Life in B Flat(Science and Spirituality): meditation

Showing posts with label meditation. Show all posts

Sunday, February 23, 2025

Letting Go of Egoic Attachments

Giving up belief in identity-view is the key to stream-entry (the first stage of awakening). It is equivalent to realizing anatta.

Giving up belief in identity-view is equivalent to letting go of egoic attachments.

Egoic attachments are identified by observing the mind and body and noticing when unpleasant emotions and cravings arise in response to events or thoughts and noticing if/how the ego is involved. Learning to notice the sensations in the body that accompany emotions help one to notice when unpleasant emotions and cravings arise.

It is possible to learn to let go of egoic attachments by practicing relaxing meditation which helps you to cultivate samatha.

Cultivating vipassana helps you learn to notice egoic attachments, and cultivating samatha helps you learn to let go of egoic attachments. When you let go of egoic attachments you are not affected by identity-view and you suffer much less.

Friday, February 14, 2025

There isn't an entity separate from the aggregates.

There isn't any entity separate from the aggregates*. When something upsets us we are thinking of an entity ("me") that needs to be defended from insult or injury. While there is a body that is made up of various tissues, a brain that has different regions with different functions, a mind with different ways or producing thoughts, emotions, impulses, sensory experiences, sense of self or no-self, there isn't actually an entity ("me") separate from those various different things. Yet we think "I have a body, I have a mind, those thoughts emotions impulses are mine". There isn't any actual unified entity, "I", or "me", that has those things only the separate parts. Our attachments to self are based on an idea of a "me" that does not exist, when the basis for the attachments is understood to be an illusion, the attachments diminish.

When you understand from observing the mind in action that there isn't any entity separate from those different parts, that there is no one that needs to be protected from insult or injury, then attachments and suffering diminish. But reading these words alone may not allow you to understand this. The way to understand it is to quiet the mind with relaxing meditation, then watch the activity of the mind:

Notice the arising and fading of thoughts, emotions, impulses, sensory experiences, and the sense of self or no-self.
Notice thoughts, emotions, impulses etc. pop into awareness fully formed from who-knows-where. You don't see how they are formed, created, or chosen. When you try to concentrate you get distracted by stray thoughts. You have unwanted emotions - you don't choose your emotions. You have impulses that are often unhelpful. Sensory perceptions and sensations appear in consciousness and you can't stop them. People have conflicting desires that work at cross purposes such as craving food when trying to lose weight. You don't control your thoughts, emotions, impulses etc., so you don't control your mind. If you don't control you mind, you don't control your body either.
Notice that stream of consciousness is a sequence of cause and effect where one thought or emotion or impulse triggers the next due to a memory, an association, an experience, or logic, without any actual entity controlling it.
Notice automaticity. Notice that when you do something, to a large extent it happens automatically. When you walk, you don't think about balance or having to move your feet a certain way, you just do it. Sometimes when you drive you find yourself on a section of road, but you don't remember getting there.
Notice the feeling of agency (free will) comes from having impulses before you actually do something, but the impulse and the decision to follow it or reject it arises from unconscious processes that you don't have control over, they just pop into awareness like all other thoughts, emotions, impulses, sensory experiences, and senses of self or no-self.
Notice the idea or feeling of being an observer of thoughts, emotions, impulses etc. is dependent on something to observe, and it comes and goes depending on intensity of attention, and it is no different from any other thought or feeling that arises from unconscious processes.
Notice that when you are upset, the ego is usually involved and that you have an idea of a being, an entity "I" or "me" that needs to be protected from insult or injury, and that entity doesn't physically exist - what really exists are just the various separate parts, the body and tissues, the brain and its various regions, and the mind made up of different sources for thoughts, emotions, impulses, sensory experiences, and senses of self and no-self.

Most people have already noticed much of this without doing any formal meditation or mindfulness practices. What they haven't done is recognized the implications.

Another helpful practice is mindfulness. When you are mindful, in meditation or daily life, you are aware of what is happening or what you are doing in the present moment. You are not thinking about the past or the future or trying to solve a problem. You are just observing in the present moment. When you are mindful, when you mind is not wandering, when you are observing in the present moment, you are not thinking of a "me" that is separate from the aggregates.

The belief that there is an entity separate from the aggregates is called identity-view (sakkaya-ditthi), it is one of the ten fetters that are lost when one is fully awakened. Losing identity-view is the main component of the first stage of awakening, stream-entry.

