure of gas in your stomach, then you burp, and the unease passes, and you feel a sense of relief.
<p>
The experience might not exactly be pleasant, but there is that sense of relief at the end. And with it comes the knowledge that finding that bottom is the key to letting go.
<p>
With emotions this can change your attitude toward unpleasant emotions and cravings. Instead of something to avoid or push away, they become something to look for, in order to clear them away, to remove those vague (or not so vague) feelings of unease and to feel the relief that comes from experiencing them to their full depth. When you do this, you also see that much of suffering comes not from the emotions themselves but from resisting them, rejecting them. When you stop reacting to them in that way a lot of mental anguish associated with them stops occurring.
<p>
How someone would put this into practice would depend on the specifics of the person, the emotion they are experiencing, and their particular situation at the moment. Often it just takes a few seconds to acknowledge the emotion relax, and let go (until it is triggered again). Other times it might require full attention to dig through layers of emotions one hidden behind another. Some people with strong (traumatic) emotions might want to go through that process gradually rather than all at once. Relaxation, metta, sukha and other positive emotions produced by meditation can help counterbalance the unpleasant emotions that arise during meditation. Also it can be a mistake to dwell on an unpleasant emotion without letting go. So how to handle an emotions is a fine balance each person has to work out for themselves and their particular situation.
<p>
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<p>
<a name=letting_go_letting_out></a>
<h3> Letting Out and Letting Go</h3>
<p>
There is an intimate relationship between letting go and allowing yourself feel <a target=_blank href="https://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2023/07/how-i-define-dukkha-suffering.html#dukkha_def_ease_def">reactive emotions</a>. Reactive emotions are emotions that occur in response to a thought or situation. That may sound like a contradiction - you have to let yourself feel an emotion before you can let it go - but that's the way it works. Otherwise you leave the emotion unexpressed, suppressed, you can't really let go unless you let it out.
<p>
It's like when you feel nauseous and burp and then feel better. You feel an unpleasant emotion arising, you intentionally let it out, you feel it, then you can let go, it passes, you relax, you feel okay, and you don't get carried away by thoughts and emotions dwelling upon it. With practice this becomes a very deliberate, conscious and familiar process.
<p>
The reactive emotion might not be gone permanently, it could recur, but for the moment you feel better than holding it in, you don't cling to it, it doesn't make you tense or irritable.
<p>
Not all emotions are reactive emotions. Some emotions are due to biological causes such as some forms of anxiety and depression I don't think it is possible to let go of these kinds of emotions. Some emotions are associated with memories of traumatic events. These can be very hard, if not impossible to let go of. When you have an emotion you can't let go of in the way described above, you can sometimes find some relief when meditation produces (and mindfulness in daily life maintains) <a target=_blank href="https://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2020/08/preparing-for-meditation-with.html">a quiet, relaxed, contented state</a> which reduces mental anguish - the emotions may still be there but they are more like physical sensations than a cloud over reality. With these kinds of emotions it might not always be helpful letting yourself feel them hoping to let go of them in the way described for reactive emotions, if you dwell on them too much in a certain way I think you can reinforce them the way focusing on pleasure reinforces itself to produce the 1st jhana. But sometimes it can help to try to do a relaxing form of meditation or mindfulness such as breathing in a relaxing way while you feel or think of the emotions - this can help you desensitize yourself to the emotions if you can be relaxed while doing it. Each person has to work out for themselves the right balance between feeling them, understanding them, and not dwelling on them. Not dwelling on them after being open to them, using samatha techniques to reduce mental anguish could be considered a different way of letting go for these types of emotions.
<p>
I think of it as a dual approach. Using meditation techniques to reduce mental anguish, to produce tranquility (samatha) and insight techniques to be mindful, notice reactive emotions arising, and let go of them. I suspect this is one reason why Buddha told his students to <a target=_blank href="https://accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/thanissaro/onetool.html">cultivate both samatha and vipassana</a>.
<p>
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<p>
<a name=letting_go_return></a>
<h3>Returning to Tranquility is a Way to Recognize You Have Let Go</h3>
<p>
When practicing meditation or mindfulness or at other times, letting go may involve:
<ol>
<li>Starting from a pleasant relaxed state, when nothing is bothering you consciously or unconsciously (with experience you can tell when there is something just below the surface that is interfering with you achieving a pleasant relaxed state)
<p>
<li>You notice dukkha arising (often by a physical sensation in your body accompanying the thoughts and emotions) and ...
<p>
<li>You relax back to the pleasant relaxed state. You decline to get upset. You know you aren't suppressing anything because there is no tension. You remain in the pleasant relaxed state, you are still unbothered.
<p>
<li>If you fail to let go, if you can't let go, because the emotion is too strong, you can do the <a target=_blank href="https://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2020/08/preparing-for-meditation-with.html">meditation</a> or whatever practice gets you to the pleasant relaxed state.
</ol>If you are not in a pleasant relaxed state when dukkha arises, it is hard to tell if you are really letting go because you don't have a clear "unbothered" feeling to return to, to tell you that you have let go.
<p>
That's why I think it is so useful to have some way to produce a pleasant relaxed contented "unbothered" state. So you can clearly see dukkha arising, and so you can tell you are letting go. If you are already suffering from dukkha, it's harder to notice new dukkha arising and it's harder to tell if you have let go of it.
<p>
I suspect this is why the <a target=_blank href="https://www.themindingcentre.org/dharmafarer/wp-content/uploads/7.13-Anapanasati-S-m118-piya.pdf">anapanasati sutta</a> involves calming the body (steps 3 and 4), producing joy (step 5), tranquil happiness (step 6) , and calming the mind (step 8) and gladdening the mind (step 10), before letting go (step 16). And that is why it is <a target=_blank href="http://dhammatalks.net/Books3/Bhikkhu_Buddhadasa_Anapanasati_Mindfulness_with_Breathing.htm">recommended</a> to practice all the steps in order during every session.
<p>
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<p>
<a name=letting_go_liking></a>
<h3>Liking and Letting Go</h3>
<p>
We have opinions about most things. We usually either like something or dislike something. Sometimes we are neutral. Noticing the dukkha aspect of things we don't like is easy. But the dukkha aspect of things we like is also there, wanting something, fear of loss, or regret after a pleasant experience is over. All of these things are unpleasant, they create stress but one can let go of them, relax the stress. Sometimes these are so subtle, or we are so accustomed to them we don't notice the unpleasantness. Whether you notice it or not, between liking an disliking there is a lot of mental activity causing suffering. People can be in a bad mood, without knowing why, almost out of habit because of subtle dukkha they are not really conscious of. But if you can be mindful in daily life, and notice how so much mental activity involves liking and disliking and feel how they both cause suffering, you can start to relax away the tension they produce, let go of the unpleasant reaction in your mind and body, and start chipping away at a huge amount of suffering that you have been doing to yourself without noticing simply out of habit. Noticing the physical sensation in our body that accompany emotions can make you more sensitive to dukkha arising. Try to notice if your thoughts involve liking/wanting or disliking.
<p>
As you learn to notice dukkha arising from liking/wanting and disliking, and learn to relax and let go of it, you get better at it, better at being relaxed, and you learn to notice dukkha arising before it becomes too strong to let go of, before it carries you away with thoughts and emotions that distract you from mindfulness. You gain confidence in your ability to end suffering. You see that you can even let go of things that produce strong reactions if you catch them early and keep letting go, relaxing tension, as they pop up again and again (rapid letting go). With enough practice it becomes a new habit, you can change your habit from making yourself suffer to letting go of suffering. Without all those things dragging down your mood, you feel much better.
<p>
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<p>
<a name=letting_go_2prong></a>
<h3>A Two Pronged Approach</h3>
Meditation and mindfulness practice is a two pronged approach.
<p>
<a target=_blank href="https://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2020/08/preparing-for-meditation-with.html">Relaxation</a> meditation and mindfulness quiet the mental chatter and that in itself reduces suffering since the mental chatter is often worrying about the past, future, or current problems. Just quieting the mind (tranquility) in <a target=_blank href="https://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2020/10/easy-meditation.html">meditation</a> and mindfulness in daily life and making that a habit reduces suffering a lot. It makes letting go of attachments and aversions easier and <i>natural</i> - it's nicer to stay tranquil than to get upset.
<p>
This is why I tell people they should meditate for the benefits they get from it today, not because of some benefit they hope get in the future. There are cumulative benefits from meditation, but in my opinion if you are not getting tranquility from the first time you meditate, you are not getting the full benefits from practice and the long term benefits will not be a full as they could be.
<p>
The other prong is being mindful of dukkha arising and learning to <i>deliberately</i> let go (insight) of attachments and aversions. And this practice is facilitated by a tranquil mind.
<p>
This is another reason for <a target=_blank href="https://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/thanissaro/onetool.html">cultivating both samatha (tranquility) and vipassana (insight)</a> as the Buddha taught his disciples to do. They work very well together.
<p>
Overall there are several overlapping practices I recommend:
<ul>
<p>
<li>Meditation to promote <a target=_blank href="https://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2020/08/preparing-for-meditation-with.html">relaxation</a>. This also helps quiet the mental chatter.
<p>
<li>Meditation to quiet mental chatter. This can be sitting or walking etc.
<p>
<li>Mindfulness in daily life. Quiet the mental chatter, maintain serenity produced by relaxation and meditation, observe the mind, practice letting go.
<p>
<li><a target=_blank href="https://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2023/05/observing-mind.html">Observing the mind</a> during meditation and mindfulness.
<p>
<li>Practice letting go (see above, relax, lighten your mood, let down barriers and expand your boundaries) as a generic state of mind, as well as for specific issues that arise in the mind.
</ul>
<p>
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<p>
<a name=letting_go_ego></a>
<h3>Letting go and the Ego</h3>
<p>
<p>
Our sense of being successful depends on getting what we want and avoiding what we don't want. That means the ego, the sense of self, is bound up in every experience of wanting, liking, and disliking we have. Observing this in your own mind is helpful in letting go of attachments and aversions.
<p>
Because our sense of being successful depends on getting what we want and avoiding what we don't want, letting go of any attachments and aversions necessarily involves letting go of the ego, ie letting go of attachment to self.
<p>
Every time you let go of a distracting thought during meditation or mindfulness practice you are letting go of your attachment to your thoughts. Like letting go of any attachment, this is also letting go of attachment to self. When you practice meditation and mindfulness you are practicing letting go of attachment to self.
<p>
When the mind is tranquil and there is very little thinking of liking and disliking, of wanting and not wanting, there is very little of self involved.
<p>
When there is very little self abiding in the mind, the mind less susceptible to a attachments and aversions. There is no one to be attached or averse. Egotistical reactions are diminished, suffering is less.
<p>
This gives tranquility a kind of inertia. It takes a strong force, a strong emotion, a strong attachment, to dislodge it.
<p>
This is an example of why samatha and vipassana are not really separate practices, they are <a target=_blank href="https://www.dhammatalks.org/books/NobleStrategy/Section0012.html">two qualities of mind</a> that should coexist and can be developed together. And it is why, if you are troubled by egotistical attachments, practices that produce tranquility can provide relief.
<p>
This is why renunciation and generosity are part of the <a target=_blank href="https://www.accesstoinsight.org/ptf/dhamma/index.html">six-stage gradual training</a>. Letting go of what you like is sometimes called self-denial, it is letting go of self. In a way it's a literal denying there is a self.
<p>
Virtue, another part of the six-stage gradual training which includes the precepts, right speech, right livelihood, and right action may also involve letting go of what we like or what we want or accepting what we don't like or don't want, and that can be another form of self denial.
<p>
In fact all dukkha, all mental anguish, all liking, disliking, wanting, not wanting, is an opportunity to practice letting go of the ego, letting go of attachment to the self, to things that might be considered "me" or "mine". You have to know what you are attached to, ie ego, in order to let go. When you understand that all dukkha, all reactive emotions, are ego based, it is easier to let go.
<p>
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<a name=dukkha_def_ease_top></a>
<h3>Contents</h3>
<a href=#dukkha_def_ease_def>How I Define Dukkha</a>
<br><a href=#dukkha_def_end_suffering>What Does "The End of Suffering" Mean?</a>
<br><a href=#dukkha_def_ease_nirvana>Nirvana</a>
<br><a href=#dukkha_def_ease_techs>Techniques That Ease Suffering</a>
<br><a href=#dukkha_def_ease_progress>How to Measure Progress</a>
<a name=dukkha_def_ease_def></a>
<p>
<h3>How I Define Dukkha (Suffering)</h3>
<p>
I define dukkha (the Buddhist term for suffering) as what I will call cognitive suffering (and is sometimes referred to as "reactive emotions"). This is suffering that arises in the mind in response to thoughts or situations. This excludes physical pain and it excludes mental suffering due to purely biological causes such as some types of anxiety and depression. Biological causes include genetics, poor diet, and developmental processes that while learned or acquired are, for practical purposes, permanent. For example, stress in childhood can result in permanent changes in stress hormone receptor levels that continue throughout adulthood.
<p>
Often with biologically caused non-cognitive emotions there are layers of cognitive emotions that occur in reaction to them. Meditation and mindfulness can help eliminate those added layers. In some cases this may make the non-cognitive emotions seem more like physical sensations instead of a cloud over reality, they become much easier to bear. A similar phenomenon can occur with physical pain, when the mental anguish surrounding physical pain is eased, the pain is easier to bear.
<p>
In many cases people know when they are suffering, but with wanting or liking (craving) people often overlook the suffering involved in those feelings. Wanting what you don't have, fear of losing something you like, actually losing something you like, and regret when something nice ends, are all unpleasant.
<p>
I include in my definition of suffering, (in addition to emotional feelings such as mental anguish, stress, anxiety, worry, hate, anger, jealousy, craving etc.) mental effects such as being excessively focused on thinking about a problem, as well as physiological effects such as muscle tension and other physical sensations such as a lump in the throat, a sinking feeling in the pit of the stomach etc.
<p>
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<p>
<a name=dukkha_def_end_suffering></a>
<h3>What Does "The End of Suffering" Mean?</h3>
<p>
Above I have described the limits on the types of suffering Buddhist practice and help with. In addition, the greatest freedom from suffering possible would only be attained at the highest stage of awakening, but there there is no guarantee any particular person can reach that stage in a lifetime. There are very few people alive today who would qualify as having attained the highest stage. And even at the highest stage you are not 100% free from suffering. This is called nirvana with residue and is due to the consequences of being a biological organism. Nirvana without residue, 100% freedom from suffering, can only occur after death.
