Life in B Flat(Science and Spirituality)

Sunday, May 24, 2020

Varieties of Non-Self and Non-Dual experiences.

Someone on a discussion forum asked about scientific studies of no-self experiences. I referred them to an article which discusses a student report on the subject that includes informative references.

I also replied that there are several different types of not-self, non-self, no-self, and nondual experiences and I think each would have a different physiological correlate. It is helpful to recognize this if one is going to research the scientific studies on the subject.

Some people might point out that nonduality is not the same as no-self, since nonduality can recognize unity as a self. Another way of looking at it is that if you experience unity then your ordinary self is not the complete understanding of self, so nonduality can be considered a type of no-self experience. Also, from the experiencer's point of view, there is a blurring of distinction and an overlap of the two types of experiences. And if your interest in non-self is because you are interested in understanding how the ordinary mundane self might not be the only way of experiencing reality, then nonduality may also be of interest. For all these reasons I am combining both types of experiences in this article.

One type of experience can happen when the mind is quiet from meditation and you experience one of the five senses.
Typically if you hear a sound, for example, you are also analyzing and interpreting the sound, trying to understand how that sound relates to you and what it means for you in your environment.
But if the mind is so quiet it doesn't provide any type of judgement or analysis all you do is hear. There is no filter, no mind, between the sound and the hearing making an interpretation or commentary and there is no reaction or attachment or aversion to what you hear.
You don't experience any liking or disliking - you don't reject it, you don't cling to it, you don't get carried away by thoughts and emotions weaving a story in your mind about what it means and how it relates to you.
There is just hearing.
In that situation, it seems like there is no self involved and you notice that as a no-self experience.
You see how the feeling of self is created by mental activity because in the absence of mental activity you notice when the feeling of self is absent.
Because you don't analyze or interpret the meaning of the sound or dislike or reject the sound, you don't distinguish it from yourself, you do not feel separate from the sound, so you don't feel a sense of separateness. It is also a non-dual experience.
Another type of experience is when the distinction between observer and the observed disappears. When this happened to me I lost awareness of body after many hours of meditation and it seemed like all that existed was what I was looking at. Since I existed I must be the thing I was looking at. I think this is what the article I linked to above is about. https://sites.google.com/site/chs4o8pt/mystical_experiences#mystical_kensho
Sometimes after a meditation session when the mind is very quiet from meditating, the absence of mental chatter creates a feeling that something is missing, there is a feeling of a kind of emptiness, a hollowness where the "person" is missing. I call it "feeling like a doughnut". One is aware of the body but doesn't feel like there is anyone in there. It doesn't sound logical. I am not trying to be logical - I am trying to describe a feeling. Feelings are not necessarily logical. https://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2019/06/no-one-to-be-offended.html
After a session of deep relaxation, a similar kind of experience happens if you focus on the floating feeling or the feeling of tranquility during meditation or during daily activities. You feel so peaceful that the things that used to annoy you just don't get a rise out of you. That thing that used to get annoyed, that ego, isn't there and you feel like you don't have a self/ego. It's not a big deal. It's peacful and quiet, it's not mystical, it's like getting back to normal when worrying about being annoyed or angry or afraid or wanting something was a disruption of normality.
This idea of self, of a me, is just an idea, and because it's just an idea it isn't real or false. But if you recognize that "me" isn't a real solid thing that exists as matter, that it's just an idea, then there isn't any thing that has to be defended, that can be harmed or insulted, that can win or lose. How can an idea win or lose or feel insulted? When there is no "me" there is no ill will or fear etc.
You can understand this on an intellectual level but until it works its way through your subconscious (the unconscious processes responsible for thoughts, emotions, impulses, sense of self), into your world view, you don't really understand it. You have to experience that quiet peaceful state, to feel like you don't have a self, to get it.
I went for a walk and tried to notice those no-self moments - moments when something you see or hear catches your attention and you are aware of it without thinking about anything else. At first I noticed a few and I wondered what the point was, to extend their duration or to let repeated observations convince me that self was an illusion. I kept walking and noticed more of these moments. I began to get a sense of the quality of them which helped me to notice more and more. As I went along I started to notice them fairly frequently. They came faster and faster until I thought every sensation is a no-self moment. I laughed. I thought it was a good joke. http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2020/10/no-self-moments.html
Another kind of experience is when you observe the activity of the mind and see that thoughts, emotions, and impulses arise from the unconscious unasked for and uninvited. Every time you are trying to keep the mind focused in meditation and you become distracted by an interrupting thought, it is a reminder that you don't control your mind. It may seem like the self is only pure awareness observing thoughts emotions and impulses. But then if you consider that the feeling of being an observer is just like any other thought, emotion, or impulse, you are left with nothing. You can get a feeling of intentionally using your mind when you are trying to solve a problem, but where did the intention to solve the problem, to use your mind, come from? Buddha said consciousness is like a magician's trick. I think this is what he was talking about. http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2019/09/coming-and-going.html
Here are some of other types of experiences:
http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2015/02/joy-during-meditation.html
- [This type of meditation] also creates a kind of synesthesia where everything I see and hear, I also feel in my body as if they are part of me. There is an effect like the brain is a virtual reality machine and what I see is really a movie inside my head projected on the unchanging screen of pure awareness, like my mind contains the whole universe including me walking around inside it. Other times I feel like my self and its boundaries are dissolving and I am expanding to merge into infinite space
- You can learn to be so relaxed that you don't feel defensive. You don't feel the need to defend your boundaries. You feel like an interconnected part of everything and everyone. Like each part, including yourself, is (joint owner of?) the whole. This state is resistant to unpleasant emotions because it affects your feeling of identity. It changes your opinion of what is "me" and "mine". If you are everything, you are not any particular thing. There aren't things outside you that affect you. There just is what is. It feels like unconditional good will and compassion and the absence of self-importance.
Another type of experience may occur if you just sit and notice your perceptions: what you see, hear, and smell around you, what you feel inside your body, the activity of your mind - thoughts, emotions and impulses. Doing this, you might be puzzled about what exactly you should pay attention to. Should you check each type of perception in a specific sequence? Should you just watch your mind and see what happens? If you just watch, who is it that is deciding what you notice? This question is significant because it shows that despite popular belief, there is not an obvious continuous stream of consciousness or a controlling consciousness. You may notice that consciousness is really just a series of distinct moments of awareness. There is nothing that is continuous from perception to perception. There is no continuous self in it. There is awareness of this perception, then that perception, then another perception etc.
This isn't meant to be a logical explanation that might be true or false - it is a description of a feeling that some people have. It is not meant to help you understand or believe something, it is meant to help you feel something or recognize what you might be feeling.
Observing experience in this way can help diminish suffering because if you are experiencing something unpleasant, by spreading your awareness around different external and internal sensations and mental activity you spend only a small fraction of the time aware of the unpleasantness. Additionally, observing unpleasant emotions along with other types of perceptions has a dissociating effect where the experiencer feels more like an observer than the one who is suffering. This eases suffering and is a type of non-self experience similar to one mentioned above.
This next link is also relevant, it describes nondual experiences/beliefs in many different cultures: Christian, Sufi, Native American, Jewish, Spiritualist, an atheist, etc.
http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2015/03/realizing-ultimate.html]http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2015/03/realizing-ultimate.html