* The Stream Entry of Ajahn Chah - By Ajahn Nyanamoli Thero

...
You can describe to yourself your experience as a whole, which can be called ‘the five aggregates’. If something is external to it – you realise ‘how could I even think of that? How could I think of something external to my thinking?’ That is a complete contradiction in terms.
...

Wednesday, September 25, 2024

Look for Nirvana in the Present Moment

Many people think of enlightenment as something they might attain in the future.

But it is a mistake to look for it in the future.

One should look for nirvana in the present moment, not in the future.

Consider all the things you want or fear in the future, or regret about the past, or things that you want, or like, or don't like now - let go of all that, let go of whatever is separating you from nirvana now, and look for nirvana right now in the present moment. (Letting go doesn't necessarily mean you don't have emotions, it can mean you let go of your attachments or aversions to emotions.)

Wherever you are, whatever you are doing, whatever is happening, that's where you should look for nirvana. Look for it with a calm mind.

Saturday, June 15, 2024

Equanimity

Having equanimity doesn't mean that you don't have emotions or that you don't feel emotions.

Having equanimity means that when you experience unpleasant emotions and cravings, you let yourself feel them without trying to stop them and without judging them: without thinking they are bad, and not thinking you shouldn't feel them. You don't create secondary emotions such as: "I don't like this feeling." "I shouldn't feel like this." "It's bad to feel like this." "This feeling means I failed." etc. Judging and secondary emotions can be very subtle so you may have to make an effort to notice if they are present.

And having equanimity also means just observing emotions and not getting drawn in by emotions: not getting lost in thought or carried away by emotions (trying to solve the problem or planning a reaction or thinking about how it is unfair etc. etc.).

When you just observe without rejecting, judging, or getting drawn in, the emotions seem like they are not yours, your ego is disengaged, you suffer much less.

Having equanimity doesn't mean you don't react to situations; it means you respond with compassion and reason rather than selfish emotions.

In summary, having equanimity means you feel the emotion, you don't try to stop it, you don't judge it, you don't get caught up in it, you just observe it.

Judging and secondary emotions can be subtle so you might need to make an effort to notice if they are present.
If you feel tense you can try to relax.
If your mind wanders you can bring it back to feeling the emotion.
Remember, the situation is not causing you to suffer, your reaction to the situation is causing you to suffer.

It is easier to have equanimity if you are relaxed and your mind is calm.

Friday, May 24, 2024

Disengaging the Ego

Unpleasant emotions can be hard to let go of. If you examine unpleasant emotions, you may notice that there is usually some involvement of the ego. You might feel that if you could somehow disengage your ego then you could let go of the emotion and you would suffer a lot less.

There is a way to disengage the ego. It is easier to learn to do it while meditating, but the disengagement persists for a time after a meditation session, so it can be helpful in daily life. And with practice, disengaging the ego becomes easier to do.

This is one way to disengage the ego:

Relax and meditate to quiet the mind.
Then notice an unpleasant emotion, let yourself feel it.
Try to see clearly how the ego is involved - so that you understand disengaging the ego, letting go, would eliminate the emotion. But at this point you probably feel stuck, you can't let go.
Then try to relax. That probably that won't change much, you still feel stuck, until the next step:
Add an extra ingredient.
I don't know exactly what to call this extra ingredient, probably the best way to describe it that will get someone close enough to figure it out for themselves is to call it metta. But it is not exactly metta, it is metta/humility/forgiveness/tranquil-happiness/freedom/compassion. It is the feeling of letting go, the feeling of letting go of your ego, the feeling of having your ego disengaged.
When you do this correctly, the ego disengages, you let go of the emotion.
I think many people who meditate will recognize this feeling, but you might not think of it as ego disengagement. I know this feeling very well, it's what I mean when I say, "When I am fully relaxed, nothing bothers me". But I had to experience it in the right context to see that is ego disengagement. If you follow the link and master that practice, you will understand what this "extra ingredient" is. When you do that practice, first your body starts to feel numb or tingling, then that feeling becomes more intense, then you feel like you are floating, and that becomes more intense, then you experience a transition (your ego becomes disengaged) and nothing is bothering you. If you experience that transition while focusing your attention on an unpleasant emotion, you will see that your ego has been disengaged.

I don't know how easy or hard this will be for any particular person to figure this out, but once you see how to do it, you can practice it and get better at it. The disengagement persists so you have to wait until it fades before you can try to produce it again.