<p>
When awakened masters are questioned about emotional displays, they say things like "it's the aggregates that were crying". Other people have said, "You still have emotions but they don't stick in your mind." Or "You still have emotions but you don't overreact."
<p>
The eight-fold path is a path to the end of suffering, anyone can walk on that path, but it doesn't mean everyone can reach the end of the path. There is a trail up Mount Everest, but not everyone can reach the summit.
<p>
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<p>
<a name=dukkha_def_ease_nirvana></a>
<h3>Nirvana</h3>
Nirvana is the absence of any trace of dukkha. Any meditation and mindfulness practice has to address all aspects of dukkha in order for it to produce nirvana. It is not unusual to experience nirvana temporarily. However, permanent nirvana is difficult, if it is even possible for a living person to achieve.
While we have not achieved perfection we can try to be non-attached as best we can. Sometimes this means accepting some or all of these aspects of dukkha without judgement or reacting to them.
<p>
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<p>
<a name=dukkha_def_ease_techs></a>
<h3>Techniques that Ease Suffering </h3>
Techniques that ease suffering:
<p>
<ul>
<li>Relaxation: After I do a type of <a target=_blank href="https://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2020/08/preparing-for-meditation-with.html">relaxing meditation</a>, nothing bothers me. Relaxing is a skill you can cultivate and bring into daily life.
<p>
There are a few items I have included in this list that can have a good effect on easing suffering even though they aren't strictly "techniques":
<ul>
<li>Nutrition - Poor nutrition or the wrong diet can be a cause of unpleasant emotions. In order to get the most out of meditation and mindfulness practices it helps to understand how diet effects your mind and to optimize your diet as much as possible. This may not be the same for everyone but there is a lot of information on the internet on the subject of diet and mood that people can study. Personally, I have found that getting the right balance of carbohydrates and protein is very helpful. And I have found there are effects of diet on clarity of mind (the effect is hard to describe in words this is the best can do) and a tendency to fall into a meditative state naturally which makes practicing in daily life easier (the converse is a tendency to be stuck internally/mentally in thoughts emotions, impulses and ego). And I have found the ability to produce piti (rapture) and sukha (tranquil happiness) are also affected by nutrition.
<p>
<li>Slow down. Being too busy can create stress. It can undo all the good effects of meditation and mindfuliness.
<p>
<li>Don't take things so seriously. Sometimes we get caught up in the details of life and forget we don't have to be so intensely immersed in everything (including mindfulness and other practices). Sometimes a reminder to step back, lighten up, let go of the intensity, and relax (relax the body, breathe in a relaxed way, and do things in a relaxed way) can be helpful.
</ul>
<p>
<li>Quieting the mind with meditation and mindfulness eases suffering by <a target=_blank href="https://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2020/10/hacking-your-brain-part-ii.html">deactivating the default</a> network in the brain. This effect will carry over into daily life after a session of meditation, but practicing mindfulness in daily life is a surer way to keep it going. When you are fully <a target=_blank href="https://sites.google.com/site/chs4o8pt/meditation-1#h.pi82ppmk6xf9">mindful in the present moment</a>, you are not worrying about the future or regretting the past.
<p>
<li><a target=_blank href="https://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2023/05/observing-mind.html">Observing the activity of the mind</a>.
<p>
<ul>
<li>Notice when dukkha arises, and stop the sequence of dependent origination by <a target=_blank href="https://www.dharmaoverground.org/discussion/-/message_boards/message/23406442#_com_liferay_message_boards_web_portlet_MBPortlet_message_25316657">letting go</a> without suppressing anything.
<p>
<li>Observing the three characteristics, dukkha, impermanence, and anatta leads to disenchantment which weakens attachments and aversions.
</ul>
<p>
<li>Digging through <a target=_blank href="https://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2020/09/when-you-cant-find-tranquility.html">layers of emotions</a>.
<p>
<li>Stop trying to have a perfect moment. I've tried to <a target=_blank href="https://www.dharmaoverground.org/discussion/-/message_boards/message/23406442#_com_liferay_message_boards_web_portlet_MBPortlet_message_25475786">explain this</a> but I don't know if it will mean anything to other people.
<p>
<li>When someone practices meditation and mindfulness over a period of years, they <a target=_blank href="https://www.lionsroar.com/on-enlightenment-an-interview-with-shinzen-young/">work through the mula kleshas</a> - the three poisons, <a target=_blank href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_poisons">attachment, aversion, and delusion</a> - and they may find that they are much less disturbed in stressful situations.
<p>
<li>Producing <a target=_blank href="https://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2020/10/metta-meditation.html">metta</a> or <a target=_blank href="https://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2020/10/a-quick-guide-to-producing-bliss-with.html">piti or sukha</a> can elevate your mood.
</ul>
<p>
I have experienced <a target=_blank href="https://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2020/05/varieties-of-non-self-and-non-dual.html">various types</a> of feelings/insights where it seems like I don't have a self. I am not sure if these are causes or effects. If you feel like you don't have a self you might think that makes you non-attached to self and would ease all sorts of attachments. However I can't tell if that is true or if is actually the meditation and mindfulness that produces the feelings of not having a self that also produces non-attachment. A feeling or insight is not a technique but I am including it here as a place holder for people to consider. It might be true that the same "amount" meditation will give you the same reduction in suffering (by one or more of the processes described above) whether or not you feel like you don't have a self.
<p>
The above techniques can be used individually but produce a stronger effect when used in combination. One can practice relaxing meditation regularly and also use a technique that is relaxing while practicing mindfulness in daily life. When one notices dukkha arising during meditation or during daily life, one can stop the sequence of dependent origination by returning to mindfulness. When one comes up against a particularly resistant attachment or aversion one may find benefit from looking for deeper layers of emotions.
<p>
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<p>
<a name=dukkha_def_ease_progress></a>
<h3>How to Measure Progress</h3>
<p>
As you progress along the path of meditation and mindfulness ...
<ul>
<li>You experience less <a href=#dukkha_def_ease_def>suffering</a>. Attachments and aversions are fewer and weaker including attachments to nice feelings produced by meditation and attachment to awakening.
<p>
<li>Behavior is less selfish, less self-centered, more tolerant. You consider the other person's point of view. Behavior is based more on reason and compassionate than selfish egocentric emotions.
<p>
<li>You are able to be more <a target=_blank href="https://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=10262&messageId=25531197">mindful during daily life</a>.
<p>
<li>You gain more experience of how the practice leads to progress which leads to greater understanding of how the meditation and mindfulness techniques produce results which leads to more effective use of techniques.
<p>
<li> You realize that the "situation" is not the source of suffering, the source of suffering is your reaction to the situation. That doesn't mean you ignore problems, it means you can respond to problems with compassion and reason rather than selfish emotions.
<p>
<li> As you notice more and more progress, you realize you would not have learned to let go without triggers that alerted you to attachments and aversions. You understand without life's "difficulties" you would not make progress, and that changes your attitude toward unpleasantness.
<p>
<li> You stop judging your emotions. Thinking our emotions are good or bad, or right or wrong, is the cause of much of our suffering. When you stop judging your emotions you are spared all that suffering. That doesn't mean we ignore or suppress emotions. It means we can feel them, understand what they are telling us, and try to let go of them with compassion for ourselves rather than getting caught up in a story and reacting with selfish emotions.
</ul>
<p>
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<p>
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<p>
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<p>
In an internet discussion on stream-entry, I posted an explanation of a way to cultivate vipassana (insight) and how vipassana fits into a Buddhist practice of meditation and mindfulness. I have included an edited version of the post below. The Buddha taught his students to cultivate two qualities of mind <a target=_blank href="https://www.dhammatalks.org/books/NobleStrategy/Section0012.html">samatha (traquility) and vipassana (insight)</a>. Cultivating tranquility involves relaxing the body and calming the mind, vipassana involves observing the activity of the mind. By calming the mind first, one is able to see more clearly what is going on in it without getting distracted or carried away by thoughts, emotions, impulses, and sensations.
<blockquote>
<p>
In this post I am going to discuss what is contained in the <a target=_blank href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhist_texts#Early_Buddhist_texts">early Buddhist texts</a> of the Pali Canon, the earliest recorded teachings of the Buddha. Other writers have different views and different definition of stream-entry. I don't have an opinion on which is better or if others are better at something different. Also when I refer to "<a target=_blank href="https://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2023/07/how-i-define-dukkha-suffering.html#dukkha_def_ease_def">suffering</a>" or "unpleasant emotions" I mean reactive emotions which are emotions that occur as a response to thoughts or situations.
<p>
One of the marks of <a target=_blank href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_stages_of_awakening#Path_and_Fruit">stream-entry</a> according to the Pali Canon is freedom from doubt about Buddhist practice. When you have stream-entry you understand how the practice leads to the end of suffering. There are many things people confuse with stream-entry but there are some things that clearly indicate you don't have it, and if you have doubts, you don't have it.
<p>
Another mark of stream-entry is freedom from identity view. Freedom from identity view means you don't think the self is a thing. There are a lot of different <a target=_blank href="https://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2020/05/varieties-of-non-self-and-non-dual.html">types of experiences</a> that people have where they feel like they don't have a self. Not all of them are useful. Some are interesting or fun to experience but not really useful or worth maintaining. The ones that are useful involve ending suffering. So if it helps you ease your own suffering then you should have no doubt about what what to do with it, how to use it.
<p>
In Buddhism, in the Pali Canon, it is taught that <a target=_blank href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upeksha_(Indian_thought)">letting go</a> is the <a target=_blank href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Factors_of_Awakening">seventh and last factor</a> that is required for awakening. Letting go of attachments and aversions is a cause of awakening.
<p>
Freedom from identity view also means you are not attached to anything that could be interpreted as "me" or "mine" for example: your life, you body, your mind, your thoughts, your opinions, your family, your possessions, your house, your car, your social status, your ethnicity, your nationality, being smart, getting what you want, winning, being better than someone else, etc etc.
<p>
So when you are able to let go of all attachments and aversions that might be considered "me" or "mine" including all those I listed above, you will be free from identity view.
<p>
The way to let go of attachments and aversions is also explained in the Pali canon (in the <a target=_blank href="https://www.themindingcentre.org/dharmafarer/wp-content/uploads/7.13-Anapanasati-S-m118-piya.pdf">anapanasati sutta</a>). You meditate to calm the body (steps 3 and 4), emotions, and mind (step 10), then and only then, when your body, feelings and mind are calm - this includes producing joy (piti step 5), tranquil happiness (sukha step 6) and gladdening the mind (step 10), you observe the mind.
I recommend this type of meditation as preparation for observing the mind:
<br>
<a target=_blank href="https://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2020/08/preparing-for-meditation-with.html">https://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2020/08/preparing-for-meditation-with.html</a>
<p>
One method of observing the mind is to observe the activity of the mind in meditation and with mindfulness in daily life.
<ul>
<li>
Observe thoughts, emotions, impulses, sensory experiences and the sense of self. Sensory experiences include, for example: seeing, hearing, touch, smell, hot/cold, pain/pleasure anything you experience with your senses outside or inside your body. The sense of self is explained below where its constantly changing nature is explained.
<p>
<li>
Notice the physical sensations in your body that accompany emotions.
<p>
<li>
Notice how suffering arises in the mind when emotions occur in reaction to situations, thoughts, or memories.
<p>
<li>
It is easy to see that disliking and not wanting are unpleasant, but also notice that liking and wanting are unpleasant. Wanting something you don't have is unpleasant. Worrying about losing something you like is unpleasant. The feeling of impatience is unpleasant. And the feelings of regret and loss after a pleasant situation has ended are unpleasant.
<p>
<li>
Also notice how your ego is involved in so many unpleasant emotions.
<p>
<li>
Notice that your sense of being successful depends on getting what you want/like and avoiding what you don't want/don't like, and so your ego, your sense of self, is involved in liking, wanting, disliking and not wanting.
<p>
<li>
Also notice how your sense of self (identity) is constantly changing. From one moment to the next you might think of yourself as a student, or a friend, or a parent, or a worker, or a manager, or a music lover, or a musician, or a person of your nationality or ethnicity or a sport fan, or an athlete, or someone who engages in a specific hobby, a winner, a loser, smart, stupid, better, worse, etc. etc. Your identity, your "self", is not a constant unchanging thing.
<p>
<li>Notice there are different ways of experiencing self. Notice how they change from time to time. Some of them include:
<p>
<ul>
<li>How you feel about yourself, the kind of person you think of yourself as, pride, shame, winner, looser, smart, stupid, knowledgeable, ignorant, angry, tolerant, happy, sad.
<p>
<li> The kind of person we think others see us as.
<p>
<li> Our place in society: child, parent, student, employee, supervisor, member of a team, friend in a group of friends. Our nationality or ethnicity.
<p>
<li> Notice how your self as an entity that exists is defined by everything we experience, our thoughts, emotions, impulses, sensory experience, bodily sensations, and sense of self all define how we view our self. These are all changing constantly from moment to moment. Moment to moment awareness blurs into an impression that there is a continuous self even though that awareness keeps changing from moment to moment so the feeling of self is constantly changing.
</ul>
<p>
<li> Notice even the feeling of being an observer as well as any other feeling of self is just like any other thought or feeling. It is not separate from the activity of the mind, it is not separate from experience, it arises into awareness from the same unconscious processes that produce other thoughts, emotions, impulses, sensory experience, bodily experiences.
<p>
<li>
Notice that every time your mind wanders in meditation it shows you that you don't control your own mind. If you can't control it, if it is independent, how can it be you or yours? And if you can observe it, it must be outside yourself, it isn't you. Your thoughts emotions, impulses, and sensory experiences arise from unconscious processes unasked for, uninvited, they are not you or yours. Even if you feel like you are using your mind to solve a problem, where did the impulse to solve the problem come from? You might think you are just an observer but that sense of being an observer, the sense of self, is just like any other thought or feeling, it arises from unconscious process, it isn't you or yours. Buddha called consciousness a magicians trick.
<p>
<li> Notice your stream of consciousness, notice how thoughts emotions and impulses form a sequence of cause and effect, each one triggering the next. Experience each to its full depth, then let go. Try to see how decisions to move your body are made. Asking where did this [thought/emotion/impulse] come from? Somehow it all seems to function autonomously.
<p>
This is how we get fooled into thinking there is a continuous unchanging self. When we don't look closely it feels like there is a self, when we look closely at the activity of the mind we see there isn't any "self" we can find. We make an assumption that we are in control, we assume it is our will that is the cause, that the self is the will, but when we look closely we see it is just cause and effect operating autonomously.