Sunday, April 26, 2020

An Overview of How To Practice Meditation and Mindfulness

This article is an overview of how to practice meditation and mindfulness.

1) Use meditation and relaxation exercises to produce a pleasant relaxed state (jhanas are optional) and try to maintain that state when possible after the meditation session by living and doing things in a quiet relaxed way, living mindfully (lucidly - especially with respect to emotions). The pleasant relaxed state is not an end in itself, it is a tool, it provides a neutral background upon which dukkha (unpleasant emotions / stress) is more easily discernible.

2a) Notice when unpleasant emotions arise (2nd noble truth = origin of dukkha) that interfere with the pleasant relaxed state - during meditation and after the meditation session when returning to daily life. Things that interfere with the pleasant relaxed state can involve more than just thinking about the past or future, or events that occur in the present. It can involve things like diet, types of exercise, intoxicants etc.

2b) Notice what is conducive to returning to the pleasant relaxed state (3rd noble truth = cessation of dukkha). This may involve more than just meditation and mindfulness. It could involve diet, types of exercise, renunciation etc.

3) Notice that allowing yourself to feel unpleasant emotions is less unpleasant than resisting the situation or resisting the emotions. (When you are ready to surrender you have won.) This is easier said than done but relaxation helps. (Also, some emotions may disappear when you become completely relaxed.) Surrender means that you understand you are going to have unpleasant emotions and being aware of them lucidly is preferable to the alternatives of suppression, overreaction, or struggling against or denying reality. The point of surrender is not to ignore problems that need attention but to be able to respond to them with compassion and reason rather than out-of-control emotion.

Most of the "action" of this practice occurs in daily life. The role of meditation is to 1) produce a pleasant relaxed state which acts as a background upon which unpleasant emotions become more noticeable. 2) To quiet the mind so one has the presence of mind to practice in daily life. 3) To slow down the activity of the mind so one can see what is happening.

Be aware of certain pitfalls:

A.) It is possible to overdo dwelling on unpleasant emotions. You might train yourself to produce them or you might produce a feedback loop kind of like a jhana of unhappiness. The balance between feeling emotions without over dwelling on them is something each person has to find for themself.

B.) Another pitfall is inadvertently suppressing an emotion when you think you are letting go of it by relaxing or allowing yourself to feel it. This kind of suppression may be recognized because it may produce tension and irritability.

One should make a distinction between emotions that you can notice arising as a result of specific thoughts and situations and some emotions that are more constant. Constant emotions can also be from thoughts and situations but sometimes they are just due to biological causes that are not going to be helped much by meditation and mindfulness practices. (For example, I find that my diet affects my mood, for good or ill in ways that meditation cannot influence.) However unpleasant emotions due to biological causes can cause additional emotional reactions (such as annoyance at or attachment to having the emotion) that can be eased by meditation and mindfulness practices.

The ultimate goal, the ideal, of the practice (although I don't claim it is possible to reach perfection) is to be relaxed (equanimous) in every situation. With equanimity comes compassion and good will which arise naturally when one is able to let go of unpleasant emotions.

Other points:

Dukkah = stress, letting go = relaxation.

When you observe unpleasant emotions arising you are observing dukkha in action, and learning to let go of emotions by relaxing and by surrendering is the cessation of dukkha.

One of the things I like about this practice is that it addresses the essence of Buddhism, the cause of dukkha and the cessation of dukkha, yet the practice is very simple and easy to do and the mechanism by which it works is very easy to understand. Another thing I like is that the practice doesn't require a lot of will power to keep up because you feel better when you do it. It is an fundamental principle of psychology that an organism is more likely to repeat behavior if it produces a reward. Feeling better is a reward.

Friday, April 17, 2020

The Relation Between Samatha and Vipassana Meditation

Someone on a discussion forum wondered if practicing samatha (serenity) meditation would lead to a self-anesthetized state that would lead one to neglect vipassana (looking at the activity of the mind to produce an understanding of the origination and cessation of unpleasant emotions). They asked if anyone experienced that.

This is approximately how I replied:

That is not my experience. Observing the breath to produce tranquility does not distract me from vipassana it enhances my practice of vipassana. If you try to stay self-anesthetized 24 hours a day you will inevitably fail and you will notice what upsets you and you will notice how you get back to the anesthetized state - you will observe the origination and cessation of dukkah (unpleasant emotions) - this is the essence of practice. You can't escape it. The deeper the anesthesia, the more subtle the disturbances you will notice. The anesthesia is not putting you to sleep, it is actually making you more aware (of subtle mental activity) by turning down the volume of the activity of (the noise in) your mind.

(The pitfall that I find can happen is that one can be suppressing thoughts and feelings by concentrating too hard or by trying too hard to self-anesthetize. The sign that this is happening is that meditation makes one tense and irritable. It can be a bit tricky to find the right balance between relaxation and allowing yourself to be aware of unpleasant thoughts and emotions (dukkha). You think you are relaxing but the result is the opposite. If that is not happening you are probably okay. Finding the balance is complicated because you don't want to suppress but you don't want to wallow in self-pity or train yourself to be unhappy, or create a jhanna like amplification of unpleasant emotions by focusing on them too intently. If you can relax while noticing unpleasant emotions that is probably the right way to do it.)