In Buddhism, the first stage of awakening is called stream-entry. The main ingredient in stream-entry is the loss of identity view. Identity view is the belief that the self is a thing. When you are able to disengage the ego, you implicitly recognize that the ego is something that can be turned on and off or engaged and disengaged. The ego is not a thing, it is not a permanent entity, it is some type of process - it is one of the various unconscious processes that produce mental activity ie. thoughts, emotions, impulses, sensory experiences, and also the sense of self (the ego). When you can disengage the ego, it is loss of identity view.

Loss of identity view doesn't mean you don't have emotions, it means you don't identify with them. When the ego is disengaged, you can let go of emotions more easily, and you can stay mindful more easily. When you are mindful of emotions, you don't react to emotions by pushing them away or judging them or suppressing them and you also don't get lost in thought or carried away by emotions in response to them.

The other factors in stream entry are loss of doubt about the teachings and loss of attachment to rites and rituals. Loss of attachment to rites and rituals is interperted to mean that you stop looking at meditation as some type of magic process because you see how it really works. So, learning to disengage the ego also involves loss of these other two factors, you understand how meditation helps you end suffering, and you have no doubt that it really works. Therefore, learning to disengage the ego is one way to attain stream-entry.

The process of learning to disengage the ego more easily over time so that you can keep the ego disengaged for longer and longer periods of time in daily life is part of attaining higher stages of awakening. In order to keep the ego disengaged in daily life, it is necessary to be mindful in daily life so that you can stay relaxed and notice when the ego becomes engaged and then disengage it.

Another part of attaining higher stages of awakening is letting go of attachments and aversions. Disengaging the ego allows you to let go but it doesn't automatically rid you of attachments and aversions. It doesn't eliminate your habitual reactions that have been reinforced over a lifetime. You still have to observe the activity of your mind to recognize attachments and aversions, and you have to decide to let go. Letting go means learning to relax and accept your emotions rather than reacting to them with in unmindful ways - you don't push emotions away or get carried away by them. Letting go may feel like letting down your barriers and expanding your borders. It may feel like your self is dissolving.

It can be hard to figure out how to accept emotions. It becomes easier if you understand that an unpleasant emotion is resistance to a fact of reality that we don't like. It's a lot easier to accept a fact we don't like than an emotion because if we understand a fact is the truth, then there is really no alternative but to believe it, ie. to accept it as truth. If we understand an unpleasant emotion is simply our resistance to an unpleasant fact, then if we can accept the fact as a truth, then when we accept the fact, there is no more resistance to it. It can be helpful, when you experience an unpleasant emotion, to identify the fact of reality that you are resisting, and remind yourself that what is really the problem is your resistance to the fact that, "reality is not the way I want it to be".

In Buddhism, those at the highest stage of awakening are said to experience nirvana with remainder. Nirvana is the absence of suffering. That there is remainder means it is not complete absence of suffering. This is because a complete elimination of suffering is not possible due to the limitations imposed by being a biological organism.

Related Reading

Despite the common perception that awakening is a sudden and mystical experience, for many people, maybe the majority of people, awakening is not sudden and not mystical.

Man on Cloud Mountain - Shodo Harada Roshi-Segment

Often enlightenment or kensho or satori is considered to be some kind of unusual experience or something external or some kind of special phenomenon. But it’s not like that. There may be some kind of sudden revelation or some kind of sudden perception, but its not something that is that unusual or that strange or foreign that we come upon or that comes upon us. 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.

On Enlightenment – An Interview with Shinzen Young

When it happens suddenly and dramatically you’re in seventh heaven. It’s like after the first experience of love, you’ll never be the same. However, for most people who’ve studied with me it doesn’t happen that way. What does happen is that the person gradually works through the things that get in the way of enlightenment, but so gradually that they might not notice. What typically happens is that over a period of years, and indeed decades, within that person the craving, aversion, and unconsciousness—the mula kleshas (the fundamental “impurities”), get worked through. But because all this is happening gradually they’re acclimatizing as it’s occurring and they may not realize how far they’ve come. That’s why I like telling the story about the samurai...

Enlightenments By Jack Kornfield

There is also what is called the “gateless gate.” One teacher describes it this way: “I would go for months of retreat training, and nothing spectacular would happen, no great experiences. Yet somehow everything changed. What most transformed me were the endless hours of mindfulness and compassion, giving a caring attention to what I was doing. I discovered how I automatically tighten and grasp, and with that realization I started to let go, to open to an appreciation of whatever was present. I found an ease. I gave up striving. I became less serious, less concerned with myself. My kindness deepened. I experienced a profound freedom, simply the fruit of being present over and over.” This was her gateless gate.

