Life 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!".

Friday, August 28, 2020

Natural Awakening Without Intense Meditation - Buddhadasa Bhikkhu

Buddhadasa Bhikkhu has written about how to attain full awakening without a formal meditation practice.

He says cultivating spiritual well-being from generosity, good conduct, or the simple forms of meditation naturally leads to full awakening.

There are several stages in the process: spiritual well-being -> tranquility -> insight into the true nature of things (the 3 characteristics) -> disenchantment -> disentanglement -> emancipation -> purification -> nirvana.

Buddhadasa Bhikkhu says generosity, good conduct, or the lower stages of concentration produces spiritual well-being. This leads to tranquility of mind. This tranquility of mind causes insight into the three characteristics to arise naturally. When one sees all things are inconstant, unsatisfactory, and not-self, disenchantment results and clinging begins to come undone. As clinging loosens, disentanglement occurs which culminates in emancipation from the objects of clinging. This results in final elimination of mental defilements or purity that produces nirvana.

He sums up by saying:

".. we simply encourage [nirvana] to come about of its own accord, naturally, by developing, day and night, the joy that results from mental purity, until the qualities we have described gradually evolve. ... We do it just by making our own way of daily living so pure and honest that there arise in succession spiritual joy, calm, insight into the true nature of things, disenchantment, disentanglement, escape, purification from defilements, and finally peace, nirvana."