Self-induced anesthesia is a pretty good description of what the sutras call for (see below). The point is that when you are calm you can observe better the activity of the mind - the origination and cessation of dukkha - because the mind is calm (Dukkha = stress).

What I find is that when my mind is calm and peaceful and I am in a pleasant relaxed mood (the result of samatha meditation) then I notice very easily anything that disturbs that state (the origination of dukkha) and I notice what brings me back into that state (the cessation of dukkha), when I am meditating and during daily life. The "self-induced anesthesia" provides a neutral background against which it is easier to see the origination and cessation of dukkha.

Here is an excerpt from the Anapanasati Sutra translated by Thich Nhat Hanh in his book "Breathe You are Alive": It shows that self-induced anesthesia is exactly what one should be doing:

8. I am breathing in making and making the activities of the mind in me calm and at peace.

...

10. I am breathing in and making my mind happy and at peace.

This article (below) also discusses the relationship between samatha and vipassana.

https://accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/thanissaro/onetool.html

One Tool Among Many
The Place of Vipassana in Buddhist Practice
by
Thanissaro Bhikkhu

...

But if you look directly at the Pali discourses — the earliest extant sources for our knowledge of the Buddha's teachings — you'll find that although they do use the word samatha to mean tranquility, and vipassana to mean clear-seeing, they otherwise confirm none of the received wisdom about these terms. Only rarely do they make use of the word vipassana — a sharp contrast to their frequent use of the word jhana. When they depict the Buddha telling his disciples to go meditate, they never quote him as saying "go do vipassana," but always "go do jhana." And they never equate the word vipassana with any mindfulness techniques. In the few instances where they do mention vipassana, they almost always pair it with samatha — not as two alternative methods, but as two qualities of mind that a person may "gain" or "be endowed with," and that should be developed together.

You cannot really separate samatha and vipassana. Whenever you are meditating on the breath and your mind wanders for a moment or you notice a thought arising - you are observing the activity of the mind. You can't escape vipassana unless you have perfect concentration and your mind is perfectly still. The very fact of thoughts arising while you try to focus on the breath is a repeated reminder that you don't control your mind, that your mind is not "yours". You realize that other people experience the same thing - they don't control their mind - this understanding gives you compassion and reduces your ego. Even if you are not aware of that angle, it works on you unconsciously producing changes you might not be aware of.

Monday, April 13, 2020

Forgiveness: Much unpleasant emotion would cease if you would/could forgive.

A lot of dukkha (unpleasant emotions) would cease if you would/could forgive.

Forgiveness is easier said than done. How do you do it?

Like metta or the jhanas.

Look in your mind/body/heart and see if you can find an inkling or memory of the feeling of forgiveness.

Meditate (focus your attention) on that spark, on that glimmer of forgiveness.

Think of all people you could forgive, including yourself, and as well as the universe, fate, fortune, and/or God.

Notice how much better you would feel without all those unpleasant emotions.

Practice.

Sunday, April 5, 2020

How to Practice the Seven Factors of Awakening

If you meditate using the technique I describe on my website, it can be helpful to have an overall idea in mind of what you are trying to do otherwise it is easy to forget to do some part of the meditation technique. When I reviewed the seven factors of awakening the other day, I realized here was a list of the different aspects of the meditation technique. If you remember this list you won't forget anything when you meditate.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Factors_of_Awakening

In Buddhism, the Seven Factors of Awakening are:

Mindfulness. To maintain awareness of reality.

Investigation of the nature of reality.

Energy also determination, effort.

Joy or rapture.

Relaxation or tranquility of both body and mind.

Concentration, a calm, one-pointed state of mind, or clear awareness.

Equanimity. To accept reality as-it-is without craving or aversion.

Thich Nhat Hanh translates the word for equanimity as "letting go". I like that because I see letting go of attachments and aversions as a consequence of relaxation: to let go of something you are holding on to, you relax your grip on it. When I am relaxed I do not experience attachments or aversions (unpleasant emotions).

I also prefer "determination, effort" to "Energy" because to me, in English, 'energy' evokes a sense of hyperactivity which seems to contradict relaxation.

In my practice I find myself "noticing" and "observing" which is the same as investigating.

I find concentration and relaxation are interrelated. When you concentrate the mind, that calms mental turbulence which is part of relaxation. When you relax, that also calms mental turbulence which aids concentration.

When you begin a meditation session you can easily remember the complete technique by remembering the seven factors of awakening. (I think of them in this order):

How to meditate:

Relaxation (Factor 5, breathe in a relaxing way somewhat slower and deeper than normal).
Concentration (Factor 6, count the breath if your mind is turbulent, or observe the breath if your mind is calm).
Joy (Factor 4, observe the pleasant feeling of relaxation as you inhale and exhale, this can trigger the a feedback loop in the brain that produces feelings of happiness).

How to handle interrupting thoughts, emotions, and impulses:

Be lucid (Factor 1, mindfulness, observe thoughts, emotions, and impulses as they arise but don't get so carried away that you become distracted and stop doing the meditation technique).
Allow yourself to feel unpleasant emotions (Factor 2, investigation).
Let go of unpleasant emotions (Factor 7, equanimity, letting go of attachments and aversions).

What to do after the meditation session:

Continue practicing in daily life after the sitting meditation session is over (Factor 3, energy, determination, effort).

I don't recommend practicing super-intense concentration. If the mind is completely still, there is no investigation. I find some concentration helps with relaxation, elevating my mood, and mindfulness, but too much and it begins to cause problems such as suppression of thoughts and emotions which causes irritability.

Saturday, April 4, 2020

My Views on Gradual Awakening

I.

Traditionally, awakening is defined in four stages of increasing freedom from the ten fetters. I have posted before on gradual awakening and the fact that people can become awakened so gradually they don't notice it. This fact has some very important implications about what awakening is. It implies that the stages of awakening are not like a series of steps where you only get benefit when you have stepped up on the first step. Awakening is like a ramp where any level is possible. Most people already have some level of awakening (some level of freedom from the ten fetters) and you can increase your level gradually and continuously by meditating regularly.

The dictionary definition of gradual is: "moving, changing, or developing by fine or often imperceptible degrees"

Shinzen Young, and others, say people can awaken so gradually they don't notice it happening.

If that is right, then the moment of awakening can be imperceptible.