Uposatha Sutta - The Dharmafarers, themindingcenter.org

Even so, bhikshus, just as the great ocean slopes gradually, slides gradually, inclines gradually, not abruptly like a precipice — so, too, in this Dharma-Vinaya, penetration into final knowledge occurs by gradual training, not abruptly.1

Monday, May 20, 2024

Give Yourself Permission to Have Emotions

When something happens and you feel an unpleasant emotion or craving, you may react to that emotion with more unpleasant emotions. This creates a type of feedback loop. (For those who are interested in dependent origination, step 12 feeds back into step 6.)

For every time a situation triggers us, we trigger ourselves again and again, because we don't like having unpleasant emotions, (especially if we practice meditation because we want to become serene and we feel anything that is not serenity is a kind of failure). This is one reason it is so hard to let go. And it focuses our mind on the situation so we get more triggers from the situation.

But you can interrupt the feedback loop when you give yourself permission to feel bad (allow yourself to accept/welcome your feelings without rejecting them or pushing them away) and while also maintaining mindfulness (not judging, not getting drawn in: your thinking mind doesn't start wandering, and you are not carried away by emotions).

The suffering caused by negative reactions to emotions is usually what is causing the vast majority of our suffering. The resistance is really the problem not the actual emotion. When you accept your emotions with equanimity, you experience a great sense of relief. Unpleasant situations are much easier to endure when you stop making things worse by beating yourself up over how you react to them.

And it isn't just unpleasant emotions and cravings. There are often emotions that in themselves aren't unpleasant, but we might not like to have them for various reasons so we react to them in an unpleasant way. This often happens if we feel an emotion that doesn't reflect our values, for example if you think of yourself as a spiritual person but you feel excessive pride, or someone else's misfortune makes you happy, etc. These types of emotions can set up the same type of feedback loop, where one emotions results in other unpleasant emotions.

By giving yourself permission to feel all your emotions, by making it okay to let yourself feel what you feel, you can experience your emotions to their full depth, explore layers of emotions and associated reactions. You can get things out of your system (let go of them) by letting them express themselves.

Doing this, in a sense, is losing identity-view because we stop protecting the "self" from insult and injury. We stop reacting like the self-image is a physical thing when it is only an image projected by the unconscious processes that produce all of our thoughts, emotions, and impulses. When you give yourself permission to feel all your emotions, it is like removing the ego filter.

Developing the habit of observing the mind and learning to notice the sensations in your body that accompany emotions can help you learn to notice emotions more easily.

When you notice an emotion you don't like, it can help to say to yourself in a relaxed way:
"It's okay to feel _____".
Try not to push away or judge the emotion, also try to observe how it feels in your mind and body while staying mindful, ie. without getting lost in thought or carried away by emotions.

Saying "it's okay" is a way of saying, "I experience relief from struggling against a fact, by accepting a fact as a fact. Resisting the facts of reality just makes things worse than they have to be. It is much nicer to have equanimity than to be upset - being upset doesn't help."

Saying "it's okay" is not to be understood as giving yourself permission to do anything in response to a situation or emotion, and it is not to be understood as encouraging yourself to repeat anything in the future, it is to be understood only as a reminder to experience your emotions with equanimity and mindfulness. (Equanimity is not pushing away, not rejecting, not judging and mindfulness is not getting lost in thought, not getting carried away by emotions). When you react to situations with equanimity and mindfulness, you are just taking your ego out of the equation. This will allow you to formulate a response to a situation with compassion and reason rather than selfish emotions.

In addition to emotions, you can fill in the blank with physical sensations and situations as well as emotions. You can also include things that are pleasant but that you might react negatively to. Accept with equanimity anything that produces a negative reaction (disliking or craving). Accept the situation and your reactions with equanimity. Try to notice different aspects of the situation that might be upsetting you and accept all of them.

When you notice unpleasant emotions arising, if you look closely you can usually see that the ego is involved. There is almost always something that offends the ego or threatens the self-image that is responsible for the unpleasant emotions. By accepting situations and emotions, giving yourself permission to have unpleasant emotions, you are disengaging the ego. You are teaching yourself to turn off the ego filter, to look at things free from identity-view.