https://dhammaratoblog.wordpress.com/insight-by-the-nature-method/

Insight by the Nature Method
Buddhadasa Bhikkhu
In the Tipitaka there are numerous references to people attaining naturally all stages of path and fruit. This generally came about in the presence of the Buddha himself but also happened later with other teachers. These people did not go into the forest and sit, assiduously practising concentration on certain objects in the way described in later manuals. No systematic effort was involved when arahantship was attained by the first five disciples of the Buddha on hearing the Discourse on Non-selfhood, or by the one thousand hermits on hearing the Fire Sermon. In these cases keen, penetrating insight came about quite naturally. These examples clearly show that natural concentration is liable to develop of its own accord while one is attempting to understand clearly some question; and that the resulting insight, as long as it is firmly established, is sure to be quite intense and stable. It happens naturally, automatically, in just the same way that the mind becomes concentrated the moment we set about doing arithmetic. The same happens when firing a gun. When we take aim the mind automatically becomes concentrated and steady.
...
Normally we completely overlook this naturally occurring concentration because it does not appear the least bit magical, miraculous, or awe-inspiring. But through the power of just such concentration, most of us could actually attain liberation. We could attain the path, the fruit, nirvana, and arahantship, just by means of natural concentration.
...
Now we shall see how concentration can come about, naturally
...
Now let us look at the nature of the stages of inner awareness leading to full insight into the world, that is, into the five aggregates (khandhas).
The first stage is joy (piti), mental happiness, or spiritual well-being. Doing good in some way, even giving alms, considered the most basic form of merit-making, can be a source of joy. Higher up, at the level of morality, completely blameless conduct by way of word and deed brings an increase of joy. We also discover that joy of a definite kind is associated with the lower stages of concentration.
...
This joy or rapture has in itself the power to induce tranquillity. Normally the mind is quite unrestrained, continually falling slave to all sort of thoughts and feelings associated with enticing things outside. It is normally restless, not calm. But as spiritual joy becomes established, calm and steadiness are bound to increase in proportion. When steadiness has been perfected, the result is full concentration. The mind becomes tranquil, steady, flexible, manageable, and at ease. It is then ready to be used for any chosen purpose, in particular for the elimination of the defilements.
It is not a case of the mind’s being rendered silent, hard, and rocklike. Nothing like that happens at all. The body feels normal, but the mind is especially calm and suitable for use in reflection and introspection. It is perfectly clear, cool, still, and restrained. This is quite unlike sitting in deep concentration. A deeply concentrated mind is in no position to investigate anything. It cannot practise introspection at all; it is in a state of unawareness and is of no use for insight.
...
The expression “insight into the true nature of things” refers to realizing transience (anicca), unsatisfactoriness or suffering (dukkha), and non-selfhood (anatta). It means seeing that nothing is worth getting, that no object whatsoever should be grasped at and clung to as being a self or as belonging to a self, as being good or bad, attractive or repulsive. Liking or disliking anything, even an idea or a memory, is clinging. To say that nothing is worth getting or being is the same as saying that nothing is worth clinging to. “Getting” refers to setting one’s heart on properly, position, wealth, or any attractive object. “Being” refers to the awareness of one’s status as husband, wife, rich man, poor man, winner, loser, or even the awareness of being oneself. If one can completely give up clinging to the idea of being oneself, then being oneself will no longer be subject to suffering.
...
When we have really come to perceive clearly that nothing is worth getting or being, disenchantment (nibbida) develops in proportion to the intensity of the insight. This is a sign that the clinging has become less firm and is starting to give way. It is a sign that we have been slaves for so long that the idea of trying to escape has at last occurred to us. This is the onset of disenchantment and disillusionment, when one becomes fed up with one’s own stupidity in grasping and clinging to things, believing things to be worth having and being.
...
As soon as disenchantment has set in, there is bound to come about a natural, automatic process of disentanglement (viraga), as if a rope with which one had been tightly bound were being untied, or a rinsing out, as when the dye that had been firmly fixed in a piece of cloth is removed by soaking it in the appropriate substances.
...
This process, whereby clinging gives way to a breaking free or a dissolving out from the world or from the objects of that clinging, was called by the Buddha emancipation (vimutti). This stage is most important. Though not the final stage, it is an essential step toward complete liberation. When one has broken free to this extent, complete liberation from suffering is assured.
...
Once broken free from slavery, one need never again be a slave to the world. One becomes pure and uncontaminated where previously one was defiled in every way. To be enslaved to things is to be defiled in body, speech, and mind. To break free from slavery to the delightful tastes of the world is to achieve a condition of purity and never be defiled again. This purity (visuddhi), once it has been attained, will give rise to a genuine calm and coolness free from all turbulence, strife, and torment. This state of freedom from oppression and turbulence was called by the Buddha simply Peace (santi), that is, stillness, coolness in all situations. It is virtually the same thing as nirvana.
...
... we simply encourage (nirvana) to come about of its own accord, naturally, by developing, day and night, the joy that results from mental purity, until the qualities we have described gradually evolve.
...
We do it just by making our own way of daily living so pure and honest that there arise in succession spiritual joy, calm, insight into the true nature of things, disenchantment, disentanglement, escape, purification from defilements, and finally peace, nirvana.

Saturday, August 22, 2020

How Mindfulness of Breathing Leads to Awakening

In the book Selves & Not-self: The Buddhist Teaching on Anatta by Thanissaro Bhikkh, there is an explanation of how a meditation technique called anapanasatti (mindfulness of breathing) leads to stream-entry - the first stage of awakening.

The explanation involves the Buddha's teaching on the First Noble Truth: that clinging leads to suffering, and the clinging is to the five aggregates.

In Selves & Not-self, Thanissaro says:

"In his [Buddha's] first noble truth, he identifies suffering as the five clinging aggregates."

In the Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta translated by Thanissaro, it says:

Now this, monks, is the noble truth of stress:[1] Birth is stressful, aging is stressful, death is stressful; sorrow, lamentation, pain, distress, & despair are stressful; association with the unbeloved is stressful, separation from the loved is stressful, not getting what is wanted is stressful. In short, the five clinging-aggregates are stressful.

And it is the five aggregates from which we build our sense of self.

In Selves & Not-self Thanissaro writes:

As we will see later, he explains the five aggregates as the raw material from which you create your sense of self, but that it’s not skillful to think that they constitute what you are.