If the moment of awakening can be so subtle that it may not be noticed by the experiencer, then the change from not awakened to awakened can also be so small that it is imperceptible. If the change can be so small, someone who has just passed stream-entry (the first stage of awakening) might not be significantly different from someone who is just a little bit less awakened and has not passed stream-entry.

The development of awakening is not like a stairway with discrete steps. It is like a ramp where any level is possible. There aren't natural divisions or steps to awakening.

Awakening is a lot like equanimity. Everyone has some level of equanimity. Some people have little equanimity, some people have more equanimity and others have a lot of equanimity. Awakening is like that. Everyone has some level of awakening. Some people are little bit awakened, some people are more awakened, and others are very awakened. If you look at the definitions of the ten fetters, it should be obvious that different people will have different levels of attachment to them.

As I have shown above, someone who has passed stream-entry may not be significantly different from someone with a little bit less awakening who has not passed stream-entry. This indicates hat stream entry is an arbitrary level.

The stages of awakening divide the path into artificial and unnatural steps which causes people to become distracted into focusing on how to get to the first step. Instead followers of the path should be observing the activity of their mind and trying to see the origination of dukkha and the cessation of dukkha.

Everyone already has some level of awakening - some level of freedom from the ten fetters. People don't need to obsess about how to get awakened. If they will just practice meditation and mindfulness and observe the origination and cessation of dukkha in their own mind, they will get more and more awakened (more and more freedom from the fetters) gradually and easily, they will develop more and more compassion, good-will, equanimity and their ego will become less troublesome. When people understand this, they will see that arbitrary steps are irrelevant and a hindrance and they will let go of any attachments to those steps, and they will benefit more from their correctly focused practice.

II.

I posted a reply on a discussion forum to someone who complained that he had lost faith in awakening.

Did you ever hear that some people get enlightenment gradually instead of suddenly, and sometimes it is so gradual that they don't even know they have become enlightened?

Shenzen Young and others have said that it happens.

This means that enlightenment is not like a series of steps - it is like a ramp where any level is possible.

It is like equanimity - some people have little equanimity, some people have more, some people have a lot. And you can increase your level of equanimity gradually by meditating regularly. If people can become enlightened so gradually they don't notice it, then enlightenment must be like that too. Everybody has some level of enlightenment. Some people have little enlightenment, some people have more, and some people have a lot. And you can increase your level of enlightenment by meditating regularly .

So my advice is to try a kind of meditation that will reduce your suffering today (not sometime in the future maybe) and over the long term can increase your level of enlightenment (compassion, good will, equanimity, and unselfishness).

Stop worrying about that first step to get enlightenment. You are right it is a load of crap. It was invented to keep the monks organized. It is of no use the the average person.

Everybody including you already has some level of enlightenment. If you want, you can increase your level of enlightenment as much as you want by practicing meditation and mindfulness. Watch the activity in your mind and study the origination and cessation of dukkha.

Don't waste time expecting the earth to shake and the heavens to open and Buddha to jump down and shake your hand and congratulate you for becoming awakened. It doesn't necessarily happen like that. It sells books and retreats and makes money and gains followers for them, but it is not much help to anyone else.

III.

I also posted something approximately like this:

If your goal is enlightenment and you are expecting the BIG CHANGE to herald your awakening, then you wonder, "What do I have to do to get it? Go on a retreat? Read a book?

If you learn that people can get enlightened gradually without even knowing it, that you can be enlightened without experiencing the BIG CHANGE, then it makes sense that everyone already has some level of enlightenment and the purpose of practice is to gradually increase your level of enlightenment. You are not waiting for the BIG CHANGE, when you experience unpleasant emotions (dukkha) you do not think you need to go on a retreat or buy a book. Instead you watch your own mind during sitting meditation and during daily life. When you experience unpleasant emotions you wonder, Why am I not more compassionate? Why do I not have more good will? Why do I not have more equanimity? Why is my ego so troublesome? You examine the origination of dukkha. You observe the emotions in your mind and body and observe when they go away. You observe the cessation of dukkha.

When you are waiting for the BIG CHANGE, that is the focus of your obsession. It is distracting you from practicing correctly. And the BIG CHANGE itself is not what most people think. After the BIG CHANGE you still have emotions, what is different is that "they don't stick in your mind" or "you don't overreact" or "it is the aggregates that have the emotions". This is just what it is like for people who have a regular meditation practice for many years without a BIG CHANGE. You still have unpleasant emotions after the BIG CHANGE and you still have to practice if you want to experience the end of suffering. If you have the BIG CHANGE or not, you still have to keep practicing and observe the origination and cessation of dukkha.

When you understand the BIG CHANGE is not the only way to enlightenment, that it is not necessary, but is promulgated because it sells books and retreats and gains followers, then you can practice correctly: Just watch your mind and observe the origination and cessation of dukkha and you will gradually increase your level of enlightenment, your compassion, equanimity, and good will will increase and your ego will become less troublesome.

IV.

Then I posted this:

Some people have an insight all at once and are astonished.

Others have the same insight but realize it little by little over time so when they get the full idea it doesn't astonish them.

Some people see a sunset and are overwhelmed, all they want to do is to write poetry and sing songs about sunsets and tell everyone they can how beautiful sunsets are.

Other people see a sunset and think, "That's nice" and they are not overwhelmed.

But they are seeing the same thing.

Whether it's worth it or not is an individual choice.

Personally, I would not practice a form of meditation that might give me enlightenment some day in the future unless it also provided some benefit for me today in the meantime.

I started meditating to help me feel better after a meditation session, less stressed, more serene, long before I ever heard about enlightenment.

My attitude toward enlightenment now is that it's something that is incidental to meditation. If I advised someone to meditate, it would be to help them feel better after a meditation session. I believe everyone already has some level of enlightenment and that level will increase gradually if they meditate regularly - but passing some arbitrary threshold is not really something anyone needs to be worried about.

Passing an arbitrary threshold (stream-entry) only has utility if the stages of enlightenment are like a series of steps - you don't have any benefit until you step up on the first step. But if enlightenment is not like steps but is like a ramp where any level is possible, then you can get a lot of benefit even if you have not passed that arbitrary threshold because as you approach it your level of enlightenment increases gradually and continuously.

Saturday, September 28, 2019

Aspects of Meditation

This article is an overview of my most current views on meditation. Detailed instructions on how to meditate can be found on my meditation web page.