When you accept everything with equanimity, you experience a great sense of relief. Unpleasant situations are much easier to endure when you stop making things ten times worse by beating yourself up over how you react to them.

Friday, May 10, 2024

Observing the Three Characteristics

On an internet discussion forum, someone asked if it was okay to notice just the impermanence aspect of the the three characteristics. This is roughly how I replied:

If you just study for example your car rusting, you might not get much out of it. If you look deeper you might get some insight into how your egoistic attachment to your impermanent car leads to suffering. The three characteristics are interrelated and studying one usually involves all three. By just focusing on impermanence and not looking deeper, I think you would be missing something important.

If you are observing the three characteristics because 1) you want to gain insight into the cause of suffering and the end of suffering as explained in the four noble truths and the eightfold path, and 2) if you want to gain insight into anatta because the main ingredient in stream-entry is loss of identity-view, I recommend first calming the mind with some type of samatha practice so you can focus your mind, and then, in meditation and daily life, observe the activity of the mind (thoughts, emotions, impulses, sensory experiences, and senses of self and no-self). If you do that you will see a lot of dukkha, impermanence, and anatta.

Knowing what to look for in particular can help so I will also suggest:

Notice dukkha arising and fading and notice how the ego or attachment to the self-image is involved in the arising of dukkha.

Notice how things pop into awareness by themselves, uninvited: thoughts distract you, you have unwanted emotions, and impulses are often unhelpful. Notice how the activity of the mind operates on cause and effect one bit of mental activity leading to another and another through associations, memories, and reasoning, until something sets it off on a new tangent - without any entity in control. Notice that different bits of mental activity sometimes work at cross purposes or undermine conscious goals, (for example people crave rich foods while hating to gain weight).

Notice how the sense of self, the feeling of being an observer, an experiencer, a doer, a sufferer is no different than any other thought or feeling. And notice how the sense of self changes in different situations and as your emotions change.

(Most people already know a lot of this and therefore most people already have a lot of insight into anatta. They just don't connect the dots. To connect the dots you have to see it operating in your own mind over and over along with the connection to dukkha arising. Then you get disenchantment and attachments begin to fade. Some people have a sudden insight, but for many people it happens gradually.)

If you do this you will be studying dukkha, impermanence, anatta, and dependent origination.

More here:
https://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/p/meditation.html

Tuesday, April 2, 2024

Nirvana - How To

On another forum someone asked for opinions on the best way to experience nirvana. This (with a few modifications) is how I replied:

...

One thing I have found that is not commonly acknowledged in Buddhist practices is that physical relaxation - muscular relaxation - is necessary to fully let go of unpleasant emotions (suffering). The mind and body are interconnected. I understand "letting go" to mean relaxing mentally and physically. The relaxing meditation technique I use is described here:
https://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2020/08/preparing-for-meditation-with.html
When I am fully relaxed nothing bothers me. This is also how I prepare for vipassana.

I do vipassana by watching the activity of my mind (thoughts, emotions, impulses, sensory experiences, and sense of self) in meditation and daily life and notice when dukkha arises. I try to see how the ego is involved dukkha arising. I try to be relaxed and let go of dukkha (without suppressing anything). That simple practice covers observing the three characteristics and dependent origination.

To experience nirvana I would say the key is to learn to notice dukkha/suffering/clinging/unpleasant emotions as soon as they arise, and to recognize that you should not get carried away - not become immersed in them but remain a mindful observer and try to stay relaxed or get back to a relaxed state. When you observe the mind, you see thoughts, emotions, impulses, sensory, experiences and sense of self are coming into the mind from unconscious processes that you really have little influence over and are sometimes contradictory and not necessarily trying to make you happy. You learn that you are happier if you don't take them too seriously. This explains more about how I practice vipassana:
https://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2023/05/observing-mind.html

The relaxing meditation teaches you how to be relaxed. The vipassana shows you why it it right to be relaxed instead of letting your mind make you suffer, and trains you to notice the instant dukkha begins to arise so you can let go before you get carried away by thoughts, emotions, impulses etc. (observing the physical sensations in your body that accompany emotions can help you learn to notice emotions as soon as they arise). Then when things go crazy and your mind/body is trying to make you suffer, you have the habit of rejecting that tendency and relaxing instead. It can be extremely hard to relax when you mind/body is trying to make you upset, you have to have conviction from direct observation that the upset perspective is not "truth", and you have to have very high level of skill in relaxation from repeated practice so that you can do it easily and automatically in adverse situations. When we are stressed we get focused on what is causing the stress (like if the brakes on you car fail) and we forget everything else (like the emergency brake will work if the brake pedal doesn't). So you have to train for emergencies and understand what to do when they happen (don't get carried away by the mind and be relaxed).