When one practices anapanasatti, the steps of gladdening the mind, calming the mind etc result in letting go. You are not attached or clinging if you are relaxed and happy. If you feel good, you are not suffering (ie you are not clinging to the aggregates).

In the Dipa Sutta translated by Thanissaro, it says:

{5} He trains himself, 'I will breathe in sensitive to rapture.' He trains himself, 'I will breathe out sensitive to rapture.' {6} He trains himself, 'I will breathe in sensitive to pleasure.' He trains himself, 'I will breathe out sensitive to pleasure.' {7} He trains himself, 'I will breathe in sensitive to mental fabrication.'[4] He trains himself, 'I will breathe out sensitive to mental fabrication.' {8} He trains himself, 'I will breathe in calming mental fabrication.' He trains himself, 'I will breathe out calming mental fabrication.'
"{9} He trains himself, 'I will breathe in sensitive to the mind.' He trains himself, 'I will breathe out sensitive to the mind.' {10} He trains himself, 'I will breathe in gladdening the mind.' He trains himself, 'I will breathe out gladdening the mind.' {11} He trains himself, 'I will breathe in steadying the mind.' He trains himself, 'I will breathe out steadying the mind. {12} He trains himself, 'I will breathe in releasing the mind.' He trains himself, 'I will breathe out releasing the mind.

In Selves & Not-self, Thanissaro writes:

To wean the mind off its usual habit of feeding on sensuality, we have to train it to enjoy the genuine health food provided by the other means of skillful clinging. This is one of the main reasons why we have to feed it with concentration. The pleasure and rapture of jhana help provide the sense of well-being we need in the here and now to be willing to change our diet [§§21-22].

Thanissaro clarifies what he means by jhana in The Path of Concentration & Mindfulness.

Many of us have heard that jhana is a very intense trance-like state that requires intense staring and shutting out the rest of the world. It sounds nothing like mindfulness at all. But if you look in the Canon where the Buddha describes jhana, that's not the kind of state he's talking about. To be in jhana is to be absorbed, very pleasurably, in the sense of the whole body altogether. A very broad sense of awareness fills the entire body.

As you let go of clinging to the aggregates, the same aggregates that you build your sense of self from, you become freed from identity view.

Thanissaro has written a book on meditation: With Each & Every Breath: A Guide to Meditation

My web page on meditation also includes a suitable technique.

Some people may find it hard to practice the jhana's, in that case, according to Bhante Vimalaramsi, metta meditation will work too: On Bhante Vimalaramsi's web site it says:

Happiness arises as the burden of the ego melts away. Bhante talks about the benefits of using Metta here vs. the breath. Metta is much faster and easier for the path to awakening. Metta is not just a "feel-good" practice; it is the direct path to the unconditioned (SN 46.54(4)).

In Selves & Not-self, Thanissaro also discusses the sense of self. He says our idea of self is constantly changing. We might think of ourself in one moment as a child of someone, in another moment as a parent of someone else, at some other time as an employee and later a supervisor, etc etc. What we consider ourself also defines what we consider not-self. Since we are constantly changing these two things, we should learn which forms are beneficial and which are not.

Thanissaro writes:

So, to repeat, the issue is not, “What is my true self?” but “What kind of perception of self is skillful and when is it skillful, what kind of perception of not-self is skillful and when is it skillful?
We already engage in these perceptions all of the time and have been doing so ever since we were children. We have many different perceptions of self. Each sense of self is strategic, a means to an end. Each comes with a boundary, inside of which is “self” and outside of which is “not-self.” And so our sense of what’s self and what’s not-self keeps changing all of the time depending on our desires and what we see will lead to true happiness.
Take an example from your childhood. Suppose you have a younger sister, and someone down the street is threatening her. You want to protect her. At that moment she is very much your sister. She belongs to you, so you will do whatever you can to protect her. Then suppose that, when you’ve brought her home safely, she begins to play with your toy car and won’t give it back to you. Now she’s no longer your sister. She’s the Other. Your sense of your self, and of what is yours and not yours, has shifted. The boundary line between self and not-self has changed.
You’ve been doing this sort of thing—changing the boundaries of what’s self and not-self—all of the time. Think back on your life—or even for just a day—to see the many times your sense of self has changed from one role to another.