<p>
And if all is cause and effect, if we can't find a self, then the idea of separation is meaningless, if there is no self, there is no other.
<p>
But the illusion is so strong, attachment to self is so strong, so ingrained in our thinking and behavior, that even though you can see how the illusion forms, you can still suffer from attachments and aversions because of its influence.
<p>
Recognizing the link between the illusion and suffering helps to weaken the attachment, disenchantment with identity view weakens its hold on us. When you observe dukkha arising in the mind, and see how identity view: the ego, the sense of self, the sense of self importance, egocentricity is involved, and how getting what we want and avoiding what we don't want is central to our belief that the self is a success or failure, that helps to weaken the attachment.
<p>
<li>Notice that when you relax, emotions fade, suffering fades, without anything being suppressed. Suffering, mental anguish, is a state of mind, when the mind/body is relaxed it is not in a state of anguish. If you're not sure how to relax, try taking a deep breath, or try breathing in a way you find relaxing. Also try to notice if there is muscle tension in your body and move those muscles a few times to release the tension. You can also do <a target=_blank href="https://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2020/08/preparing-for-meditation-with.html">relaxing meditation</a> to help relax and let go of emotions. If you can't relax, try <a target=_blank href="https://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2020/10/metta-meditation.html">metta</a> or <a target=_blank href="https://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2020/10/a-quick-guide-to-producing-bliss-with.html">piti or sukkha</a>.
</ul>
When you observe these things, you are observing the three characteristics (suffering [dukkha], impermanence, and not-self) which helps you to develop detachment that leads to letting go. And when you do let go, when you relax instead of letting thoughts, emotions, and impulses take over your mind and body, you are interrupting the chain of dependent origination.
<p>
By practicing this way, you can learn to gradually let go of attachments and aversions and this leads to the end of suffering. In the Pali Canon (in the <a target=_blank href="https://www.themindingcentre.org/dharmafarer/wp-content/uploads/13.3-Satipatthana-S-m10-main-piya.pdf">Satipatthana Sutta</a>) it is also clear that after awakening you still have to practice meditation and mindfulness in daily life - calming and observing the activity of the mind and letting go of reactive emotions. When the Buddha taught mindfulness he says (paraphrasing) "a monk dwells practicing like this..." and goes on to describe meditation and mindfulness techniques. The Buddha and the monks lived practicing meditation and mindfulness. It becomes part of life, it is not something you can stop after some attainment. Buddha never stopped practicing meditation and mindfulness in daily life or ever indicated a stage during life when you could stop it.
<p>
By "the end of suffering" I mean you do not suffer from reactive emotions. You are experiencing <a target=_blank href="https://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/thanissaro/nibbana.html">nibbana</a> with <a target=_blank href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nirvana_(Buddhism)#Nirvana_with_and_without_remainder_of_fuel">residue</a>. The "residue" is due to the fact that you are still in a body. You will feel pain and unpleasant sensations. Some emotions like some kinds of anxiety and depression are caused by biological factors that mental techniques cannot eliminate. However, when you are non-attached, you will find you have a quiet contented feeling that you dwell in during which there is no mental anguish. In this situation, in the absence of mental anguish, pain is much easier to bear and those emotions that remain seem more like physical sensations than a cloud over reality, so they are much easier to bear also. Whether it is possible to master this to 100% perfection is a matter of controversy. My view is that it might be possible for some people so I don't rule it out. Most people today do not practice the <a target=_blank href="https://www.accesstoinsight.org/ptf/dhamma/index.html">full teaching</a> of the Buddha and it is not realistic to expect to attain 100% perfection in that situation. But even short of 100% perfection, this practice is immensely beneficial to well-being.
</blockquote>
<hr>
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<p>
<a target=_blank href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upeksha_(Indian_thought)">Letting go</a> of attachments and aversions can be hard. The feeling of letting go can be just like the feeling of actual loss. But generosity meditation can make letting go pleasant.
<p>
It's kind of like <a target=_blank href ="https://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2020/10/metta-meditation.html">metta meditation</a>.
<p>
For example, think of the situation where there is one cookie left and instead of taking it for yourself, you tell your friend, "You can have it."
<p>
Think of the feeling you have when you do that.
<p>
Meditate, focus your attention, on that feeling of generosity, denying yourself in favor of someone else. It's a nice feeling, like metta. It makes letting go pleasant instead of painful.
<p>
(It helps to prepare for meditation <a target=_blank href="https://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2020/08/preparing-for-meditation-with.html">this way</a>.)
<p>
Then try to apply that feeling to more people. Start with people you like, then strangers, then maybe people you might not like so much. You might even be able to let "fate" or karma have those things you want but don't have or give you those things you don't want. You could build up to being given things you don't want by fate, by starting with a friend needing your help (giving you a problem).
<p>
If you can feel generosity in all those situation you can let go of all your attachments and aversions. What a huge relief. Now you can stop worrying about all those things.
<p>
When you give to someone else, you are being unselfish, un-self-ish. It's similar to metta, maybe it has metta in it but in addition to metta there is also that added aspect of unselfishness.
<hr>
<p>
Copyright © 2023 by ncu9nc All rights reserved. Texts quoted from other sources are Copyright © by their owners.
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<blockquote>
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<p>
If you want increased freedom from <a target=_blank href="https://www.accesstoinsight.org/ptf/dhamma/sacca/sacca1/dukkha.html">dukkha</a>, increased freedom from the <a target=_blank href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_stages_of_awakening#Path_and_Fruit">fetters</a>, you have to stop wanting things to be different from the way they are now.
<p>
That means you have to accept the present moment as it is, embrace it, abide in it, <a target=_blank href="http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2020/08/preparing-for-meditation-with.html">relax</a> into it. <a target=_blank href="http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2019/09/aspects-of-meditation.html#asp_med_surrender">Including the dukkha and the fetters.</a> "Everything's perfect just as it is".
<p>
When you <a target=_blank href="http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2020/10/easy-meditation.html">meditate</a> on <a target=_blank href="https://unifiedmindfulness.com/try-um/">see</a>, hear, <a target=_blank href="https://www.amazon.com/Guide-Unified-Mindfulness-Happiness-Anywhere-ebook/dp/B092HMTFZW/ref=sr_1_3?dchild=1&keywords=unified+mindfulness&qid=1628315372&sr=8-3">feel</a>, you learn to observe dukkha thinking, fetter thinking, to accept it, and to gently extract your mind from it, to gently let go, and you train your mind to abide in the present moment instead.
<p>
In time you become intimately familiar with the difference in the two modes of consciousness and you can feel how dwelling in the present moment is liberating.
<hr>
<p>
Copyright © 2021 by ncu9nc All rights reserved. Texts quoted from other sources are Copyright © by their owners.
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<p>
(You can read <a target=_blank href="http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2021/05/a-path.html">Part I</a> either before or after you read this article.)
<p>
The Buddha taught that samatha and vipassana should be developed <a target=_blank href="https://accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/thanissaro/onetool.html">together</a>.
<p>
The following is a way to practice both that has worked well for me.
<h3> Samatha </h3>
<ul>
<p>
<li>
Prepare for meditation with <a target=_blank href="http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2020/08/preparing-for-meditation-with.html"><b>relaxation exercises</b></a>.
<p>
Relaxation = letting go = equanimity.
<p>
You should experience great benefit each day from this practice alone.
<p>
<li> Do a form of <a target=_blank href="http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2020/10/easy-meditation.html">relaxing <b>meditation</b></a> to make the mind quiet and peaceful.
<p> Again, just practicing this way should provide great benefits to your well being each day you practice by increasing serenity and equanimity.
<p>
The relaxed mind/body is in a condition where you can use it to study itself. You can be mindful without getting carried away by thoughts, emotions, impulses, and sensations and without being drawn into them so you forget to be an observer.
<p>
</ul>
When you do the following forms of vipassana practice while meditating and in daily life, don't forget to maintain the pleasant relaxed state of mind produced by samatha practice. That state of pleasant abiding is the platform from which you should practice vipassana.
<h3> Vipassana </h3>
<ul>
<li>
While meditating, and most importantly in daily life, <b>observe the activity of the mind</b>. Notice thoughts, emotions, impulses, sensations coming into awareness and fading out of awareness. Observe the mind as suffering (unpleasant emotions, emotional anguish, stress) arises and fades away. Notice the physical sensations in your body that accompany emotions.
<p>
You will see that thoughts, emotions, impulses and sensations arise from unconscious processes. You don't create them, they are not you or yours. Every time you notice your mind wandering during meditation you are reminded that you don't control your mind. You are not your mind.
<p>
You may seem to be just an observer of the activity in your mind and of events in your environment.
<p>
<li>
Try to <b>observe the observer</b>. You will see that this observer, the self, the concept of self, is just like everything else in the mind. It arises from unconscious processes. It is not you or yours. The self is a mirage.
<p>
<li>
Keep observing the observer,
<p>
Observing the activity of the mind and observing the observer, produces a detachment toward thoughts, emotions, impulses, sensations, and to things, events, and to the self.
<p>
This detachment can help you learn to <a target=_blank href="http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2019/09/aspects-of-meditation.html#asp_med_surrender"><b>surrender</b></a> - to learn to stop resisting cognitive dissonance, to accept thoughts you don't want to think and emotions you don't want to feel. Often these thoughts and emotions are about the self. Surrender produces more detachment. You begin to give up attitudes, poses, prejudices, aspects of your personality (including pride, vanity, arrogance) that are extra, that you took on in an attempt to create a satisfactory self.
<p>
<li>
<b>Sense of self</b>
- When you see from the point of view of a detached observer, that the activity of the mind, including the sense of self, arises from unconscious processes and they are not you or yours, you realize that it is this lack of detached observation that led you to develop your sense of self. It is getting carried away by thoughts and emotions, being a participant rather than an observer, that allowed that sense of self to arise.
<p>
<li>
<b>Separation</b>
- You also can see that craving and disliking led you develop a sense of separation between self and not-self. You considered things you like to be you and yours (your body, your mind, your thoughts, your family, your favorite sport team, your car). And you considered things you don't like to not be you and yours. This is what caused you to make a separation between self and non-self. As your equanimity and detachment develop, you will find that craving and disliking diminish and the feeling of separation fades.
<p>
<li>
Keep observing the observer to work this understanding into your world view, into those unconscious processes that produce thoughts emotions impulses and thoughts of self.
</ul>
<h3> Additional Comments </h3>
The type of non-attachment this path produces does not cause you to ignore problems or make you callous. It allows you to act with reason and compassion and prevents out-of-control emotions and impulses from influencing your judgement.
<p>
Some people go through this process <a target=_blank href="http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2020/04/my-views-on-gradual-awakening.html">gradually</a> without experiencing a big sudden change at any point in time. Other people do feel they experience a big sudden change at certain points. This has created a lot of confusion. So understand that a "big sudden change" is not necessary, does not occur for everybody, and expecting it can be unhelpful for some people. Just relax, quiet the mind with meditation, observe the activity of the mind: thoughts emotions, impulses, and sensations. Notice suffering arising and ending. Observe the observer. Surrender. Notice how observing the activity of the mind undermines the sense of self, and how detachment reduces liking and disliking and that undermines the sense of separation.
<p>
The Buddha likened consciousness to a magicians trick.
<p>
<a target=_blank href="https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn22/sn22.095.than.html">https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn22/sn22.095.than.html</a>
<blockquote>
"Now suppose that a magician or magician's apprentice were to display a magic trick at a major intersection, and a man with good eyesight were to see it, observe it, & appropriately examine it. To him — seeing it, observing it, & appropriately examining it — it would appear empty, void, without substance: for what substance would there be in a magic trick? In the same way, a monk sees, observes, & appropriately examines any consciousness that is past, future, or present; internal or external; blatant or subtle; common or sublime; far or near. To him — seeing it, observing it, & appropriately examining it — it would appear empty, void, without substance: for what substance would there be in consciousness?
<p>
"Seeing thus, the well-instructed disciple of the noble ones grows disenchanted with form, disenchanted with feeling, disenchanted with perception, disenchanted with fabrications, disenchanted with consciousness. Disenchanted, he grows dispassionate.
</blockquote>
<p>
<hr>
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<p>
Someone on an internet discussion forum asked about the best path. I replied with something like this:
<blockquote>
In my opinion the purpose of <a target=_blank href="http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2020/10/easy-meditation.html">meditation</a> is <a target=_blank href="http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2020/04/my-views-on-gradual-awakening.html">not to achieve a breakthrough</a>, it is to prepare the mind for investigating the origin of dukkha and the cessation of dukkha <a target=_blank href="http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/p/occasionally-i-post-something-to.html#misc_zen_practice">in daily life</a>. Understanding the origin and cessation of dukkha in your own mind is what causes change.
<ul>
<li><a target=_blank href="http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2020/08/preparing-for-meditation-with.html">Relax</a> - Deactivate the sympathetic nervous system. <a target=_blank href="http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2018/04/the-parasympathetic-nervous-system-and.html">Activate the parasympathetic nervous system</a>.
<p>
<li><a target=_blank href="https://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2019/08/the-untethered-soul-by-michael-singer.html#untethered_soul_what_you_are">Stay Lucid</a> - Observe thoughts and emotions without getting carried away by them. <a target=_blank href="http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-present-moment.html">Be in the moment</a>. Engage your mind in something that does not involve letting your mind wander or problem solving (<a target=_blank href="https://unifiedmindfulness.com/try-um/">See Hear Feel</a> <a target=_blank href="http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2020/10/hacking-your-brain-part-ii.html">Deactivate the default mode network in the brain.</a>). <a target=_blank href="http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2020/09/when-you-cant-find-tranquility.html">Do not suppress</a> thoughts and emotions, let them come and go, notice the feelings in your body that may accompany them. In this way you will learn <b>how dukkha arises and ceases</b>.
<p>
<li><a target=_blank href="http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2019/09/aspects-of-meditation.html#asp_med_surrender">Surrender</a> - Relax and stop resisting reality, stop mentally fighting against the way things really are, against things you don't like. This doesn't mean you ignore problems, it means you work for solutions in a compassionate rational way rather than letting unpleasant emotions cloud your judgement.
</ul>
<p>
Do this as a <a target=_blank href="http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2020/10/easy-meditation.html">formal practice</a> but also develop the habit of doing this in daily life when possible. When you practice in daily life you train your mind to <i>be</i> awakened (<a target=_blank href="http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2020/04/my-views-on-gradual-awakening.html">not to <i>attain</i> awakening</a>). Practicing in daily life does not mean you don't engage your mind in other things. You can allocate time to solve problems, think about your emotions, plan for the future etc. these activities are not "bad", but you don't have to let them take over your mind.