Thursday, March 14, 2024

Stop Making the Story About Yourself

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 suffering.

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.

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.

Mindfulness 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. Meditation that is relaxing can also help provide a quiet mind that helps you to maintain mindfulness and experience the contrast.

And then, when you are not making the story about you, you can respond to situations with compassion and reason instead of selfish emotions.

Sunday, August 6, 2023

Tranquility and Insight

The Buddha taught that tranquility and insight are two qualities of mind that should both be cultivated.

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.

In my view, tranquility involves two factors: relaxation and quieting the mental chatter. Relaxation occurs when the parasympathetic nervous system is active the sympathetic nervous system in inactive. Mental chatter is reduced when the default network in the brain is inactive and the experiential network in the brain is active.

The parasympathetic nervous system can be activated and the sympathetic nervous system can be deactivated with relaxing meditation.

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 mindfulness practice.

Tranquility is beneficial in itself (most people would prefer to feel tranquil and serene rather than stressed and upset)

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.

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 observe the activity of the mind.

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.

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.

My approach is similar to that of Ajahn Chah which Jack Kornfield described as:

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.

My article on Observing the Mind describes how I recommend cultivating insight.

I've written about 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 emotion arises 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.

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.

A lot of time spent observing the mind 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 produces tranquility can help. And emotions can hide under layers of other emotions so sometimes you have to dig through the layers 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.

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.

Sunday, July 16, 2023

Dukkha and Nirvana

How I Define Dukkha
What Does "The End of Suffering" Mean?
Nirvana
Techniques That Ease Suffering
How to Measure Progress

How I Define Dukkha (Suffering)

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.

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.

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.

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.

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What Does "The End of Suffering" Mean?

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.

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."

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.

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Nirvana

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.

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Techniques that Ease Suffering

Techniques that ease suffering:

Relaxation: After I do a type of relaxing meditation, nothing bothers me. Relaxing is a skill you can cultivate and bring into daily life.
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":
- 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.
- Slow down. Being too busy can create stress. It can undo all the good effects of meditation and mindfuliness.
- 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.
Quieting the mind with meditation and mindfulness eases suffering by deactivating the default 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 mindful in the present moment, you are not worrying about the future or regretting the past.
Observing the activity of the mind.
- Notice when dukkha arises, and stop the sequence of dependent origination by letting go without suppressing anything.
- Observing the three characteristics, dukkha, impermanence, and anatta leads to disenchantment which weakens attachments and aversions.
Digging through layers of emotions.
Stop trying to have a perfect moment. I've tried to explain this but I don't know if it will mean anything to other people.
When someone practices meditation and mindfulness over a period of years, they work through the mula kleshas - the three poisons, attachment, aversion, and delusion - and they may find that they are much less disturbed in stressful situations.
Producing metta or piti or sukha can elevate your mood.

I have experienced various types 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.

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.

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How to Measure Progress

As you progress along the path of meditation and mindfulness ...

You experience less suffering. Attachments and aversions are fewer and weaker including attachments to nice feelings produced by meditation and attachment to awakening.
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.
You are able to be more mindful during daily life.
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.
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.
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.
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.

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Monday, May 1, 2023

Observing the Mind

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 samatha (traquility) and vipassana (insight). 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.

In this post I am going to discuss what is contained in the early Buddhist texts 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 "suffering" or "unpleasant emotions" I mean reactive emotions which are emotions that occur as a response to thoughts or situations.
One of the marks of stream-entry 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.
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 types of experiences 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.
In Buddhism, in the Pali Canon, it is taught that letting go is the seventh and last factor that is required for awakening. Letting go of attachments and aversions is a cause of awakening.
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.
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.
The way to let go of attachments and aversions is also explained in the Pali canon (in the anapanasati sutta). 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:
https://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2020/08/preparing-for-meditation-with.html
One method of observing the mind is to observe the activity of the mind in meditation and with mindfulness in daily life.

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.

Notice the physical sensations in your body that accompany emotions.

Notice how suffering arises in the mind when emotions occur in reaction to situations, thoughts, or memories.

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.

Also notice how your ego is involved in so many unpleasant emotions.

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.

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.

Notice there are different ways of experiencing self. Notice how they change from time to time. Some of them include:

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.