It can be helpful to be aware of these aspects of meditation:

Relaxation - Letting go of stress and unpleasant emotions.
Concentration - Staying lucid.
Half-smile - Relaxing meditation may feel so pleasant it makes you want to meditate with a half-smile. Smiling can unleash your natural state of happiness.
Surrender - When you stop fighting against your emotions you may feel a new sense of freedom.
Practice in Daily Life - Practice in daily life to reinforce and maintain the benefits of meditation throughout the day.
Diet - Meditation depends on the brain. The brain has to have the right nutrients to function well.

Relaxation

You can get a lot more out of a meditation session if you do relaxation exercises before you meditate. Below are some relaxation exercises that are very effective when done in combination. These relaxation exercises can help you become very relaxed and put you in a pleasant relaxed mood. They can turn off the body's response to stress. When you deeply relax, you may find that unpleasant emotions disappear.

Progressive muscular relaxation - Move each part of the body five or ten times. This can be done, standing, sitting, or lying down depending on the movements you use.
Hypnotic induction - Mentally relax each part of the body making it feel "relaxed and heavy".
Visualize each color of the spectrum Visualization produces theta brainwaves. You may feel yourself becoming more and more relaxed with each visualization.

Do these exercises in order. Exercises #2 and #3 can be done sitting but are most effective if done lying down. After #3, count ten breaths and repeat from #2.

When you are deeply relaxed and feel like you are floating or are in the hypnogoic state (experiencing vivid imagery and it is hard to concentrate for more than a few seconds), you may feel yourself shift into a pleasant mood and find that unpleasant emotions have disappeared. Sometimes this happens automatically - you may feel a wave of relaxation flowing through you. Other times if you open your eyes and look around noticing the pleasant feeling of relaxation as you breathe in a relaxing way, and half-smile, focusing on the pleasant feeling may shift you into a pleasant relaxed mood.

Spend a few minutes letting the pleasant relaxed mood stabilize.

Relaxation can cause you to let go of unpleasant emotions. Relaxation puts your mind and body in a suitable condition for the next steps.

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Concentration

Count the breath. The right level of concentration is important. Too much interferes with relaxation, too little and the wandering mind will prevent relaxation and everything else about meditation. When your mind is very quiet, you may stop counting and just notice the breath if you prefer. Concentration helps you to stay lucid.

Concentration quiets a turbulent mind and produces a state of peace, non-attachment and equanimity.

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Half-smile

Thich Nhat Hanh wrote, "... practice breathing with a half-smile. You will feel great joy.". If you don't understand this, try it and see what happens. But too much joy can be tedious. You can learn to adjust it to just "pleasant". Smiling in meditation is not a forced smile, the feeling of relaxation during meditation is pleasant and should make you want to smile - like resting in a hammock on a warm summer's day, or slipping into a warm jacuzzi.

Smiling releases pleasant feelings, observing them produces a feedback loop in the brain generating more pleasant feelings. At first it may be interesting to experience a high intensity of these feelings. In time that may become tedious and you can learn to tone them down to a relaxed pleasant mood by balancing (reducing them not eliminating them) them with more relaxation and concentration.

In fact, intense states of bliss not really necessary, simply practicing this relaxing meditation can produce the same pleasant relaxed state. By practicing getting into and maintaining this state during meditation, you can learn to maintain this relaxed pleasant state during daily life when you are not meditating.

Relaxing meditation produces a pleasant relaxed mood characterized by feelings of compassion, good will, aversion to harming other people or other living things, and an absence of ill will.

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Surrender

Surrender is a way to let go of unpleasant emotions. Surrender is the feeling you get when you realize you are trying to ignore or suppress an unpleasant thought or emotion and you relax and stop resisting it. You stop fighting it.

Underneath most unpleasant emotions that arise is a fact or thought that you don't want to acknowledge or accept. Surrender means acknowledging and accepting this fact or thought. Doing so takes away the force of the emotion. Frequently the fact or thought is related to our sense of self. Examples of things you might resist acknowledging include: failing, losing, being wrong, being a victim, losing social status, being insulted, aging, illness, incompetence etc. etc. Your unconscious mind may be hiding these thoughts from you and you might have to dig through layers to root them out.
You let yourself feel the emotion. You let it express itself in your body without letting it take over your mind. You observe the sensations in the body that comprise it.
You allow your conscious mind to recognize the emotion. You acknowledge unpleasant truths and let yourself think the thoughts you have been trying to ignore.
You understand that you can't control everything in life and you accept with equanimity that things you don't like will happen.
You use other aspects of meditation: relaxation, concentration, half-smile, practice in daily life, etc., to produce and maintain a pleasant relaxed state of mind which makes it easier to release unpleasant emotions by counterbalancing some of the unpleasant feelings that may occur when releasing emotions.

Surrender means you are lucid with respect to your emotional state. When you are angry, you know "This is anger, this is what it feels like, this is how it affects my mind." The same is true for other emotions, anxiety, sadness, etc. Being conscious of emotions helps to prevent them from taking over your mind. From repeated observations, you learn what emotions are and how they come and go and this helps to make it easier to let go of them.

If surrender does not eliminate an emotion entirely, it may change the emotion from an unpleasant experience to a neutral sensation in the body.

The attitude of surrender is letting go of identity view. Surrender means you relinquish the need to defend your ego (your "self"). Unpleasant emotions occur when an ego attachment is threatened. An ego attachment is something you consider you or yours. It can be something close to you like your beliefs, or it can be something somewhat distant like your favorite rock band. Not defending your ego does not mean you ignore problems. It is not referring to physical action it is referring to psychological defense against unpleasant emotions. It means that if you stop fighting against emotional pain, if you do not need to defend your ego, you can decide what to do about problems using logic and compassion without selfish emotions clouding your judgment.

Surrender also means you don't have to be perfect. This includes being perfect at spiritual practices. Having an attitude of surrender means you don't have to perfect at surrendering. It means you don't have to be perfectly non-attached. You don't have to have perfect concentration. You don't have to be perfectly relaxed. You don't have to filled with joy all the time. It means you don't have to have perfect equanimity. You will actually increase your equanimity by allowing yourself to have imperfect equanimity.