<p>
<p>
<b>How does this produce awakening?</b>
<p>
As you learn how dukkha arises and ceases, you will become better at not producing it and letting go of it if you do produce it. If meditation <a target=_blank href="http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2020/10/a-quick-guide-to-producing-bliss-with.html">elevates your mood</a>, it makes you more open to accepting that dukkha is produced by the mind and not by circumstances or events.
<p>
<a target=_blank href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_stages_of_awakening#Path_and_Fruit">Awakening</a> = The process of letting go of <a target=_blank href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_poisons">attachments and aversions</a> (including attachments to self, attachments to awakening, and attachments to pleasant feelings produced by meditation) = Ending dukkha. Awakening is not something that arises instantaneously in a perfected state. It is something that develops over a lifetime.
<p>
Attachments and aversions express themselves as unpleasant emotions such as disliking and craving.
<p>
When you are relaxed, you are not experiencing any unpleasant emotion ie. you are not experiencing dukkha. You can develop the ability to relax as a skill that you can become better at with practice. This is equivalent to learning to let go. <i>Upekkha</i>, <a target=_blank href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upeksha_(Indian_thought)">letting go or equanimity</a>, is the seventh of the <a target=_blank href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Factors_of_Awakening">seven factors of awakening</a>. <p>
One reason it is important not to suppress thoughts and emotions during meditation is because many attachments and aversions exist in the mind as faint mental impressions that have large effects on our emotions and actions. In order to let go of them you must be aware of them. <a target=_blan k href="http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2019/09/aspects-of-meditation.html#asp_med_surrender">Surrender.</a>
Observe thoughts and emotions as they arise but also don't let them take over your mind. Stay lucid. When your mind is not wandering, it is not getting carried away by attachments and aversions and not producing dukkha. Dukkha requires some type of cognition to arise in the mind.
<p>
(This does not apply to emotions due to purely organic causes such as some types of anxiety and depression but it could apply to a person's attitudes toward having to live with anxiety and depression.)
</blockquote>
<hr>
<p>
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<a target=_blank href=""></a>
<blockquote>
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<p>
Below is an excerpt from an interview with Willoughby Britton. Dr. Britton is a psychologist who studies the effects of meditation on mental health. In the interview she describes how intensive meditation retreats can cause serious mental illnesses. I am an advocate of meditation but I believe too much can be harmful and beginners should be informed of that and other risks involved. I have written about <a target=_blank href="https://sites.google.com/site/chs4o8pt/meditation-1#meditation_danger">this aspect of meditation</a> on my web site.
<p>
The excerpt was originally found on buddhistgeeks.com but it is no longer there.
<p>
http://www.buddhistgeeks.com/2011/09/bg-232-the-dark-night-project
<p>
However it can be found on the internet archive:
<p>
<a target=_blank href="http://web.archive.org/web/20160213012433/http://www.buddhistgeeks.com/2011/09/bg-232-the-dark-night-project/">http://web.archive.org/web/20160213012433/http://www.buddhistgeeks.com/2011/09/bg-232-the-dark-night-project/</a>
<p>
Here is the interview excerpt:
<blockquote>
There tends to be an, I would say, increased sampling rate of reality. So your ability to notice things has increased.
<p>
And that might be pretty fun on retreat but when people get off retreat they still have so much information coming into their systems that it can feel very overwhelming, like stimulus overload. And along those same lines a lot of increase in sensory clarity and sensory threshold. So meaning that you can hear much softer sounds which also means that louder sounds sound louder and you might even feel them in a different sense.
<p>
Like a truck might feel like it’s actually driving through your whole body rather than just hearing it and that goes with every sound. So that’s the sort of cognitive effect. They tend to be very just overwhelming and disorienting. I would say one of the most, besides sort of sensory overload, one of the most common central features–it’s not everyone but its pretty close, which is a change in the way people experience their sense of self.
<p>
And this can be an attenuation in self or it can be a complete dropping away. And even though you can read about this and think that this might be the goal of the contemplative path. For a lot of people it’s very very scary when that happens. And so when I mean dropping the sense of self, it can be a lack of a feeling like there’s anybody controlling. So one word are coming out of the mouth like who would be speaking them. When you move your arms and legs and walk it’s not really sure who decided that. When somebody ask you a question there’s almost a panic feeling because you don’t know who’s going to answer the question. There’s a sort of temporal disintegration. So the sense of time can fall apart, along with that your sense of a narrative self over time. Part of the sense of self is about being able to have continuity over time. And if you just don’t have that kind of sense of past and future and you only have a sense of now, your sense of self just by not having a past and a future and being able to imagine that can be sort of truncated and attenuated.
<p>
And then temporal disintegration can kind of go even further beyond that where people almost like they’re waking up in a new reality every several minutes. And they don’t really have any way of describing the reality that came before that and it can be very disorienting. You can wake up and really have to study your environment to figure out who you’re talking to and what the conversation is about. You can learn to get good at that, but it’s pretty disorienting for a while. And then I don’t know if this go in order but I think that the most common symptom, it’s hard to say but again these are all really common, but one of the most common symptoms is fear. And the lost of the sense of self I think is very tied in with this fear. And people can have really phenomenal levels of fear. I mean really just existential primal fear.
<p>
And what’s interesting about this fear and what I think seems to differentiate it from a lot of other kinds of fears is that it doesn’t seem to have any reference point. It just comes out of nowhere. It can be very debilitating. And then along with fear spectrum you also anxiety and agitation and panic and paranoia. Those are pretty common. Then there’s a sort of affective dimension. Affective is emotional. And the affective dimension seems to go in both directions. There can be a massive lability.
<p>
Your emotions can get really high in both direction both manic manifestations, euphoria, sometimes grandiosity and also the worst depression, meaninglessness, nihilism the other end of things can also happen. In addition to that, people can also just lose all affect all together. They don’t feel anything. Things become numb. So it’s a pretty wide range of changes. But I don’t think anyone has gone through, anyone that we’ve interviewed hasn’t had some kind change in their emotional life.
<p>
And usually it’s sort of an eruption of emotional material. So that comes to the next level which is a de-repression of the psychological material. Very often it can be traumatic material but it can also just be whatever can be traumatic in our lives. It doesn’t necessarily have to be memories of death or abuse or something that would sort of classify as classic trauma. It can just be whatever our particular psychological knots are. They seemed to come up with practice in a way that doesn’t necessarily seem to be contained to the cushion. It’s almost like you tear something open and then it’s just open. That’s the sort of affective dimension. And then the last dimension is physiological. So there seems to be a lot of physiological changes which are really surprising to a lot of people.
<p>
So things like general musculoskeletal body pain, headaches, and very strange sensations. Because we told people not to use the word energy so we got a lot of metaphors. So things like being plugged into a wall, like having a thousand volts running through you. There are a lot of electricity type metaphors. And then finally we gave up because people just kept using the word energy. So it’s not really a scientific word but it seems to measure something so some kind of movement sensation in the body. Vibrations a lot of different kinds of vibration. Changes in temperature. People are having really hot flashes and burning sensations. And then the one that I am really fascinated by because everything that we’ve been talking about up until this point has been subjective, like you can’t really see it on somebody. But the last category is involuntary movements. They look like convulsions. People twitch. They report feeling like a lightning bolt going through them but you can actually see it. This is something that you could actually take a video of. Their arms flap. Grimacing; different kinds of facial ticks and contortions. That’s kind of the laundry list. Oh yeah, I forgot one whole category, which is perceptional changes. And perceptional changes along with this faster sampling rate there also seems to be I don’t know if I would call them hallucinations but experiences in every sensory modality especially visual lights.
<p>
So that would be a perceptional change. So the lights again are particularly interesting to me because they tend to differentiate a spiritual experience from a potentially psychiatric situation. But seeing pinpoints of light, people call them Christmas lights, they might be different colors or lightning of the visual field in general. I should say that all of these symptoms or sorry, experiences, these are not just things that are happening on the cushion during meditation. These are things that are happening off the cushion which is where this starts to become difficult. They’re fine when they’re on the cushion. But you need to go to work and these are happening. People are having involuntary movements at their desk at work and you know eruption of emotions that’s where it becomes difficult is when it comes into your daily life. And the other thing that was very surprising to me was the duration of symptoms.
<p>
So I asked people how long did this last and how did this affect your life to a point where it was really difficult for you to work or take care of children. So we call that clinical impairment. So far in our sample the average amount of time that somebody is impaired so this is not just how long this experiences last but how long they are to the point of interfering with daily functioning. The average amount of time was 3.4 years. It’s actually quite a long time and there’s a huge range in that duration. And so sort of the next wave of research is trying to figure out what determines that duration. So people seemed to go through these experiences fairly quickly like under a year and other people can last a decade. So we’re trying to figure out what are some of the factors that might predict that.
</blockquote>
<p>
An article on pennlive.com describes how a meditation retreat caused a woman to kill herself:
<p>
<a target=_blank href="https://www.pennlive.com/news/2017/06/york_county_suicide_megan_vogt.html">https://www.pennlive.com/news/2017/06/york_county_suicide_megan_vogt.html</a>
<blockquote>
She had heard about the benefits of meditation from friends on the West Coast and wanted to try it, with the hopes it could illuminate her future.
<p>
...
<p>
Vogt wasn't the first to die by suicide after a meditation retreat, according to experts who are aware of other cases. And she wasn't the first to go into psychosis or experience serious mental issues after taking a grueling course, which can involve 10 hours a day of strict meditation.
<p>
...
<p>
While Megan had anxiety and was taking medication for it, she was never previously suicidal, her parents said.
</blockquote>
<hr>
<p>
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<p>
Here is an excerpt about Bhante Vimalaramsi. It discusses his belief that the standard way vipassana mediation is taught does not lead to the effects described by the Buddha.
<p>
It was originally found on his web site but it is no longer there:
<p>
<a target=_blank href="https://www.dhammasukha.org/ven-bhante-vimalaramsi.html">https://www.dhammasukha.org/ven-bhante-vimalaramsi.html</a>
<p>
However, it can be found on the internet archive:
<p>
<a target=_blank href="http://web.archive.org/web/20190630055409/https://www.dhammasukha.org/ven-bhante-vimalaramsi.html">http://web.archive.org/web/20190630055409/https://www.dhammasukha.org/ven-bhante-vimalaramsi.html</a>
<blockquote>
Bhante Vimalaramsi is an American monk who was ordained in Northern Thailand in 1986 at the age of 40. He left the USA to seek awakening through meditation in the early 80's and decided to let go of all of his material possessions. Before this starting in 1974 he engaged in Vipassana courses in California and even lived and worked at a meditation center in San Jose, California to 1977.
<p>
Bhante Vimalaramsi has studied with many famous teachers in Asia. Among them are Venerable U Pandita, U Lakkhana, U Silananda, U Janaka, U Dhammananda, U Dhammapia and he met Mahasi Sayadaw. He further studied with The Mingun Sayadaw, who had memorized the entire Tripitaka and Sayadaw U Thatilla. Other teachers he spent longer periods of time with were the late Most Ven K Sri Dhammananda, Venerable Punnaji, Ajahn Yanitra, Ajahn Buddhadasa, Ajahn Cha Lee, and Ajahn Santititho.
<p>
Bhante practiced Vipassana very intensely his first 20 years under an American teacher and in Burma, under U Pandita and U Janaka. Finally around 1990 he was told that he had achieved the endpoint of the practice, as it was taught by the Sayadaws, and now he should go teach. <b>He didn't feel comfortable that he had really found the end of suffering. He felt he did not have the true personality change that awakening should bring, even after going through the 16 levels of Insight or knowledges, as outlined by Mahasi Sayadaw in Progress of Insight.</b>
<p>
Changing Direction
<p>
From 1991 to 2000 he dedicated himself to "direct experience through study of the suttas and meditation practice". At first he stayed with K. Sri Dhammananda in Malaysia and taught Metta meditation. Then he had a real change in direction with his meeting of a Sri Lankan senior monk, Bhante Punnaji, also in Malaysia. His advice was to ‘study the suttas directly and to let go of relying on commentaries like the Visuddhi Magga'. Specifically he said, ‘Read only the suttas, then practice'. This was very significant because the commentaries were influencing how he was seeing the entirety of the Dhamma, at the time. It was suggested to put them aside while he studied the suttas as a standalone system. Nanavira in the early sixties, suggested this and then Stephen Batchelor also talked about just using only the suttas in his book "A Buddhist Atheist".
<p>
When Bhante began to do this, he discovered first hand, the interwoven nature of the Teachings. In each sutta he found the elements of the 4 Noble Truths, the 8-Fold Path, and the impersonal process of Dependent Origination. Dependent Origination or Paticcasamupada is the core of the Buddha's teachings. He realized that the word sutta literally meant "thread" and that the threads together, created a finely woven cloth, whereas, one single thread does not equal a cloth! Through his own objective first hand experience, the 8-Fold Path began to come alive. When he realized the secret of the teachings was on his doorstep he took the Majjhima Nikaya to a cave in Thailand and spent 3 months, living with a cobra as company, reading and then practicing just what the suttas said. In very little time, he said, he had gone deeper in his meditation, than ever before. What started as two weeks to study suttas turned into three months of deep practice. Out of this was born TWIM or Tranquil Wisdom Insight Meditation completely based on the suttas in the Majjhima Nikaya. <b>He found the Jhanas had an entirely different explanation and experience.</b> Nibbana was possible!
</blockquote>
<hr>
<p>
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<blockquote>
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<p>
Someone in a discussion forum commented that the doctrine of no-self made them depressed. I think they might have been reacting to <a target=_blank href="http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2020/10/the-five-aggregates-of-clinging.html">this article</a> which I posted to the forum before blogging it here.
<p>
I replied that "no-self" doesn't give me that feeling at all. I wrote:
<blockquote>Buddha never said there is no self, he just said that none of the things we form attachments to should be considered self because they are impermanent and not completely under our control. And being attached to them inevitably leads to suffering so that we will be happier if we give up those attachments.
<p>
It is a recipe for happiness not an argument for nihilism.
<p>
To me it means I don't have to suffer from attachments to self - which is the cause of all mental anguish. Imagine that, no more mental anguish. To me that is wonderful. Like on the same level as "Jesus Saves" is to Christians.
<p>
(I am a Spiritualist and I believe in an afterlife. Buddha also believed in an afterlife. Where is there room for nihilism in that?)