The kind of person we think others see us as.

Our place in society: child, parent, student, employee, supervisor, member of a team, friend in a group of friends. Our nationality or ethnicity.

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.

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.

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.

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.
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.
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.
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.
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.

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 relaxing meditation to help relax and let go of emotions. If you can't relax, try metta or piti or sukkha.
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.
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 Satipatthana Sutta) 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.
By "the end of suffering" I mean you do not suffer from reactive emotions. You are experiencing nibbana with residue. 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 full teaching 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.

Saturday, August 7, 2021

The Present Moment

If you want increased freedom from dukkha, increased freedom from the fetters, you have to stop wanting things to be different from the way they are now.

That means you have to accept the present moment as it is, embrace it, abide in it, relax into it. Including the dukkha and the fetters. "Everything's perfect just as it is".

When you meditate on see, hear, feel, 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.

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.

Tuesday, May 18, 2021

A Path

Someone on an internet discussion forum asked about the best path. I replied with something like this:

In my opinion the purpose of meditation is not to achieve a breakthrough, it is to prepare the mind for investigating the origin of dukkha and the cessation of dukkha in daily life. Understanding the origin and cessation of dukkha in your own mind is what causes change.

Relax - Deactivate the sympathetic nervous system. Activate the parasympathetic nervous system.

Stay Lucid - Observe thoughts and emotions without getting carried away by them. Be in the moment. Engage your mind in something that does not involve letting your mind wander or problem solving (See Hear Feel Deactivate the default mode network in the brain.). Do not suppress thoughts and emotions, let them come and go, notice the feelings in your body that may accompany them. In this way you will learn how dukkha arises and ceases.

Surrender - 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.

Do this as a formal practice but also develop the habit of doing this in daily life when possible. When you practice in daily life you train your mind to be awakened (not to attain awakening). 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.

How does this produce awakening?
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 elevates your mood, it makes you more open to accepting that dukkha is produced by the mind and not by circumstances or events.
Awakening = The process of letting go of attachments and aversions (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.
Attachments and aversions express themselves as unpleasant emotions such as disliking and craving.
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. Upekkha, letting go or equanimity, is the seventh of the seven factors of awakening.
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. Surrender. 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.
(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.)

Saturday, October 31, 2020

No-self is not Nihilistic

Someone in a discussion forum commented that the doctrine of no-self made them depressed. I think they might have been reacting to this article which I posted to the forum before blogging it here.

I replied that "no-self" doesn't give me that feeling at all. I wrote:

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.
It is a recipe for happiness not an argument for nihilism.
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.
(I am a Spiritualist and I believe in an afterlife. Buddha also believed in an afterlife. Where is there room for nihilism in that?)
Here is one way to understand no self:

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.)

Now open your eyes and look around you and notice what you see. 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.

Is that so bad? If you have physical discomfort or emotional pain, focusing outside yourself will ease the emotional anguish more or less depending on your level of concentration. That's good isn't it?
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.
Noting (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.
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.
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.
If you think about it as deactivating the default mode network in the brain 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.
Or think of it this way: instead of seeing everything filtered through your ego, you can remove the ego filter and see things as they really are:

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.
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.
- Shodo Harada Roshi
"But it is nothing that we have ever not had."

Friday, October 30, 2020

Metta Meditation

Metta meditation is a type of meditation that produces feelings of goodwill or love.

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.

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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.

If you want to try a more traditional form of metta meditation I recommend the one on this web page:

https://www.dhammatalks.org/mp3_guidedMed_index.html

A Quick Guide to Producing Bliss with Meditation

Here is a quick guide to producing bliss with meditation. For more complete instructions and information see my page on meditation on my web site. And please read this section on the dangers of meditation before you try the instructions below.

Sit comfortably the way you normally do.
Breath in a relaxing way, somewhat deeper and slower than normal. Relax and notice the pleasant feeling of relaxation as you inhale and exhale.
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".
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.
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: http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2020/08/preparing-for-meditation-with.html
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.

A few of other suggestions:

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.
Try after a meal because sometimes eating elevates your mood.
Try meditating lying down.
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.
Sleep deprivation can make you feel silly, that can give you a boost too (I am not recommending intentional sleep deprivation).
Thinking of something you like can help make you want to smile.
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.
Metta meditation 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.

Monday, October 26, 2020

The Five Aggregates of Clinging

Someone on a discussion forum asked about the five aggregates of clinging. 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.