We can adopt some ideas of self that are beneficial and lead to happiness and reject others that are not beneficial as not-self. It is this sense of not-self that "anatta" referrs to.

Thanissaro explains this:

... the most skillful form of self-identity you can take along the path—the self that takes pride in always being willing to learn from its actions.
...
We also need to develop a healthy sense of self, which is self-reliant, responsible, and heedful. So we need to feed in these three ways. As for clinging to sensuality: This is the one type of clinging that has no role on the path, but we do require external conditions conducive to training the mind. We need a certain amount of sensory pleasure provided by food, clothing, shelter, medicine, and the pleasures of a peaceful, quiet place to meditate. We’re advised not to obsess over these things, but if we haven’t yet gotten to the point where we can maintain our mental center everywhere, we have to hold to the principle of searching out surroundings conducive for the practice whenever we can.

Thanissaro also points out that the Buddha, when directly asked, refused to say if there is a self or not. This occurs in the Ananda Sutta.

Then the wanderer Vacchagotta went to the Blessed One and, on arrival, exchanged courteous greetings with him. After an exchange of friendly greetings & courtesies, he sat to one side. As he was sitting there he asked the Blessed One: "Now then, Venerable Gotama, is there a self?"
When this was said, the Blessed One was silent.
"Then is there no self?"
A second time, the Blessed One was silent.
Then Vacchagotta the wanderer got up from his seat and left.

Thanassaro also says the sense of self is "an activity, a process."

The important point to notice as we connect these talks with our meditation is that we can view our sense of self as an activity, a process. It’s something we do, and something we can learn to do more skillfully. At the same time we’ll look at our sense of what’s not-self—which is also an activity —and learn how to do that more skillfully, too.
When we learn to do this in the proper way, we’ll arrive at true happiness, free from any suffering and stress. At that point, questions of self and not-self will be put aside. When you arrive at true happiness, you no longer need strategies to protect it—the way you do for forms of happiness that are subject to change—because it’s unconditioned. It doesn’t depend on anything at all. The strategy of self is no longer needed, and neither is the strategy of not-self. As Ajaan Suwat, one of my teachers, once said, when you find true happiness, you don’t ask who’s experiencing it, for that’s not an issue. The experience itself is sufficient. It doesn’t need anybody to watch over it. But to reach that point we have to learn how to develop our skill in employing both the strategies of self and the strategies of not-self.

Thanissaro also explains how full awakening occurs

First you master the state of jhana. Then you try to develop perceptions that give rise to a sense of dispassion for the jhana. Once you’ve developed that sense of dispassion, you develop the perception in which you see all-around dispassion and cessation as desirable. Then you learn how to drop even that perception and stay right there. That, the Buddha says, is where full awakening can occur.

Part II

The path to awakening with anapanasatti works by producing the seven factors of awakening.

Mindfulness->Analysis->Persistence->Joy->Tranquility->Concentration->Equanimity->Awakening.

This series of steps is more like a pipeline than a sequential series of attainments. You start experiencing improvements in subsequent factors as soon as you begin to make improvements in preceding factors. You can measure your progress by observing the development of the factors of awakening within yourself. This is consistent with my views on gradual awakening.

Another way of monitoring your progress involves the stages of awakening which are defined by freedom from the fetters. Anybody can monitor their own progress through observing their own increasing freedom from the fetters over time.

Thanissaro describes what stream-entery is like in his book Into the Stream. The excerpt below is from the table of contents. The first part is how to attain stream entry. The second part is what it is like to be a stream-enterer. There is much more to it than meditating and realizing anatta. It includes virtue. If you don't have virtue you are not awakened. All those highly rated "arhats" who were exposed in sex scandals (described in part here and here) may have had innumerable realizations and "enlightenment" experiences, but they would not even be considered stream-enterers by this reckoning.