<p>
Here is one way to understand no self:
<p>
<ul>
<li>Close your eyes notice the feeling of your body, your thoughts, your emotions, they create a sense of you being in your body, a sense of you as the entity having a body, having thoughts and having emotions. (When I do this I get a sense that I am observing a person in my body who has a mood (whatever my mood is at the time) and that person is me - someone else might experience it differently.)
<p>
<li>Now open your eyes and look around you and <a target=_blank href="http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2020/10/no-self-moments.html">notice what you see</a>. Now you are aware of only what you see, you are not thinking of your body, or your thoughts, or your emotions, and those things are not producing a feeling of you being in your body.
</ul>
<p>
Is that so bad? If you have physical discomfort or emotional pain, focusing outside yourself will <a target=_blank href="http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2020/10/hacking-your-brain-part-ii.html">ease the emotional anguish</a> more or less depending on your level of concentration. That's good isn't it?
<p>
Actually this is an interesting way to practice to understand how the mind produces the sense of self, repeatedly alternating between focusing inward and focusing outward, focusing on feeling self, focusing on not feeling self.
<p>
<a target=_blank href="https://unifiedmindfulness.com">Noting</a> (a type of vipassana or insight meditation) has a similar effect. When you are noting, the same phenomena that otherwise contribute to your sense of self: awareness of body, thoughts, emotions etc., are experienced as a series of separate disconnected moments of awareness, so they do not produce the feeling of being a self.
<p>
When you suffer, it is because the self-thinking arises, the less you engage in "identity view" the less you suffer. How you use your mind, thinking about the environment outside your body, or observing the phenomenon of consciousness, doesn't change anything about reality. It doesn't prove or disprove anything such as the existence of a soul. It is simply a different way of looking at the same things - one that greatly diminishes suffering.
<p>
This kind of "no-self" is not thinking "I don't exist", it is simply thinking about something other than "myself". Maybe there is a self maybe there isn't, but empirically we know that thinking "myself" results in suffering, so why think of it? Some people might choose to, but others who want to reduce suffering might decide they prefer to train themselves to stop thinking of "myself" all the time.
<p>
If you think about it as <a target=_blank href="http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2020/10/hacking-your-brain-part-ii.html">deactivating the default mode network in the brain</a> and activating the experiential network, you are simply using a natural ability you've always had and been using from time to time all your life.
<p>
Or think of it this way: instead of seeing everything filtered through your ego, you can <a target=_blank href="http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/p/occasionally-i-post-something-to.html#misc_buddhism_not_mystic">remove the ego filter</a> and see things as they really are:
<p>
<blockquote>What it is, is the ability to see without any interruption of the ego, without any filtering of the ego. And since we are all walking around seeing things through our ego filter almost all the time, to suddenly be able to see without that filter is a surprise. But it is nothing that we have ever not had.
<p>
They say that the mind of a baby is something that we can compare this to. A baby isn’t seeing things from an egoistic place. It is seeing directly and clear. It is the exact same kind of thing when we are seeing without the ego filter.
<p>- Shodo Harada Roshi
</blockquote>
"But it is nothing that we have ever not had."
</blockquote>
<hr>
<p>
Copyright © 2020 by ncu9nc All rights reserved. Texts quoted from other sources are Copyright © by their owners.
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<p>
Metta meditation is a type of meditation that produces feelings of goodwill or love.
<p>
Someone on a discussion forum was having trouble with the form of metta meditation they were trying. It wasn't working, and they were asking for help. They didn't like working from a script which reminded them of unpleasant memories of ritual prayer. I suggested the following technique which the person reported worked for them right away.
<ul>
<li>Think of someone you love. Visualize them. Observe the feeling of love you feel for them. It could also be an animal or a spiritual figure. That's all. No script. Just observe the feeling of love you feel for one other being. You don't have to do this during your meditation session, you can try it when you are lying in bed going to sleep.
<p>
<li>It might not work every time you try it, there are all sorts of things that can interfere with your brain chemistry that can affect it, (diet, stress, etc). If it isn't working on a particular day, don't worry about it just stop and try again on another day. But if it works sometimes, then keep trying every day.
<p>
<li>After a number of sessions if this works with one being, you can add another being. Over the course of a number of sessions add more people, add people you are not as close to - gradually widening to groups of people and eventually to all beings.
<p>
<li>Later on, if you want to add a script to help you remember everyone and all the groups, make one up yourself, something that means something to you. But also visualize and observe your feelings. If you feel love at the beginning of a session but the feeling stops before you get to everyone on your list, then stop. Don't push it if you don't feel it. Stick to what you can sincerely feel love for. If that means you stick with one person that's okay. Metta is metta.
<p>
<li>If you have trouble feeling metta for even one being: Think of yourself, visualize yourself, think of compassion for yourself for all the difficulties you've had in life. Then try to feel love for yourself. If that works, move on to one other being etc. as above. (You can do this for yourself even if you are able to feel love for another being). Again, no script, just visualize and observe your feelings.
<p>
<li>If you have trouble finding a being to love, it can be anyone from your past, they don't have to be alive, it can be someone from a novel or movie you feel compassion for, you can even make up a fictional person. The point is to find something that triggers the feeling of love when you think about them. You can even try an object to start with, like maybe your first car. Some people believe all matter is conscious, and everything that exists or existed in the physical plane also exists eternally in the spiritual plane. So whatever you love most can work to get the process started.
</ul>
If you want to try a more traditional form of metta meditation I recommend the one on this web page:
<ul>
<li><a target=_blank href="https://www.dhammatalks.org/mp3_guidedMed_index.html">https://www.dhammatalks.org/mp3_guidedMed_index.html</a>
</ul>
<hr>
<p>
Copyright © 2020 by ncu9nc All rights reserved. Texts quoted from other sources are Copyright © by their owners.
<a target=_blank href=""></a>
<blockquote>
</blockquote>
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<p>
Here is a quick guide to producing bliss with meditation. For more complete instructions and information see my page on <a target=_blank href="https://sites.google.com/site/chs4o8pt/meditation-1#meditation_serenity">meditation</a> on my web site. And please read this section on the <a target=_blank href="https://sites.google.com/site/chs4o8pt/meditation-1#meditation_danger">dangers of meditation</a> before you try the instructions below.
<ul>
<p>
<li>Sit comfortably the way you normally do.
<p>
<li>Breath in a relaxing way, somewhat deeper and slower than normal. Relax and notice the pleasant feeling of relaxation as you inhale and exhale.
<p>
<li>The feeling of relaxation is pleasant and if it makes you want to smile, go ahead and continue breathing with a half-smile. That's important because the nervous system is organized into networks of interconnected neurons that work together. Because they are interconnected, when some neurons in a network are activated, the other neurons in the same network become activated too. In this way, smiling triggers the "happy network".
<p>
<li>Be patient, let the feeling of wanting to smile come naturally from the pleasant feeling of relaxation, and let the bliss come naturally from the even more pleasant feeling that comes from relaxing and smiling. Be patient. Don't force it. If you feel the pleasant feeling of relaxation, that in itself is the seed of bliss and in a sense you already have bliss, so just let it grow naturally.
<p>
<li>I find relaxation is more important than concentration. I think in terms of "access relaxation" not "access concentration". So doing relaxation exercises first is very helpful. I usually find bliss is immediately accessible using the above technique when I do these relaxation exercises first:
<a target=_blank href="http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2020/08/preparing-for-meditation-with.html">http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2020/08/preparing-for-meditation-with.html</a>
<p>
<li>There are many things that can influence brain chemistry: stress, diet, etc. so if it doesn't work one day it might on another. Try it a few times and if it works sometimes don't be discouraged if it doesn't work every time.
<p>
<li>One of the biggest obstacles is wanting to experience it too much, or trying too hard. So if you are sitting and feeling grumpy, stressed, or craving because it is not working, it is definitely not going to work under those conditions. Just meditate to relax, let go of your intention, desire, expectations. Tell yourself, "okay it's not working today I will just meditate and relax". If you feel the bad mood lift after that, it is a good sign, keep at it for a while longer. Once you have experience with this you know when you are doing it right and even if you don't feel bliss you know you are doing it right from the feel which is a big help in dispelling craving and attachment.
<p>
<li>Another obstacle is the habit of suppressing or resisting emotions. There is a kind of a switch in the mind we use to turn off emotions. Most people are not conscious of when they do this. Usually it is because they want to suppress unpleasant emotions but it can also be used to suppress pleasant emotions for example if they don't want to appear to be gloating over a success.
<p>
In order to produce pleasant emotions during meditation, you have to open the gate that allows emotions to flow. You may have to allow yourself to feel unpleasant emotions at the same time you produce pleasant emotions.
<p>
In order to open your emotional gate, you have to stop resisting emotions. Let down any resistance or barriers you may have to emotions. Make sure there aren't any unpleasant emotions you are suppressing or resisting. It can also help if you think of something that causes you to feel an emotion such as love or happiness, but even allowing yourself to feel an unpleasant emotion without resistance or rejection can be used to open the gate.
<p>
Once you feel some type of emotion, continue the relaxing meditation and notice the pleasant feeling of relaxation as you inhale and exhale, and smile if you feel like it.
</ul>
<p>
A few of other suggestions:
<ul>
<li>Try this when you are naturally happy. Meditate on the feeling of happiness. That should produce the feedback loop that produces intense bliss. Once you experience that, you understand what is involved and the rest will be easier. I don't think it is that good to routinely push the bliss to intense levels. I prefer to keep it at a constant low level - too much of anything, even bliss is tedious and might not be good for you.
<p>
<li>Try after a meal because sometimes eating elevates your mood.
<p>
<li>Try meditating lying down.
<p>
<li>If you haven't eaten in a long time there is something called a "fasting high", where your mood is elevated from not eating. that can also help give you a boost.
<p>
<li>Sleep deprivation can make you feel silly, that can give you a boost too (I am not recommending intentional sleep deprivation).
<p>
<li>Thinking of something you like can help make you want to smile.
<p>
<li>Noticing the sensations in different parts of the body can also trigger bliss. Noticing the sensations in your lips might help. Or try turning your palms upward and imagining "energy" coming down into them from above.
<p>
<li><a target=_blank href="https://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2020/10/metta-meditation.html">Metta meditation</a> is similar to the technique for producing bliss. Try thinking of someone you love and meditate on the feeling of love. If that feels nice, let yourself smile and focus on the feeling of pleasure and that can trigger bliss. Be patient.
</ul>
<hr>
<p>
Copyright © 2020, 2023 by ncu9nc All rights reserved. Texts quoted from other sources are Copyright © by their owners.
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<p>
Someone on a discussion forum asked about <a target=_blank href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skandha#Description">the five aggregates of clinging</a>. The person asked about their meanings and how to practice with them. I also have a lot of trouble understanding the meanings of the Pali words. There is a good reason for this. The Buddha used the term "aggregates" (piles or heaps) instead of "categories" because they are collections of dissimilar things. That is why they are hard to understand and also hard to remember. We want nice simple easily defined categories that we can understand and remember in one word - but the complexity of reality does not conform to our desires.
<p>
<b>Shinzen Young gives </b><a target=_blank href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MB96tQi_08s">a good analogy</a><b> to explain the aggregates. He says if a TV screen is displaying something white and you look closely at it with a magnifying glass you will not see anything white, you will only see red green and blue pixels.
<p>
If you look at self closely you will only see aggregates.</b>
<p>
Look closely at self (everything you consider "me" and "mine"). What do you see?
<p>
Work out your own aggregates. They don't have to match the orthodox definitions of aggregates because they are aggregates (collections of dissimilar things) not categories. This is good to do because it will make it personal and more meaningful and easier for you to remember.
<p>
This is in part what I see when I look at everything that is "me" or "mine". You might come up with different elements:
<p>
<ul>
<li>Body
<ul>
<li>Brain
</ul>
<li>Possessions, other people my friends family etc, my groups I like (sports teams etc), groups I am a member of (ie Americans)
<li>Mind:
<ul>
<li>Mental activity: thoughts, emotions, impulses etc
<li>Sensory input: sight, sound, smell, taste, touch, vibration, rough/smooth, hard/soft, temperature, body sensations including body sensations that accompany emotions.
<li>Concepts: I am an entity, a person, an owner (my car), a haver (my friends), a doer, a controller, a thinker, feeler, (just examples: a student a teacher, and employee a boss, a spouse, parent etc etc)
</ul>
</ul>
<p>
(You can study the orthodox definitions if you want to make sure you have everything covered.)
<p>
Look closely at your self and understand everything you consider "me" and "mine".
<p>
The next time you experience a egoistic reaction, ask yourself where in those aggregates is the entity that is offended, insulted, threatened, losing, wrong, inferior, rejected, etc?
<p>
Is a thought an entity? Is an emotion an entity? Is a brain cell an entity? Is a concept an entity?
<p>
Everything that can be considered self, if looked at closely, is made up of things that are clearly not any type of being or entity.
<p>
<b>The full term is not "the five aggregates" the full term is "the five aggregates of clinging"</b>.
<p>
All those things that make up self (things that are "me" or "mine") are the things that we cling to that cause us suffering.
<p>
But what is the use in clinging to the aggregates if there is no entity or being in them?
<p>
Can you let go of all those things?
<p>
Ouch!
<p>
The pain of letting go is really the pain of not wanting to let go, and it is similar to the pain of actual loss.
<p>
Just contemplating letting go is hard. It produces a distinct feeling.
<p>
When you examine this feeling, you see it is the same as the common factor found all forms of dukkha. "I don't like this.", "I don't want this.", and more or less fear.
<p>
By recognizing this feeling in unpleasant emotions that arise during the day you recognize it as the feeling of letting go, or a reminder that you should let go.
<p>
<b>Letting go.</b>
<p>
My advice on how to learn to let go has multiple features.
<ul>
<li> Observe the emotional pain and be conscious of the cause.
<p>
<li> Try to see how emotional pain is caused by attachment to "self", and how unnecessary that is because there is no "entity" in any of the components that combine to form your sense of self.
<p>
<li> At the same time use some type of relaxation, meditation, or mindfulness technique to ease the emotional pain and reduce the stress response, but not to suppress thoughts or emotions.
<p>
<li> Shinzen Young describes a similar process he calls <a target=_blank href="https://youtu.be/yExoNZLCjDE?t=1169">purification</a>. He says it is an acquired taste like the taste for spicy food. Spiciness is caused because the spice molecules bind directly to pain receptors. Spiciness is pure pain. But just like you can learn to like spicy food, you can learn to like letting go. It is a change in attitude. Instead of looking at emotional pain as something to avoid, if you look at it as the path to freedom, everything changes and you start to appreciate it rather than run away from it. Shinzen advises that <a target=_blank href="https://unifiedmindfulness.com">equanimity</a> can be maintained by not pushing away thoughts and emotions while at the same time not getting carried away by them, and not judging people, yourself, or your thoughts and emotions.