Shinzen Young gives a good analogy 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.

If you look at self closely you will only see aggregates.

Look closely at self (everything you consider "me" and "mine"). What do you see?

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.

This is in part what I see when I look at everything that is "me" or "mine". You might come up with different elements:

Body
- Brain
Possessions, other people my friends family etc, my groups I like (sports teams etc), groups I am a member of (ie Americans)
Mind:
- Mental activity: thoughts, emotions, impulses etc
- Sensory input: sight, sound, smell, taste, touch, vibration, rough/smooth, hard/soft, temperature, body sensations including body sensations that accompany emotions.
- 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)

(You can study the orthodox definitions if you want to make sure you have everything covered.)

Look closely at your self and understand everything you consider "me" and "mine".

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?

Is a thought an entity? Is an emotion an entity? Is a brain cell an entity? Is a concept an entity?

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.

The full term is not "the five aggregates" the full term is "the five aggregates of clinging".

All those things that make up self (things that are "me" or "mine") are the things that we cling to that cause us suffering.

But what is the use in clinging to the aggregates if there is no entity or being in them?

Can you let go of all those things?

Ouch!

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.

Just contemplating letting go is hard. It produces a distinct feeling.

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.

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.

Letting go.

My advice on how to learn to let go has multiple features.

Observe the emotional pain and be conscious of the cause.
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.
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.
Shinzen Young describes a similar process he calls purification. 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 equanimity 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.

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.

Overview of letting go:

Let yourself feel unpleasant emotions, don't push them away.
But don't let them go uncontrolled or let your stress reaction go uncontrolled.
Be a detached observer not a participant.
Don't judge.
Soothe unpleasant emotions with meditation and other techniques.
Mentally review the situation and any sensations that caused the emotion.
Dig deeper for layers of emotions covering other emotions.
Understand that feeling emotional pain is needed to let go of it and that letting go leads to freedom.
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.).
Accepting the pain is preferable to resisting it.
There is a great reward for putting aside your ego. Surrender is smart.

The goal of letting go is to be able to think of or experience a situation with much less emotional pain.

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.

Try to be relaxed.
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.
Notice the sensations in your body that accompany the emotion. If you notice any tension in your body try to relax it.
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.
Don't judge other people, yourself, sensations, thoughts or emotions.
Notice that common factor in all dukkha - it makes unpleasant emotions easier to bear because it is familiar.
Remind yourself, "This emotion is showing me an attachment, I should let go. Letting go leads to freedom."
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?
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.
Ask yourself why you feel the emotion and repeat the question to dig through layers of answers. Repeat the above review process for the answers you find.
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.
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:
- Relaxation exercises
- Samatha meditation produces mental tranquility.
- Metta meditation
- Jhana meditation - Use unpleasant sensations (ie sounds, pain, emotional sensations) to trigger bliss.
- Observing sensations that come into awareness - Deactivating the default mode network in the brain (see below) reduces the intensity of emotions.

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 understanding their source.

Letting go will set you free.

Awakening is the process of letting go of attachments to self.

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.

The Buddha understood the pain of letting go. That is why he taught meditation and mindfulness techniques that help to us to bear the pain of unpleasant emotions.

Samatha meditation produces tranquility and gladdens the mind. Jhanas produce bliss. Metta is really a lot like jhana. Mindfulness greatly reduces the intensity of emotions.

Samatha meditation activates the parasympathetic nervous system which turns off stress.
Mindfulness deactivates the default mode network in the brain which has the effect of greatly reducing unpleasant emotions.
Jhana and Metta meditation cause the brain to produce neurotransmitters and endorphins, and lower levels of stress hormones.

Practicing this way can produce a gradual awakening without the need for mystical "enlightenment experiences" or "realizations".

Pages

Sunday, February 23, 2025

Friday, February 14, 2025

Wednesday, September 25, 2024

Saturday, June 15, 2024

Friday, May 24, 2024

Monday, May 20, 2024

Friday, May 10, 2024

Tuesday, April 2, 2024

Thursday, March 14, 2024

Sunday, August 6, 2023

Sunday, July 16, 2023

Contents

How I Define Dukkha (Suffering)

What Does "The End of Suffering" Mean?

Nirvana

Techniques that Ease Suffering

How to Measure Progress

Monday, May 1, 2023

Saturday, August 7, 2021

Tuesday, May 18, 2021

Saturday, October 31, 2020

Friday, October 30, 2020

Monday, October 26, 2020

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