The pleasant mental state and feelings of compassion, non-attachment, happiness, and good will produced by relaxation, concentration, and a half-smile help you to surrender. When you are happy, you don't want anything. You are self sufficient. You are strong. You don't need to hide from anything. You are emotionally resilient so you don't need to defend yourself emotionally. You can accept reality as it is.

If you practice keeping the attitude of surrender during and after meditation sessions, you will get better and better at it.

It feels very nice to have the heavy responsibility of defending your ego lifted off your shoulders. You do not need to defend your ego.

The attitude of surrender is letting go of identity view.

After a session of meditation try to continue doing this practice mindfully during daily activities. If you find life's stresses disturb the pleasant relaxed mood, you can try to meditate to get back into it as soon a it is practical to do so.

One thing nice thing about this practice is that you get benefits (relaxation, elevated mood) from the first time you try it, and over time you get benefits (increased equanimity and compassion) in proportion to the effort you put in.

This practice will cause increases in equanimity, compassion, non-attachment and reduce self-centeredness (freedom from identity-view). These factors may lead to gradual enlightenment.

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Practice in Daily Life

Finding ways to practicing meditation and mindfulness in daily life can help you to reinforce and maintain the benefits of meditation throughout the day: the pleasant relaxed state and feelings of compassion, good-will, non-attachment, and surrender produced by meditation.

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Diet

Meditation depends on the brain. The brain has to have the right nutrients to function well. Metabolism varies from person to person so it is not necessarily possible to describe a diet that will work for everyone. What I say on this subject is not meant to be definate truth, but more of a suggestion for readers to consider if they are experiencing problems. ...

It is my opinion (and it is just an opinion - other people may have different experiences that lead to different opinions) that for optimal meditation one should refrain from anything that can affect consciousness: recreational drugs, alcohol, nicotine, caffeine.
Sugar and carbohydrates can also be problematical. Too much or too little may result in problems. Different types of carbohydrates (different foods) may have different effects that would vary among individuals. For more information, look into the effects of carbohydrates and protein in the diet on serotonin levels in the brain.
I also do not advocate a vegetarian diet - again that is my opinion, others may have a different opinion, but in my experience it does not lead to optimal brain function. I don't mean to imply anyone should stop being a vegetarian, only that I don't advise it or believe it helps meditation or is necessary for spirituality.

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Tuesday, September 24, 2019

Surrender

UPDATE: An enhanced explanation of surrender can be found here:
http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2019/09/aspects-of-meditation.html#asp_med_surrender

Surrender is an aspect of letting go of unpleasant emotions. Surrender is the feeling you get when you realize you are trying to ignore or suppress an unpleasant emotion and you relax and stop resisting it. You stop fighting it. You let yourself feel it. You let it express itself in your body without letting it take over your mind. You observe the sensations in the body that comprise it. Surrender often changes the emotion from an unpleasant experience to a neutral sensation in the body.

Surrender is not just a thing to do, it is an attitude for daily life. By surrendering to unpleasant emotions that may arise, you can also learn to keep the surrender attitude even if you are not feeling anything unpleasant. The attitude of surrender is letting go of identity view. Surrender means you relinquish the need to defend your ego (your "self"). If you practice keeping that attitude during and after meditation sessions, you will get better and better at it.

It feels very nice to have the heavy responsibility of defending your ego lifted off your shoulders.

Saturday, September 21, 2019

Gradual Enlightenment

Shinzen Young and Jack Kornfield have both said that enlightenment can be a gradual process rather than a sudden experience.

In The Science of Enlightenment, a book written by Shinzen Young, Shinzen says that people can become enlightened gradually without knowing it.

He writes:

... in my experience as a teacher, enlightenment usually sneaks up on people. Sometimes they don't quite realize how enlightened they've become over time because they have gradually acclimatized to it.

This intrigued me so I searched for more information on it. I found a file on the Shinzen Young Mindfulness Community on Facebook, (Shinzen Enlightenment Interview.pdf) that discussed this in greater detail and I have quoted the relevant excerpt below.

What Shinzen describes seems to be that the effects of meditating regularly over a long period of time produce the changes in a person that constitute enlightenment, whether you know it or not, whether or not you have the insight reported by people who experience sudden enlightenment.

Shinzen says that gradual enlightenment occurs when someone "gradually works through the things that get in the way of enlightenment" and "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. This means that if you learn to let go attachments and aversions, then over time you will awaken gradually.

If this is the case, then one can simply meditate and not worry about having any particular insight or crossing any particular milestone.

You can judge your progress and the effectiveness of your meditation practice by your own observation as to how it helps you to live with increasing equanimity and compassion. If you find your equanimity and compassion are increasing over time, then you are probably doing it right.

Here is the excerpt from Shinzen Enlightenment Interview.pdf

However, for most people who’ve studied with me it doesn’t happen that way. Not suddenly. 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.
You remember that I said in traditional Buddhism it’s very significant that it’s formulated that something passes away and it’s not something that you get? So 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. Because it’s gradual, they may not realize how much they’ve changed. As the mula kleshas get worked through they suffer less and the fundamental alienation between inside and outside diminishes. But because all this is happening gradually they’re acclimatizing as it’s occurring.
In acclimatizing they may not realize how far they’ve come. However, they often do notice it when “the doo doo hits the fan”. Like a major bereavement, a major illness like cancer, a serious injury, or their life is somehow threatened. Then they notice how everyone around them is freaking out and how much less they’re freaking out. Then the contrast becomes suddenly very evident. That’s when they would tend to notice it. That’s why I like telling the story about the samurai.

“This samurai went to the Zen temple on the mountain and lived there for many years. He didn’t seem to be getting anything out of the practice. So he said to the Master, ‘I think I need to leave. Nothing’s happening as a result of this practice’. So the master said ‘Okay. Go.’
As he was coming down the hill one of his former comrades, a fellow samurai, saw him in the tattered robes of a Buddhist monk –which is equivalent to a glorified beggar from a samurai’s point of view –and he said ‘how could you be so undignified to join the counter--culture of Buddhist beggars?’ and he spit on him. Now in the old days the samurais were extremely proud. Any insult to their personal dignity meant a fight to the death. So the monk who had formerly been a samurai just walked on and after he’d walked a certain distance, it occurred to him that not only did he not need to kill this guy, he wasn’t even angry.
As the story goes he turned around and bowed towards the mountain three times where he had practiced. He bowed in his recognition of all that he had worked through. He recognized he no longer needed to kill someone that had offended his dignity. He noticed how fundamentally he had changed as a human being.”