</ul>
<p>
I will discuss the process of letting go in greater detail below, but it is helpful to have an understanding of how the process works before getting into the details. The following overview should provide that understanding.
<p>
Overview of letting go:
<ul>
<li>Let yourself feel unpleasant emotions, don't push them away.
<p>
<li>But don't let them go uncontrolled or let your stress reaction go uncontrolled.
<p>
<li>Be a detached observer not a participant.
<p>
<li>Don't judge.
<p>
<li>Soothe unpleasant emotions with meditation and other techniques.
<p>
<li>Mentally review the situation and any sensations that caused the emotion.
<p>
<li>Dig deeper for layers of emotions covering other emotions.
<p>
<li>Understand that feeling emotional pain is needed to let go of it and that letting go leads to freedom.
<p>
<li> Try to see how emotional pain is caused by attachment to "self", and how unnecessary that is because there is no "entity" in any of the components that combine to form your sense of self (bodily tissues, individual thoughts, individual emotions, etc.).
<p>
<li>Accepting the pain is preferable to resisting it.
<p>
<li>There is a great reward for putting aside your ego. Surrender is smart.
</ul>
<p>
The goal of letting go is to be able to think of or experience a situation with much less emotional pain.
<p>
It can be difficult to recognize when you are paying too much attention to unpleasant emotions or not paying enough attention to them. Too much of either is not good. Each person has to work this out for themself. Here are some things to consider when letting go of attachments that cause unpleasant emotions.
<ul>
<p>
<li>Try to be relaxed.
<p>
<li>
Notice the emotion. "Notice the emotion" means you let yourself feel the emotion, but it doesn't mean you let it get out of control or that you let your stress levels get out of control. At the same time you are feeling the emotion, try to soothe it, or calm it by breathing in a relaxed way or using some similar technique. But don't push it away or suppress it.
<p>
<li>Notice the sensations in your body that accompany the emotion. If you notice any tension in your body try to relax it.
<p>
<li>Try keep an attitude of being a detached observer rather than getting caught up in the emotion as if you were watching a move and forgot where you were and were so caught up in the movie you thought it was real. Remember you are observing your emotions. They arise from the unconscious unasked for uninvited. You don't have to believe they are reality.
<p>
<li>Don't judge other people, yourself, sensations, thoughts or emotions.
<p>
<li>Notice that common factor in all dukkha - it makes unpleasant emotions easier to bear because it is familiar.
<p>
<li>Remind yourself, "This emotion is showing me an attachment, I should let go. Letting go leads to freedom."
<p>
<li>
Try to see how emotional pain is caused by attachment to "self", and how unnecessary that is because there is no "entity" in any of the components that combine to form your sense of self (bodily tissues, individual thoughts, individual emotions, etc., which are all governed by unconscious processes). Notice that emotional pain is caused when something that produces the sense of self is threatened. Why do you have these painful attachments when there is no actual entity in any of those things that are threatened? Ask yourself, what you are protecting, the atoms that make up your body? A thought or emotion that arises by unconscious processes unasked for and uninvited?
<p>
<li>While trying to stay relaxed, review in your mind the situation that the emotion is about, any physical sensations that are involved such as unpleasant sounds, smells, physical pain, emotional sensations, the feeling of "I don't like this" etc. Relax any tensions that arise. Doing this reduces the force of the emotion. It conditions you to think about it without reacting with an unpleasant emotions. This is what "letting go" means. Letting go is not forgetting. It is not suppressing. Letting go is being able to think about something without emotional pain.
<p>
<li> Ask yourself why you feel the emotion and repeat the question to <a target=_blank href="http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2020/09/when-you-cant-find-tranquility.html">dig through layers of answers</a>. Repeat the above review process for the answers you find.
<p>
<li> Surrender - Acknowledge the truth of the situation, admit those things about the situation or yourself that you don't really want to admit, and accept them.
<p>
<li>There are various techniques that will elevate your mood, lessen the intensity of emotions, and/or reduce the stress response. They can be used in two ways: easing the pain of emotions can reduce them to the point where they don't bother you at all, or reducing them to the point where it is easier to review them and let go. Each person has to figure out for themself which use is appropriate at a given time. These techniques involve:
<ul>
<p>
<li><a target=_blank href="http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2020/08/preparing-for-meditation-with.html">Relaxation exercises</a>
<p>
<li><a target=_blank href="http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2020/10/easy-meditation.html">Samatha meditation</a> produces mental tranquility.
<p>
<li><a target=_blank href="https://www.dhammatalks.org/mp3_guidedMed_index.html">Metta meditation</a>
<p>
<li><a target=_blank href="https://sites.google.com/site/chs4o8pt/meditation-1#meditation_serenity">Jhana meditation</a> - Use unpleasant sensations (ie sounds, pain, emotional sensations) to trigger bliss.
<p>
<li> <a target=_blank href="http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2020/10/hacking-your-brain-part-ii.html">Observing sensations that come into awareness</a> - Deactivating the default mode network in the brain (see below) reduces the intensity of emotions.
</ul>
</ul>
<p>
This is how you let go of emotions, noticing them calmly while you are relaxing and easing their effect, allowing yourself to feel them, and <a target=_blank href="http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2020/09/when-you-cant-find-tranquility.html">understanding their source</a>.
<p>
Letting go will set you free.
<p>
<b>Awakening is the process of letting go of attachments to self.</b>
<p>
Practicing this way in daily life with dukkha as it arises is more important than understanding the orthodox definitions of the aggregates. If you want to find everything that belongs in the aggregates, you can work backward from your emotions to see what you are clinging to.
<p>
<b>The Buddha understood the pain of letting go. That is why he taught </b><a target=_blank href="http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2020/10/letting-go-of-unpleasant-emotions-with.html">meditation and mindfulness techniques</a><b> that help to us to bear the pain of unpleasant emotions.</b>
<p>
Samatha <a target=_blank href="http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2020/10/easy-meditation.html">meditation</a> produces tranquility and gladdens the mind. <a target=_blank href="https://sites.google.com/site/chs4o8pt/meditation-1#meditation_serenity">Jhanas</a> produce bliss. <a target=_blank href="https://www.dhammatalks.org/mp3_guidedMed_index.html">Metta</a> is really a lot like jhana. Mindfulness greatly reduces the intensity of <a target=_blank href="http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2020/10/hacking-your-brain-part-ii.html">emotions</a>.
<p>
<ul>
<li>Samatha meditation activates the <a target=_blank href="http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2018/04/the-parasympathetic-nervous-system-and.html">parasympathetic nervous system</a> which turns off stress.
<p>
<li>Mindfulness deactivates the <a target=_blank href="http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2020/10/hacking-your-brain-part-ii.html">default mode network in the brain</a> which has the effect of greatly reducing unpleasant emotions.
<p>
<li>Jhana and Metta meditation cause the brain to produce neurotransmitters and endorphins, and lower levels of stress hormones.
</ul>
<p>
Practicing this way can produce a <a target=_blank href="http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2020/04/my-views-on-gradual-awakening.html">gradual awakening</a> without the need for mystical "enlightenment experiences" or "realizations".
<hr>
<p>
Copyright © 2020 by ncu9nc All rights reserved. Texts quoted from other sources are Copyright © by their owners.
<a target=_blank href=""></a>
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<p>
In an interview, <a target=_blank href="https://www.lionsroar.com/on-enlightenment-an-interview-with-shinzen-young/">On Enlightenment – An Interview with Shinzen Young</a>, Shinzen Young discusses the difference between an enlightened person and non-enlightened person. He says the difference is that during moments when a person is entirely focused on a sensation, the enlightened person recognizes them as moments when there is no self. Shinzen says that non-enlightened people have these moments hundreds of times a day but don't recognize them for what they are.
<p>
If you are interested in understanding what enlightenment is, you may find it very instructive to learn to notice these no-self moments - moments when something you percieve with your senses such as seeing or hearing catches your attention and you are aware of it without thinking about anything else.
<p>
Going out for a walk is a good activity to do when trying to notice no-self moments. When you are walking outdoors, you are moving through the environment, things in the environment maybe moving around you, there are various sounds, and maybe smells, and also various weather phenomnea are possible, so there are many opportunities for sensations to catch your attention.
<p>
It will also help if your mind is quiet from practicing <a target=_blank href="http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2020/10/letting-go-of-unpleasant-emotions-with.html">relaxation exercises and mindfulness</a>. Relaxation exercises activate the parasympathetic nervous system which turns off the body's stress response. Mindfulness will deactivate the default mode network in the brain which will greatly reduce mental chatter and the strength of emotions.
<p>
While walking, try to relax and practice mindfulness by noticing the sights, sounds, and sensations that come to your attention and also try to notice what happens when something catches your attention fully so that in that moment you are not thinking about anything else except the sensation. If you plan to try this, please be sure to read this <a target=_blank href="https://sites.google.com/site/chs4o8pt/meditation-1#meditation_danger">warning about the dangers of meditation</a> first.
<p>
<a target=_blank href="https://www.lionsroar.com/on-enlightenment-an-interview-with-shinzen-young/">https://www.lionsroar.com/on-enlightenment-an-interview-with-shinzen-young/</a>
<blockquote>
On Enlightenment – An Interview with Shinzen Young
<p>
BY ANDREA MILLER| SEPTEMBER 10, 2009
<p>
...
<p>
The only difference between an enlightened person and a non-enlightened person is that when the feel-image-talk self doesn’t arise during the day, the enlightened person notices that and knows that to be a clear experience of no-self. The non-enlightened person actually has that experience hundreds of times a day, when they’re briefly pulled to a physical-type touch or an external sight or sound. For just a moment there is just the world of touch-sight-sound. For just a moment there is no self inside that person but they don’t notice it! But just because they don’t notice it doesn’t mean it hasn’t happened.
<p>
An enlightened person sees everyone as constantly experiencing brief moments of enlightenment during the day. So paradoxically being an enlightened person doesn’t make you that special. Now you can say, “Well, but they don’t realize it,” that’s one way to look at it, but it’s also undeniable that they are. From that perspective it’s very misleading to separate enlightened people from non-enlightened people.
</blockquote>
<hr>
<p>
Copyright © 2020 by ncu9nc All rights reserved. Texts quoted from other sources are Copyright © by their owners.
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<p>
In previous posts, I have discussed the subjects of <a target=_blank href="http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2020/08/preparing-for-meditation-with.html">relaxation</a> and <a target=_blank href="http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2020/10/hacking-your-brain-part-ii.html">mindfulness</a>. In this post, I want to explain how relaxation and mindfulness work together to help you let go of unpleasant emotions that arise from cognitive processes (emotions that arise from organic causes are a different matter and are outside the scope of this article).
<p>
Relaxation activates the body's <a target=_blank href="http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2018/04/the-parasympathetic-nervous-system-and.html">parasympathetic nervous system</a> and deactivates the sympathetic nervous system. This turns off the stress response in the body. When you are completely relaxed and the stress response is off, you are not experiencing any unpleasant emotions.
<p>
Mindfulness deactivates the <a target=_blank href="https://sites.google.com/site/chs4o8pt/meditation-1#meditation_brain_networks">default mode network</a> in the brain. The default mode network is active when the mind is wandering and thinking about the past or future etc. And when the default mode network is active, emotions can get out of control and feed on themselves amplifying their effect. However when the default mode network is inactive, emotions are not amplified, they are reduced to faint shadows that hardly cause any trouble.
<p>
Relaxation and mindfulness work well together. It is easier to be mindful if you are relaxed. It is easier to stay relaxed if you are mindful.
<p>
One aspect of the stress response is to become fixated on the source of stress. When the source of stress is emotional, this tendency toward fixation draws you into the default mode network where emotions become amplified. Relaxation helps break the fixation caused by stress and makes it easier to keep the default mode network inactive.
<p>
Mindfulness deactivates the default mode network which keeps emotions from amplifying, producing emotional pain, and causing a stress reaction.
<p>
There are various ways to practice relaxation and mindfulness together.
<p>
<ul>
<li>
<p>
Do <a target=_blank href="http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2020/08/preparing-for-meditation-with.html">relaxation exercises</a>. The attention needed to do relaxation exercises is a form of mindfulness.<li>
<il>
<p>
Focus your attention on the pleasant feeling of relaxation while you breathe in a relaxing way. You can do this as a form of <a target=_blank href="http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2020/10/easy-meditation.html">meditation</a> or while you are doing other activities. Notice if your mind wanders, or if you feel stronger emotions, or if you feel stress, and when you do, try to restore relaxation and focus.
<li>
<p>
Try to relax while doing mindfulness exercises. To relax, breathe in a relaxing way, notice the pleasant feeling of relaxation as you inhale and exhale, and move in a relaxed way if you are active. Mindfulness exercises can be as simple as being aware of what you are doing as you are doing it, or noticing all the sensations that come into your awareness, or focusing you attention on your surroundings. You can do mindfulness exercises as a form of meditation or while you are doing other activities such as taking a walk or washing the dishes.
</ul>
This article is about letting go of unpleasant emotions. There are also times when it is helpful to let out emotions, ie. <a target=_blank href="http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2020/09/when-you-cant-find-tranquility.html">to explore their source</a>.
<hr>
<p>
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<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img src="http://c.statcounter.com/counter.php?sc_project=7954633&java=0&security=8a48dc9d&invisible=1" alt="." border="0" height="1" width="1" /></div>anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09701008088467238503noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2593234631729922088.post-89597911974661614902020-10-19T10:49:00.013-04:002020-11-06T09:56:08.365-05:00Hacking Your Brain Part II: Turning Off Unpleasant Emotions by Deactivating the Default Mode Network in the Brain<!-- Hacking Your Brain Part II: Turning Off Unpleasant Emotions by Deactivating the Default Mode Network in the Brain -->
<p>
(Part I is: <a target=_blank href="http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2018/04/spiritual-living-hacking-your-brain.html">Hacking Your Brain Chemistry Without Drugs</a>.)
<p>
This video is an interview with Daniel Ingram about what it is like to be enlightened. In the video Daniel explains how you can reduce unpleasant emotions by changing the active network in your brain. (A transcript of the video can be found at the end of this article.)
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It is quite interesting. Putting the information in the video into practice seems relatively easy to do.
<p>
Most people who have done some form of <a target=_blank href="http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2020/10/easy-meditation.html">meditation</a> are familiar with the experience of losing their concentration and finding themselves lost in thought, noticing it, and then returning to the object of meditation.