Part I: The Way to Stream Entry

Association with People of Integrity
Listening to the True Dhamma
Appropriate Attention
Practice in Accordance with the Dhamma
Mindfulness & Alertness
Restraint of the Senses
The Three Forms of Right Conduct
The Four Establishings of Mindfulness
The Seven Factors for Awakening
Clear Knowing & Release
Part II: Stream Entry & its Results

The Arising of the Dhamma Eye
The Three Fetters
The Character of a Stream-winner
Rewards
Advice

Monday, August 10, 2020

Practicing Relaxing Meditation Before Insight Meditation

When I have been on meditation retreats at a Buddhist monastery, we would do bowing practice and chanting practice before sitting meditation. This is how the monks normally prepare for meditation. If the monks who are professional meditators need to prepare for meditation, it seems reasonable that a lay person would also need to prepare for meditation.

Before I start a meditation session, I often prepare my mind for it by doing relaxation exercises first. This helps me to have better concentration and a more consistent experience when I meditate and it frequently eliminates any unpleasant emotions I might be experiencing at the time. Stress and mental fatigue are two main causes of poor concentration and mental turbulence. Relaxation exercises ease stress and mental fatigue.

These relaxation exercises can also be considered a form of meditation. If you try them you will see that they require concentration and attention to do them and that sometimes you may find yourself distracted by stray thoughts and you need to refocus your attention back on the exercises just like you do with meditation. If you are upset, or tense, or experiencing mental turbulence and you don't have enough time to do both relaxation exercises and sitting meditation, you might choose to do just these relaxing meditation exercises.

These meditations should be done in a relaxed way. That doesn't mean forcing yourself to go slow if you are in a hurry. It means don't be in a hurry. Let go of the hurry and be relaxed as you do the meditations.

First I do physical relaxation exercises like progressive muscular relaxation where I move each part of the body ten times. Every joint in the body has two sets of muscles that move it. One set bends the joint and the other straightens it. When you bend a joint, the muscles that straighten it receive a nerve impulse that causes them to relax. When you straighten a joint, the muscles that bend it receive a nerve impulse that causes them to relax. So bending and straightening joints is a very effective way to relax muscle tension. Unpleasant emotions often cause muscle tension when they affect your facial expression, posture, tone of voice, or rate of breathing. Relaxing this muscle tension can be helpful in dissolving those emotions. Other types of physical relaxation exercises that also work well include certain forms of tai-chi, qigong, and yoga, etc.

Next, I do mental relaxation exercises, either lying down or sitting in a chair. (If you try these exercises sitting in a chair and have trouble reaching the deep states of relaxation or the transition described below, it might help to do the exercises lying down.)

First I visualize colors of the spectrum where I name each color (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, violet) and at the same time visualize either just the color or something of that color (fruits, flowers, and vegetables work well but it can be anything).

Then I do an autogenic relaxation exercise where I mentally name and relax each part of my body noticing a relaxed, heavy, tingling or numb feeling in each part as I relax it.

I repeat the visualization and the autogenic relaxation alternately several times. As I do this, I notice my respiration calming down to the point where I am aware of my heartbeat. While visualizing colors, if you name each color as you visualize it you might notice a feeling of relaxation as you name each color. This can happen if your breathing becomes synchronized with your heartbeat and you exhale as you name each color (even though you are just thinking the name not saying it aloud). As you do this you may notice a feeling of relaxation in your body pulsing along with your heartbeat. You can then bring that same pulsing relaxation to the autogenic relaxation where you notice tingling in each part of the body in synchrony with your heart beat.

If I first start the pulsing relaxation during the visualizations and than make my whole body tingling/numb/heavy with the autogenic relaxation, I often feel a transition to a different mental state. Sometimes the transition may be stronger, other times it may be more subtle.