Of course, it’s not just samurai in 16th century Japan. The same things apply to 21st century North Americans. Maybe they’ve been practicing for 10, 20, or 30 years and it doesn’t seem that much has changed. And then something big happens and then they realize how different they’ve become compared to ordinary people. I’ll give you an example that happened just a few weeks ago. Someone who has been coming to retreats for quite a while went to have a biopsy to determine whether they had a serious cancer or not. While waiting for the results this person noticed they weren’t worried. Anyway, it turned out that the biopsy was negative. So all the unnecessary suffering that would’ve happened but didn’t, that was the effect of that person’s years and years of practice. It’s my impression that many more people have that gradual unfolding than have the sudden...

Jack Kornfield, in an interview on inquiringmind.com, describes gradual enlightenment as the gateless gate:

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.

The Buddha himself said that awakening is a gradual process in the Uposatha Sutta:

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.

Here are some excerpts from an article on gradual enlightenment written by Sensei Herb Deer who teaches at the Sweetwater Zen Center.

July 20, 2013
Gradual Enlightenment is Better. ~ Herb Deer
First of all, let’s define enlightenment as being selfless, compassionate, wise and present and throw in for good measure the realization that everyone and everything is connected in oneness. This should mean, for example, that an enlightened person puts the care of others before satisfying selfish desires and is able to communicate with honesty and integrity about any struggles with this.
...
Sudden enlightenment is a spontaneous awakening to our oneness with all things and the perfection of our life, such as the Buddha had when he saw the morning star under the Bodhi tree.
...
This sudden awakening experience is described in every spiritual tradition in one way or another. In Zen, it is emphasized especially in the Rinzai lineage as crucial for spiritual enlightenment.
...
Gradual enlightenment, on the other hand, is the slow and patient process of growing and maturing in our practice through consistent discipline and progress. The consistent and persistent practice of being mindful of our activities leads us to progressively refine our experience of emptiness and oneness in our daily life.
The Soto Zen School tends to embrace this more.
Maybe we can all agree that manifesting enlightenment in daily activities is the most profound expression?
But I say that the gradual process of awakening is more important to embrace in a spiritual path for several reasons.
First of all, the sudden kensho experience is like grace in that it cannot be guaranteed as a result of practice. Some people have a better chance at it if they practice with more effort and determination. But ultimately we could never judge the merit of anyone’s practice by using kensho as a measuring stick.
Second, kensho isn’t meant to take care of long-term emotional and behavioral patterns, and it doesn’t. This has been proven over again by ‘enlightened’ charismatic Zen teachers exposed to be abusive to their students in many ways.
Having a kensho experience may help us to see our karma more clearly, but it will not change our long-term patterns of emotions, behaviors and addictions.

My Views on Gradual Awakening

Tuesday, September 17, 2019

Coming and Going

When you meditate and observe the activity of your mind, you see that thoughts, emotions, and impulses arise from the unconscious unasked for, uninvited, they aren't yours. They exist for a time and fade away. They have no substantial existence. They aren't real, they aren't reality. They are illusions.

It can seem like you are just awareness observing.

But you can observe yourself observing.

Then you realize the observer is an illusion too just like any other thought, emotion, or impulse. There is observing but no observer.

When you are trying to solve a problem, figuring something out, it can feel like you are in control of your mind. You are using it intentionally.

But when you observe yourself trying to solve a problem, you see that your intentions are no different from any other thought, emotion, impulse, or "observer". They are not yours, they are illusions too. The feeling of control over your mind is an illusion. There is thinking but no thinker.

The same is true when you are speaking, you feel like you are thinking of what to say, like you are in control of your mind. But when you observe yourself speaking, you see your intentions are illusions too.

The same is true for any intentional activity. There is doing but no doer.

When you are immersed in experience and feeling emotional pain or other discomfort, the unpleasantness seems real. But when you observe yourself having that experience, you see the emotional pain or discomfort and the experiencer are illusions too, just like any thought, emotion, impulse, "observer" or "controlling self" you might observe. There is experiencing but no experiencer.

When you are focused in meditation, you are observing something. When you get distracted and find yourself lost in thought, you are "immersed" in your thoughts. They seem real. The same is true of emotions. You can be immersed in them and they seem real or you can observe them and see they are not yours, not real. The same is true of self. Where ever you find a self, an observer, an entity controlling the mind, a doer, an experiencer, if you observe it, if you understand how all other thoughts emotions and impulses are illusions, you can see that self is an illusion too.

And you can see how the mind creates this illusion, alternating at will between immersion and observation you can create and evaporate the self as you choose.

Sunday, August 25, 2019

Enlightenment: What is it? And What Causes It?

I have been having discussions on an internet forum where enlightened people hang out, discussing what enlightenment is, the process by which it happens, the effects of awakening, and how awakening produces those effects. With that knowledge, it is possible to understand how different meditation and spiritual practices help cause enlightenment. With the knowledge of how different practices cause enlightenment, each person can choose or develop a practice that works for them - a practice they think they will be able to stick with because it is congenial and meaningful to them.

Based on those discussions I have put together the following:

Enlightenment Is Giving Up Your Concept of Self

The source of unenlightenment is a person's mental model of self that develops in stages from infancy to adulthood. At a certain age an infant develops the ability to recognize objects, later it understands the objects continue to exist even if they are out of sight, later it learns to recognize itself in a mirror - it understands itself as an object, at a later age it understands it can influence the environment around it. Step by step the concept of self is constructed.

Meditation and Spiritual Practices Help You To Give Up Your Concept of Self
Meditation and spiritual practices help produce awakening by helping a person to realize their mental model of self is constructed.

When You Give Up Your Concept of Self, You Realize You are Just Awareness Observing, You Stop Distinguishing between Self and Not-Self, and You Stop Overreacting to Emotions That have Ego at Their Root.
When a person sees how their mental model of self is constructed, it no longer filters their view of reality. They realize they are just awareness observing events in the environment around them and thoughts, emotions, and impulses that arise spontaneously in their mind. And they no longer make a distinction between self and non-self, they feel that there is no distinction between them and the universe and everyone and every creature in it.