<p>
When you are lost in thought, the <a target=_blank href="https://sites.google.com/site/chs4o8pt/meditation-1#meditation_brain_networks">default mode network</a> in the brain is active. In that state emotions can be troublesome. When you return to meditation, you get out of the default network and into the experiential network where emotions are much less troublesome.
<p>
If an unpleasant emotion arises in the course of a meditation session or during daily life, then you are probably in the default network. Getting out of the default network is easy. Just observe something, like your surroundings, or your breath, or even the emotion itself if you treat it as an object of observation rather than an experience you are immersed in - although it can be difficult to avoid getting drawn back into the default network if you are observing the emotion.
<p>
The trick to using this phenomenon effectively is to remember to use it when it matters most: when a very strong emotion arises. Strong emotions tend to take over your mind, they grab your attention and draw you into them even for people who are used to meditating.
<p>
It also takes a certain amount of maturity, or insight, to recognize that when you have a strong emotion your suffering is not caused by the problem you are reacting to, your suffering is caused by how you are reacting to the problem. You can solve a problem with compassion and reason without reacting with unpleasant emotions, but people have a tendency to think the emotions are right or reality. As Daniel said in the video, like a person who doesn't like being drunk but keeps on drinking anyway.
<p>
But if you understand what is in the video, it possible to have the presence of mind when you have a strong emotion, to extract yourself from the default network and activate the experiential network. If you can do this a few times and observe it easing your suffering, it shouldn't be too hard to make a habit of it - even if you are not yet awakened to the point where you are out of the default network full time. The positive reinforcement from the reduction in suffering should help you habitualize it. And practicing on smaller issues should help develop the skill or habit to make it easier when a strong emotion arises.
<p>
This also provides an answer to an important question: how to let go of an emotion without suppressing it. If you find an unpleasant emotion arising and you shift out of the default network into the experiential network by observing something while also observing the emotion - you are not suppressing it.
<p>
All of this reminds me of what <a target=_blank href="http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2019/08/the-untethered-soul-by-michael-singer.html">Michael Singer</a> wrote in his book <i>The Untethered Soul</i>. He uses the phenomenon of lucid dreaming to explain how to develop a sense of detachment to unpleasant thoughts, emotions, and impulses.
<p>
He says that in a regular dream you think it is real, but in a lucid dream you know you are dreaming.
<p>
To be lucid with respect to your own mind means to be aware of the activity in your mind as if you were an observer, not a participant like when you are watching a movie and become so drawn in to it that you forget where you are and react as if the movie was real. To be lucid with respect to the activity of your mind, is to observe your thoughts emotions and impulses but not to get drawn into them so that they take over your mind and you forget you are observing them and start reacting to them.
<p>
By staying lucid, by remaining an observer, you stay out of the default network where emotions can be so much more troublesome.
<h3>What it is like in practice</h3>
<p>
Using this technique you can try to keep your default mode network inactive by practicing mindfulness.
<p>
When you try to observe emotions with the default network inactive, they seem to be "wispy little things" as Daniel describes them in the video. And you don't get caught up in the story they are telling as if it was reality. So it is much easier to see emotions as impersonal sensations rather than facts of reality that need a defensive or aggressive response.
<p>
As impersonal sensations, emotions no longer seem like they are "mine", or that they are telling a story about "me". They are more impersonal like seeing something outside your body is impersonal. So you don't feel egoistic reactions like offense, or outrage, or defensiveness, or aggressiveness, when "unpleasant" things happen. It's like if a child tried to throw a snowball at you and missed. All of those reactions would reinforce your sense of self. Without that reinforcement your sense of self diminishes.
<p>
You can also see how emotions, when you think they are "mine", cause you to deduce the existence of a self.
<p>
All of this also provides a way to understand physical discomfort. When you notice physical discomfort, try to notice the emotions caused by the physical sensations and observe how the emotions change when the default mode network becomes inactive.
<p>
So it can be very instructive to observe emotions from a mindful state where the the default mode network is inactive. By a "mindful state" I mean just noticing your surroundings, or just being aware of what you are doing as you are doing it, or noticing all the sensations that come into your awareness. You can tell when you get distracted and the default mode network becomes active, it's just like when your mind wanders during meditation. When you notice that happening, just go back to your mindfulness practice. Another thing that tells you the default mode network is becoming active is if you feel more than just a wisp of an emotion. That is a very sensitive indicator. It acts like a biofeedback signal that reminds you to remain fully mindful.
<p>
A very nice way to do this practice is to go for a walk and notice what you see, hear, and feel with your sense of touch, as you look around you may also notice a feeling of spaciousness. It produces a feeling of a lack of separation.
<h3>What about Self?</h3>
In the video, when Daniel explains what enlightenment is like, he says his emotions are reduced to "wispy little things" because keeping his mind focused on the outside deactivates the default mode network. He doesn't mention anything about understanding the true nature of self.
<p>
Many people believe the emotional changes that bring about the end suffering attributed to enlightenment are due to having a correct understanding of the illusory nature of self and it is that understanding that produces the emotional changes. However as I mentioned above, when the default mode network is deactivated one stops acting egoistically. I know this from my own experience.
<blockquote>
When you try to observe emotions with the default network inactive, they seem to be "wispy little things" as Daniel describes them in the video. And you don't get caught up in the story they are telling as if it was reality. So it is much easier to see emotions as impersonal sensations rather than facts of reality that need a defensive or aggressive response.
<p>
As impersonal sensations, emotions no longer seem like they are "mine", or that they are telling a story about "me". They are more impersonal like seeing something outside your body is impersonal. So you don't feel egoistic reactions like offense, or outrage, or defensiveness, or aggressiveness, when "unpleasant" things happen. It's like if a child tried to throw a snowball at you and missed. All of those reactions would reinforce your sense of self. Without that reinforcement your sense of self diminishes.
</blockquote>
<p>
It seems to me that implicit in Daniel not mentioning it when explaining what enlightenment is like, is that understanding self is just a satisfying realization of "truth" for truth seekers, but the emotional benefits come from a kind of permanent mindfulness produced by a lot of meditation.
<p>
If that is right, it has implications for how people primarily seeking to end suffering should practice meditation: they should focus mostly on <a target=_blank href="http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2020/10/letting-go-of-unpleasant-emotions-with.html">training to keep their default mode network inactive</a>.
<hr>
<p>
Below is a transcript of the video, edited slightly for readability:
<blockquote>
<p>
Tom
<p>
I got a question for you Daniel. As we were leading into this podcast I was trying to think of what listeners might be thinking at this moment. And so with regard to this aspect of enlightenment, people are curious right? They really are wanting to understand what that means. So can you just maybe give us a reference point of how is enlightenment?
<p>
Because at one point you hadn't completed the path of insight, and now you have. So there's a pre, let's call it, fully insight awareness stage. And now there's the post stage that you've been in many many years. Can you just give us a bit of a comparison on how that looks on a daily basis like how how it's similar or different?
<p>
Daniel
<p>
So to most people I'm going to look pretty ordinary. I mean I tend to be pretty positive. I have a lot of energy. But that was true in some ways before. Not to the same degree, I'm a lot happier now. So it definitely helped reduce some suffering, and add some mental clarity, and some emotional resilience, there's no question.
<p>
And to try to bring this down to earth: I was talking to someone a few days ago and they had reached some difficult stage of practice. So they had gone through the spiritual high where they were super excited about this app they were using, the waking up app by Sam Harris. And they were like: mind had gotten so powerful. And then all of a sudden they felt like they were disappearing, and they couldn't think, and like they didn't have control of anything. And then they got terrified. So they went through the high stuff, and they got to the difficult stuff. They started freaking out. And they thought they were broken, or like they were scared, or they were going to lose control, or whatever. And they were having a very hard time relating to their fear.
<p>
And I said, "Well let's do an exercise." And they said, "Okay." And I said, "Okay, first of all we're going to take the room as frame. All the experience is in the room. Right? So you're sitting in a room and you've got, you know all these sights, all these sounds, this big volume. And let's hold that sort of evenly in the mind with eyes open as the frame of experience. Now think one of these really scary thoughts you've been having, right, until you start to feel it in your body. But keep the room as frame so you've got the sense of it. While you're thinking these thoughts and having these feelings, you want to notice how big and strong they are in the room. Right? What percentage of your experience are those sensations? How strong are they actually?"
<p>
And they said "Okay." And you know they were like and sort of starting to close their eyes.
<p>
I said "No, no, eyes open. Remember the room."
<p>
And they were like, "Okay."
<p>
And I was like, "Do you have a thought?"
<p>
They're like, "Yeah."
<p>
"Do you have the feeling?"
<p>
And they were like, "Yeah."
<p>
And I was like, Remember the room right?"
<p>
And they're like, Yeah, I can't do it, I can't make the fear stick. It's just disappearing. It's just disappearing. I can't do it right now with holding the room as frame."
<p>
I was like, "Yes. Right. Exactly. That's the point. That's the point. Right?
<p>
It doesn't work. You can't because in order to to exaggerate our feelings and emotions we have to sort of do this thing where we activate what's called the default mode network. We activate something called the PCC in our brain which is the posterior cingulate gyrus. When we do that, the room kind of disappears for a second and our thoughts become super big and strong. Whereas if we were holding the room as frame with our PCC very deactivated, our thoughts are these wispy little things in the room. I mean in comparison to like you know physical sensations or colors or whatever, you can barely even find them. Right?
<p>
And so this is basically that, just you know the vast majority of the time in other words. So whereas most people's default mode network is to have thoughts and feelings be the predominant experience and the room is there when they need to pay attention to it. You know, they can take a whole shower, or drive to work, and not even remember any of it. You don't even know if you washed something because you weren't there, you weren't present. Well if you train to really be present, you can flip over into this other way where it goes, wait a second when just everything is sort of evenly perceived and thoughts are just these wispy little things. Well then the amount of trouble that all that used to cause is vastly less. And so that's sort of one example that helps to explain what this experience is like.
<p>
But in other ways I'm just an ordinary dude. Ordinary mammal you know. Dude hanging out. Doing dishes. Sweeping the dust bunnies off my floor.
<p>
Tom
<p>
So when you say that you hold the room as frame, as an example, that is your, sort of, your reality? For the most part you're grounded?
<p>
Daniel
<p>
That's that's the default, right. So as most people's default is what's called the default mode network which is internal thoughts, worries, thoughts of past, and future ruminative thoughts. That's where their brain lives if you don't give them something else to do. Well, me given nothing else to do, the room predominates and thoughts are these wispy little things in it.
<p>
Tom
<p>
Gotcha cool.
<p>
Daniel
<p>
They can still convey their message right? And there might be a little feeling, and the're little sensations here, or whatever you know. But it's what percent of experience, like this much [gestures to show tiny amount] right? I mean, it's like, what percentage is this little thing happening here? These little sort of thoughts somewhere here? Like it's almost nothing. So they can convey their message but they don't become exaggerated. And because they don't become exaggerated, there's nothing like constantly re-triggering of all these, you know, adrenaline, and cortisol, and stress chemicals, and stuff, in the same way that used to happen before.
<p>
I mean what most people do with their emotions is like, they may be just walking along in a safe place but then they remember something that happened to them that was really bad, right. You know, and they get angry about it or something. And then those anger chemicals flood their body. And then they lose touch with the space they're in. And more thoughts come up that are angry. And then those thoughts re-trigger more angry chemicals. And then they get angrier because they don't have this perspective right. And then they just keep re-triggering the chemicals because the perspective is now lost, sort of amplified by the chemicals that are the angry chemicals or whatever, the angry pathways in the brain, or the desirous pathways, or the sad pathways, or whatever. And so it just gets worse and worse and worse.
<p>
And somehow they think this is a good idea. It would almost be like a drunk person who realized they were drunk, and, and then didn't like it, but they just kept drinking you know? And they, they just keep slamming them back and getting drunker and, you know. And just more and more of these sort of things start flooding their brain, and they're losing more and more touch with perspective. And yet they just keep knocking them back, you know? Just like whoa man, you know? And so it's nice to have a brain that has been trained to not do that. It's not like continued stimulation can't cause reactive chemicals, they do. But they're they're triggered by what's going on in the world in a way that is not like the world disappearing, thoughts becoming this huge thing, and then spinning like that. And that doesn't mean that I don't feel feelings, or that I have perfect intelligence, or clarity, or anything like that because I'm still a mammal. But it is much better. It's much better to not have that being caught and stuff be the default mode.
</blockquote>
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Copyright © 2020 by ncu9nc All rights reserved. Texts quoted from other sources are Copyright © by their owners.
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<p>
This article describes a form of meditation which is a bit simpler than what I have <a target=_blank href="https://sites.google.com/site/chs4o8pt/meditation-1#meditation_serenity">described on my web site</a>. As with any type of meditation, before you begin to practice it you should be aware that there are some <a target=_blank href="https://sites.google.com/site/chs4o8pt/meditation-1#h.s72lppayr899">risks involved</a>.
<p>
(It can be helpful to prepare for the sitting meditation described below by doing <a target=_blank href="http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2020/08/preparing-for-meditation-with.html">relaxation exercises</a> first. Relaxation exercises are a form of meditation, they require attention and mental focus. When time is limited they can be done instead of sitting meditation.)
<ol>
<li> Sit comfortably in a chair the way you normally sit.
<p>
<li> Breathe in the way that is most comfortable and relaxing, it could be your natural way of breathing or breathing more slowly or deeply. What you find most comfortable might change from time to time so it's okay to change how you breath. Breathing in a relaxing way is an important part of the process because it <a target=_blank href="http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2018/04/the-parasympathetic-nervous-system-and.html">activates the parasympathetic nervous system</a> which helps to turn off the body's stress response.
<p>
You can try meditating this way now if you like. There are a number of additional instructions below which you can read and add to your technique at your own pace.
<p>
<li> Try to keep your attention focused on your breathing. Focusing your attention on your nose or an area just below the navel works well. (I don't recommend focusing on the chest.)
<p>
<li> Try to relax as you do this. Notice the pleasant feeling of relaxation as you inhale and exhale.
<p>
<li> Your concentration should be wakeful and alert but not too intense, it should be relaxed. Like the difference between searching intently for a lost object vs looking at a beautiful sunset. One is stressful and unpleasant, the other is relaxing and pleasant.
<p>
<li> If you find it hard to concentrate, you can count breaths up to five or ten (or any number you like) and then start over at one, or say "in" and "out" as you inhale and exhale.