As this transition occurs, it may seem like you lost focus for a moment but now your mind is very clear and alert. Any unpleasant emotions I may have been feeling have dissipated and I feel positive spiritual emotions such as forgiveness, compassion, goodwill, and humility. These spiritual feelings come from the empathic network in the brain. If you can notice the difference between being in your analytical network and empathic network, it will be easier to maintain this relaxed state and these spiritual feelings if you try to stay in the empathic network. At this stage I also find blissful states are easily accessible. This pleasant state is fragile and may be disrupted by unpleasant or stressful experiences, but sitting meditation can make it more durable and resistant to disruption.

It can also help to spend a brief time breathing in a relaxing way counting to three as you exhale (to slow down and prolong your exhalation - which has a relaxing effect), pause for a moment and then inhale and repeat this mode of breathing until you experience the transition.

Sometimes you may do these exercises and not quite reach the same deep level of tranquility that you have in the past, and you might not be sure exactly why. This can be due to what I call "invisible stress". At times you can be somewhat tense or stressed but not be aware of it. Maybe because you experience it so often it seems normal, or there may be an unpleasant emotion lurking just below the level of consciousness. But if you look around within your mind and body you can sometimes find it and recognize it. Then, once you are aware of a feeling of tension or stress or emotion, you can continue with these exercises until you fully relax. It might help to repeat the physical relaxation exercises to help you be more aware of feelings of stress in your body, and this is one reason you should not skip the physical relaxation exercises at the start of a session even if you don't feel physical stress or tension.

Another obstacle to full relaxation can be stress that has some type of biological cause. In this case a mental technique may not be able counter it. One situation that can occur is if you eat a lot of sugary foods, a few hours later you might experience low blood sugar due to the body overreacting to elevated sugar levels. When this overreaction happens, the body uses stress hormones to signal the the body to release sugar into the blood causing you to experience stress. In this case consuming a small amount of carbohydrates might be able to bring your blood sugar levels back to normal and allow you to reach full relaxation using these exercises. In this situation, one way to tell when you blood sugar levels are back to normal is if you find your mood is slightly elevated after consuming the carbohydrates.

While doing the relaxing meditation exercises, it can be helpful to notice the stages you go through as you become more and more relaxed:

If you are tense and don't realize it, when you do physical relaxation exercises and notice the sensations in your muscles, you may start to notice the feelings of physical tension and mental stress. Physical tension is often caused by mental stress. As you become more aware of these feelings in some cases you might feel like releasing emotions through physical expressions such as grimacing or crying. If present, these feelings should diminish if you do mental relaxation exercises after the physical exercises.

When you first start a session of mental relaxation exercises, you may sometimes become distracted by thoughts about whatever might be causing any mental turbulence you are experiencing, such as thoughts about events of the day or worries about the future. After continuing with the mental relaxation exercises, you may notice these distracting thoughts quiet down, and the distractions that arise are just random thoughts about this and that. When those types of thoughts quiet down, you may notice nonsensical dreamlike thoughts arising. At this stage (if I don't get the feeling of floating earlier) I will begin sitting and meditating. (This link has been changed the old link is here.)

It may help to maintain the relaxed state after you finish the relaxing meditation exercises if you continue to think of the floating feeling.

While you are in a deeply relaxed state, you might find that you are able to think of something unpleasant or some unpleasant situation or something you are worried about without actually feeling any unpleasant emotions. If you practice this during a relaxing meditation session, you might be able to maintain that non-attachment after the session - be able to think about it without reacting. And if you can think about it without reacting, then if it happens you might not react strongly either. So while you are in the deeply relaxed state you can practice and learn how to let go of attachments and aversions. You might even get a general feeling for letting go that you can apply to any situation in daily life.