<p>
<li> In addition to the breath, notice what your senses are perceiving. Noticing what you see, hear, or feel with your sense of touch will help to <a target=_blank href="http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2020/10/hacking-your-brain-part-ii.html">deactivate the default mode network</a> in your brain which will have the effect of reducing the intensity of unpleasant emotions and reduce mental chatter. Don't think too much about what you are sensing, just be aware.
<p>
You don't have to be aware of everything at once. You can let your mind shift naturally, or stay focused on one sense, or intentionally shift your awareness, just don't forget about breathing in a relaxing way and noticing the pleasant feeling of relaxation.
<p>
You can meditate with your eyes closed or open. If you want to try meditating with your eyes open, be aware of seeing, but without thinking too much about what you are seeing. You don't have to focus your attention on any particular spot or object you can just take in the scene in front of you as a whole.
<p>
If you meditate with your eyes closed, you can try to be aware of the colors and shapes you see when your eye lids are closed.
<p>
<li>If unpleasant emotions arise, don't push them away, but also don't get carried away by them. Let yourself be fully conscious of the emotion, any physical sensations in your body associated with the emotions, and any thoughts that caused the emotion and then return to meditating. During this process, try not to judge yourself, other people, your thoughts or your emotions.
<p>
If you experience a lot of unpleasant emotions coming up during meditation, it can cause your stress levels to rise. Try to be aware of this possibility and put extra effort into relaxing if you see it happening.
<p>
You will have to workout for yourself how much of observing your emotions is right for you. Too much or too little can cause problems.
<p>
If you are experiencing an unpleasant emotion during your meditation session, try not to focus on it, try to focus on your breathing, the pleasant feeling of relaxation, your sense perceptions. I don't mean you should try to suppress any thoughts or emotions just that for the meditation session the instructions are to focus on specific things and to not focus on other things. If you focus too much on an unpleasant emotion during meditation it can have the effect of reinforcing and increasing the emotion. If you find that happening, it might be better to stop meditating at that time and try again later or do <a target=_blank href="http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2020/08/preparing-for-meditation-with.html">relaxation exercises</a> instead.
<p>
<li>After your meditation session is over try to keep your meditative mood. You can also meditate this way, with your eyes open, doing different activities in daily life, doing the dishes, taking a walk, etc. When walking, instead of counting breaths you can count steps per breath. And be aware of your surroundings - only meditate when and where it is safe to do so.
</ol>
<p>
I also find it helps to prepare for meditation with <a target=_blank href="http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2020/08/preparing-for-meditation-with.html">relaxation exercises</a>. Actually, relaxation exercises are like a form of meditation, you can just do them if you want.
<p>
If what you read below ever seems to be too complicated, confusing, or overwhelming, you can come back here to the first section and just follow this and enjoy relaxing meditation.
<p>
<h3>Why Meditate?</h3>
<p>People sometimes wonder why anyone would meditate. One reason is that when you experience a state of consciousness during meditation that is clear and seems to be more natural and relaxed than ordinary consciousness, and it seems to dispel a kind of mental fog and strong emotions that are present during ordinary consciousness, and it seems that ordinary consciousness is confused and made turbulent by attachments and aversions, then you will want to spend your time meditating so that you can exist in clarity rather than confusion.
<p>
It is as if you realized you were dreaming and you wanted to wake up, or someone had the TV playing too loudly and you wanted to turn it down, you wouldn't need will power, it would be natural to do it.
<p>
To find this state try to notice what it is like after a meditation session when your mind is quiet (how does your mind feel?) and other times in daily life when your mind is turbulent (how does your mind feel then?). Which do you prefer? Which is a better quality of existence? Can you just sit with this clarity?
<p>
<h3>Being Lucid</h3>
<p>
<a target=_blank href="http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2019/08/the-untethered-soul-by-michael-singer.html">Michael Singer</a>, in his book The Untethered Soul, uses the phenomenon of lucid dreaming to explain how to develop a sense of detachment to unpleasant thoughts, emotions, and impulses.
<p>
He says that in a regular dream you think it is real, but in a lucid dream you know you are dreaming.
<p>
To be lucid with respect to your own mind means to be aware of the activity in your mind as if you were an observer, not a participant like when you are watching a movie and become so drawn in to it that you forget where you are and react as if the movie was real. To be lucid with respect to the activity of your mind, is to observe your thoughts emotions and impulses but not to get drawn into them so that they take over you mind and you forget you are observing them and start reacting to them.
<p>
There are various ways to cultivate lucidity. While you are meditating and observing your breath, notice when thoughts, emotions, and impulses arise, and observe them but try not to get drawn into them. If you find you do get lost in thoughts and emotions, just go back to meditating and being an observer while you remain aware of the thoughts and emotions. They should gradually fade. Notice if the thoughts and emotions were unpleasant that they are <a target=_blank href="http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2020/10/hacking-your-brain-part-ii.html">less so when you are an observer</a> rather than a participant. This is because being an observer deactivates the <a target=_blank href="https://sites.google.com/site/chs4o8pt/meditation-1#meditation_brain_networks">default network</a> in the brain.
<p>
In daily life, if you try to focus your attention on what you are doing while you are doing it, that should help to keep you from being drawn into your thoughts etc. Another technique you can use while meditating or in daily life is to notice what comes to your senses as well as any activity in your mind. And just as you do when meditating, try to maintain the perspective of an observer, don't get drawn into your thoughts. If unpleasant thoughts or emotions arise, try to go back to just observing while being aware of them and notice them fading.
<p>
<h3>Awakening</h3>
<p>
Awakening is the process of letting go of attachment to self.
<p>
In this context, "self" means anything we consider "me" or "mine". It could be the body, the mind, our thoughts, emotions, and impulses, our social status, our possessions, people we care about, and groups of people we care about or belong to, etc.
<p>
Attachment to self results in a lot of emotional pain when something that is "me" or "mine" is threatened.
<p>
One way to let go of attachment to self involves learning to stay both <a target=_blank href="http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2020/10/hacking-your-brain-part-ii.html">lucid</a> and also <a target=_blank href="http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2018/06/relaxation-and-enlightenment.html">physically and mentally relaxed</a>. Relaxation and lucidity work together. Lucidity helps you to develop a sense of detachment from your unpleasant thoughts, emotions, and impulses and from unpleasnt physical sensations. Relaxation turns off the body's stress response. You can cultivate both relaxation and lucidity at the same time by being relaxed and breathing in a relaxed way while you observe the activity of the mind and or sense perceptions in meditation and in daily life.
<p>
Awakening doesn't entirely eliminate unpleasant emotions, you still feel emotions, but it creates a sense of detachment that diminishes their unpleasant quality and keeps them from taking over your mind. Traditionally, the process of awakening is described as <a target=_blank href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_stages_of_enlightenment#Path_and_Fruit">occurring in stages</a>, and very few people ever perfect it - so if you are interested in awakening, you should have <a target=_blank href="http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2020/04/my-views-on-gradual-awakening.html">realistic expectations</a>.
<p>
If you want to try to stay physically and mentally relaxed when you are not meditating, try to notice if you are tense during the day and try to relax your mind and body. <a target=_blank href="http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2020/08/preparing-for-meditation-with.html">Relaxation exercises</a> can help you learn how to do this. Also try to move in a relaxed way anytime you are active. And it will also help, while you are learning, if you can avoid things that make you tense or upset.
<p>
When you notice unpleasant emotions arising, don't try to push them away. Allow yourself to <a target=_blank href="http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2020/09/when-you-cant-find-tranquility.html">feel emotions</a>, you don't have to like them but try to accept them rather than resist them, and also try to stay physically and mentally relaxed. It is the resistance, the rejection of what is, that causes a lot of mental anguish. (It will help you learn to notice when emotions arise if you also try to notice the physical sensations in your body that accompany emotions.)
<p>
Relaxation is not entirely mental. It is <a target=_blank href="http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2018/04/the-parasympathetic-nervous-system-and.html">physical</a> too. Relaxation is something you do with the mind that affects the body. The effect on the body in turn affects the mind. It is an indirect way of influencing emotions.
<p>
In addition to reducing emotional pain, letting go of attachment to self <a target=_blank href="http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2015/03/realizing-ultimate.html">diminishes your sense of duality</a>, the sense of the separation between <a target=_blank href="http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2020/09/how-to-suffer-less.html">self and other</a>.
</ul>
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</blockquote>
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<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img src="http://c.statcounter.com/counter.php?sc_project=7954633&java=0&security=8a48dc9d&invisible=1" alt="." border="0" height="1" width="1" /></div>anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09701008088467238503noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2593234631729922088.post-36458749047838552622020-10-02T19:34:00.003-04:002020-10-03T00:35:08.665-04:00Seeing Things As They Really Are.<!-- Seeing Things As They Really Are. -->
<h3>Seeing Things As They Really Are</h3>
<p>
Becoming <a target=_blank href="http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2020/09/when-you-cant-find-tranquility.html">conscious of suppressed thoughts</a> can ease the emotional pain they cause. Digging through layers of denial and suppression and becoming conscious of the root cause of unease can provide relief from unpleasant emotions when they are caused by suppressed thoughts.
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Suffering arises when reality conflicts with our attachments. When we don't have what we want, our cravings are unsatisfied. The mind may resist acknowledging these conflicts, it may invent stories to explain them and suppress the truth. When this happens, the mind is ignorant and deluded.
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However, when the mind accepts that reality does not coincide with our attachments, it accepts reality, it does not hide the truth or invent stories. It sees things as they really are. The mind feels a little pain, but much less. It is not ignorant or deluded.
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To end ignorance and delusion, to see things as they really are, you have to learn to allow emotional pain to come through to consciousness unhindered, to accept and acknowledge unsatisfied cravings. It can be painful to release emotions this way, but over time it leads to less suffering.
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You can learn to be more aware of your emotions by being mindful of the physical sensations in your body because emotions are often accompanied by physical sensations.
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When you notice an unpleasant emotion, ask your self, "Why do I feel this way?" Repeat the question through multiple layers of answers. Revisit it again at a later date if necessary.
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<a target=_blank href="https://sites.google.com/site/chs4o8pt/meditation-1#meditation_serenity">Meditation</a> can help if it quiets the mind so you can see what is happening within it and not get carried away by strong emotions. And meditation can create a feeling of tranquility that eases the pain of emotional release.
<h3>Freedom From the Fetter of Identity View</h3>
<p>
Our attachments tend to reflect our innermost beliefs about how we think we should relate to the world around us, ie. about our beliefs about the distinction we make between <a target=_blank href="http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2020/09/how-to-suffer-less.html">self and not-self</a>. We tend to be tolerant of and care a lot about self: ourselves ("me") and things we consider ours ("mine" - our possessions, friends, family, favorite sports team etc), and we also tend to be intolerant of and care less about not-self: anything that is not "me" or "mine".
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This distinction between self and other, caring about self and intolerance of not-self is the source of most of our attachments and so is the source of most of our unpleasant emotions.
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When you learn to see things as they really are, learn to be conscious of your emotions, remove from your mind ignorance and delusion about your emotions, you can begin to see how this distinction between self and not-self, between self and other, is the source of your suffering. This understanding of how things really are helps to free you from the fetter of <a target=_blank href="http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2020/09/a-practical-exercise-for-eroding.html">identity view</a>.
<hr>
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Copyright © 2020 by ncu9nc All rights reserved. Texts quoted from other sources are Copyright © by their owners.
<a target=_blank href=""></a>
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<!-- iframe width="400" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/idstring?rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen --><!-- /iframe -->
<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img src="http://c.statcounter.com/counter.php?sc_project=7954633&java=0&security=8a48dc9d&invisible=1" alt="." border="0" height="1" width="1" /></div>anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09701008088467238503noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2593234631729922088.post-31338621843120712222020-09-30T05:59:00.009-04:002020-10-12T04:13:52.006-04:00When you can't find Tranquility<!-- When you can't find Tranquility -->
<p>
Sometimes it is hard to concentrate during <a target=_blank href="https://sites.google.com/site/chs4o8pt/meditation-1#meditation_serenity">meditation</a>, or reach a state of pleasant abiding through meditation, even if you prepare for meditation by doing <a target=_blank href="http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2020/08/preparing-for-meditation-with.html">relaxation exercises</a> first. If something is on your mind and it keeps going round and round and you can't focus in meditation, or if you are feeling a persistent unpleasant emotion, it can help to use the following method described by Thanissaro Bhikkhu. He uses anger as an example but it can be used with any emotion.
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<a target=_blank href="https://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/thanissaro/concmind.html">https://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/thanissaro/concmind.html</a>
<blockquote>
The Path of Concentration & Mindfulness<br>by<br>Thanissaro Bhikkhu
<p>
...
<p>
One technique I like to use — when anger is present and you're in a situation where you don't immediately have to react to people — is simply to ask yourself in a good-natured way, "Okay, why are you angry?" Listen to what the mind has to say. Then pursue the matter: "But why are you angry at that? " "Of course, I'm angry. After all..." "Well, why are you angry at that?" If you keep this up, the mind will eventually admit to something stupid, like the assumption that people shouldn't be that way — even though they blatantly are that way — or that people should act in line with your standards, or whatever the mind is so embarrassed about that it tries to hide from you. But finally, if you keep probing, it'll fess up. You gain a lot of understanding of the anger that way, and this can really weaken its power over you.
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It is often very helpful to keep digging this way because often the things you are not thinking about and are not conscious of are the real trouble makers.
<p>
This has some important implications for awakening. Letting go of attachments and aversions results in less suffering. And while it seems obvious that we might have a hard time letting go of attachments to those aspects of self we like and or want to protect: the body, our opinions, social status, possessions, people and groups we care about, what is less obvious is that to let go of the sense of self, we have to be conscious of it, and often those aspects of our sense of self that we don't like, our faults, failures, and unpleasant past experiences etc. sometimes get pushed away out of the forefront consciousness. So some of the big aversions we need to let go of, the things we need to surrender to, are hidden or pushed to the side unless we really go looking for them. This hidden aspect of the sense of self is one of the things that makes awakening such a difficult undertaking, and facing the emotional pain of acknowledging our faults, failures and unpleasant past experiences is one of the things that causes dark nights, and difficulty in maintaining a consistent and continuous meditation practice.
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<p>
Copyright © 2020 by ncu9nc All rights reserved. Texts quoted from other sources are Copyright © by their owners.
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<!-- iframe width="400" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/idstring?rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen --><!-- /iframe -->
<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img src="http://c.statcounter.com/counter.php?sc_project=7954633&java=0&security=8a48dc9d&invisible=1" alt="." border="0" height="1" width="1" /></div>anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09701008088467238503noreply@blogger.com