One thing that can be helpful for maintaining a peaceful feeling in daily life is to remind yourself, "The only thing that can interrupt my peace is me." After a meditation session as you return to daily life, if you notice a peaceful feeling and try to stay relaxed and mindful of it, you will also notice what interferes with the peaceful feeling. Over time you will come to understand that all disturbances to that peaceful feeling pass through your mind and it is your mind/body that interrupts the peaceful feeling. Reminding yourself of this can help you maintain that peaceful feeling during daily life.

After doing the relaxing meditation, the mind may still have a tendency to resume its running chatter and this can create mental turbulence and undo the effects of the relaxation exercises. To prevent this it can be helpful to quiet the mental chatter by meditating by counting the breath. Try to stay mindful of the peaceful feeling while you breathe in a relaxed way and as you do so, count exhalations up to ten and then start over at one. You can also count inhalations or both exhalations and inhalations. As the mind calms down, you can count fewer breaths - maybe up to 4 or 5. Try to keep your attention on the peaceful feeling and counting but do this in a relaxed way. Making an intense effort will create tension and have the opposite effect from what is desired. Whenever you notice you have become distracted, consciously notice what distracted you (a thought, an emotion, an impulse or a sensation etc) and then gently return your attention to counting the breath. Some people may consider counting the breath a technique for beginners. It isn't a beginner's technique or an advanced technique. It has various uses one of which is to help quiet mental chatter. If you lose the peaceful feeling while you are meditating this way, you can try to regain it by doing the visualization and the autogenic relaxation while you are meditating.

It can be beneficial to be mindful of whether or not you are relaxed or experiencing muscle tension in daily life. Noticing the physical sensations that accompany emotions can help with this. When you notice you are tense, try to relax.

Monday, August 3, 2020

Experiencing Anatta

Thoughts, emotions, feelings, and impulses arise from the unconscious mind unasked for and uninvited. They are not you or yours.

Seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling, touch, etc, are the same. You don't try to hear, you just hear.

When you try to solve a problem it may seem like you are deliberately using your mind, but where does the impulse to solve the problem come from?

It may seem like you are just awareness observing the activity of the mind and sensations in the body and perceptions of the outside world.

But the sense of being an observer is just like any other thought or feeling. It arises from the unconscious. If you can observe it, it isn't you.

When you look for a self within your mind the thought "self" creates a sense of self. Like telling someone not to think of pink elephants causes them to think of pink elephants.

When you look closely and observe the activity of the mind, sensations: sights, sounds, smells, feelings, etc., and mental activity: thoughts, emotions, impulses, etc., you see that consciousness is a series of discrete moments of awareness like the frames of a movie that are seen so quickly they create the illusion of continuity, they create the illusion of a continuous (permanent) self, when there are really only distinct moments of awareness. When you ponder continuity, also consider your self-concept. Is the angry self the same self as the happy self? Is the self of past years the same as the current self? When you are at work, you might think of yourself as an employee or a boss. When you are with your parents, you might think of yourself as their child. When you are with your child, you might think of yourself as a parent. Whatever you do, wherever you are it can influence who and what you think you are. Which self is real? Are any of them the real self? During daily life, try to notice how your self concept changes throughout the day.

When asked if there is a self, Buddha refused to answer because saying yes or no would not help his students to understand. What Buddha did say is that if you look for a permanent self, you can't find one anywhere. Buddha wanted his students to understand the sense of self as an activity or process.

To experience anatta (not-self), think through what is written above including the linked article. Notice the feeling of just being an observer of moments of awareness. Then consider that there is no observer either. How do you feel? Now, drop all thoughts of self or not-self or observing or awakening or dharma or Buddha or attaining states of consciousness or attaining anything from meditation.

Drop all intentions. Intentions are often intertwined with attachments to the self such as success/failure, winning/losing, and craving/aversion.

Just observe the activity of the mind with a clear mind.

This is not supposed to be a logical argument that is true or false. It is an attempt to communicate a feeling. Feelings are not logical.

Pages