Like the optical illusion below which can be seen as a duck or a rabbit, the new way of seeing reality was there all along, it is just a different way of seeing the same thing.
The "suffering" that awakening "cures" is our overreaction to emotions. Awakening does not end emotions it changes our understanding of them in a way that stops us from overreacting to them. We see that emotions arise from the unconscious unasked for, uninvited, they exist for a time and fade away. They have no permanent existence. They are not true, or real or reality. They are subjective, they are illusions.
When the mental filter of self is removed, "suffering" is also diminished because the roots of all that overreacting are perceived threats to the self (to the ego) such as being insulted, losing, being embarrassed, not having what someone else has, someone else having what you think should be yours, etc. etc. When the filter of self is absent, there is no ego to react emotionally. The result is a profound equanimity.

How Meditation and Spiritual Practices Help Free a Person From Their Concept of Self:
Practices can help a person to give up their constructed filter of self in various ways:
- Allowing yourself to feel emotional pain is the way to let go of it and that weakens the ego (the feeling of self). For example, if someone says something nasty and a person relaxes and observes the emotional pain, letting themselves feel all of it without looking the other way, the pain lasts a short time and is gone and they don't feel any need to react defensively or vengefully because their feelings are not hurting them. Like if a child having a temper tantrum says "I hate you", the parent laughs it off. If there is no emotional pain, there is no ego.
  
  The same applies if you lose in a game or in some competition, if someone makes you feel inferior, if you are embarrassed, in any situation where ego is normally involved. Ego is really a reaction to hurt feelings. If your emotions are not a problem for you, there will be no ego arising.
  
  When you observe the activity of the mind you are "lucid". Like in a lucid dream where you know you are dreaming, and in a regular dream you think it is real, when you observe the activity of the mind you know you are just observing the activity of the mind, otherwise you are immersed in your thoughts, emotions, and impulses and you think they are real. You can learn to be lucid when ever possible (through sitting meditation and mindfulness in daily life) so that you do not become immersed in thoughts, emotions, and impulses, so that they do not take over your mind. When you are immersed in emotions and they take over your mind, you think the problem is what caused the emotion and you focus on that as a problem needing a solution. When you are lucid, you realize the problem is your overreaction. You can let yourself feel emotional pain (which is how you let go of it) without overreacting or becoming fixated on the external cause of the emotion.
- Practices that quiet the mind slow down the mental processes and make it possible to see more clearly what is happening in the mind.
- Practices that induce relaxation can help you let go of emotional pain. When we feel emotional pain, we become tense as the body reacts to stress. Relaxation turns off the body's response to stress reversing one of the effects of emotional pain helping us to let it go.
- Types of meditation that produce pleasant emotions can help you let go of emotional pain. Pleasant emotions produced by meditation can alleviate emotional pain making you more willing to allow yourself to experience it.
- Observing the activity of the mind:
  - Can help you notice when emotions are produced by thoughts and that these emotions are accompanied by sensations in the body - tensions which if relaxed helps you to let go of emotions.
  - Helps you see that emotional upsets have ego at their root.
  - Allows you to see that you are just awareness observing thoughts, emotions, and impulses, and events around you. Ordinarily you are immersed in your thoughts, emotions, and impulses. They seem to be reality. Immersion creates an illusion that they are yours, that they are part of you. Particularly if you are thinking - trying to solve a problem, it seems like you are intentionally producing thoughts. But if you observe your mind so that you are not immersed in thoughts, emotions, and impulses, and observe the thoughts, emotions, impulses arising in your mind, you see that they arise from the unconscious, exist for a time and pass away. They are not really you or yours. You are just awareness observing.
  - When you observe everything that appears to your consciousness: sense perceptions, thoughts, emotions, various other kinds of feelings, impulses, and intentions, you may also notice the cause and effect relationships: sense perception - recognition - thought - emotion - impulse - intention - action. If you are immersed in this process, it seems like you are in control. But if you step back and just observe this process, it seems like it goes by itself. You see that when you are immersed, the "self" exists, but when you are just observing, there is no feeling of self. This is how the sense of self is produced and how, by observing the activity of he mind, you can learn to see reality without the filter of self. From this you realize that your inner reality is a creation of the mind and you are no longer attached to your emotions, you see they are not you or yours, and you no longer overreact to them.
  - Shows a person that if they look closely they cannot find a self anywhere they look for it.
  - Helps a person to get closer to a state of consciousness without the mental filter of self.
- When mental activity is greatly reduced during some types of meditation (for example: concentration meditation, or self-enquiry) , the action of the filter is also greatly reduced and it can help you to see through the filter of self.
Each person should choose the type of practice they feel is most congenial and meaningful to them.

Three aspects you shoulder consider are:
- Relax. You can meditate in a way that is relaxing.
- Stay lucid.
- Allow yourself to feel emotional pain.
(These ways of being are not just for meditation sessions but for daily life as well.)
- Relaxation:
  - Turns off the body's response to stress, the fight or flight response. This prevents some unpleasant emotions like fear and anger from arising.
  - One of the effects of emotional pain is stress. Turning off stress helps us to reverse the effects of emotional pain which helps us to let go of it.
  - Relaxation helps prevent overreactions to emotional pain.
  - Relaxation helps to prevent you from suppressing thoughts and emotions. Suppressing usually involves some type of tension. Relaxing prevents this.
  - The importance of learning to relax should not be overlooked. No practice can guarantee that any particular person will become enlightened, but almost everyone can learn relaxation and experience great benefits from it.
- When you are lucid:
  - You can relax and allow yourself to feel emotional pain (which is how you let go of it) without overreacting and without becoming distracted by fixation on the external cause of the emotion as a problem needing a solution. Being lucid reduces "suffering" by eliminating emotional overreactions, and it weakens the ego by allowing you to let go of emotional pain.
  - When you are lucid, you are not immersed in thoughts, emotions, and impulses, they do not take over your mind, you do not feel like thoughts emotions and impulses are you or yours, you see reality without the filter of self.
  - By contrast you also see when you are immersed in thoughts, emotions, and impulses, the belief that they are reality, that they are you or yours, is how the mind produces the feeling of self.
  - When you are lucid, you can see that sense perception, recognition, thought, emotions, impulse, intention, and action and the cause and effect relationships between them are a product of the mind. You see that your inner reality is a creation of the mind. When you see this, you are not attached to emotions and you do not overreact to them.
- Allowing yourself to feel emotional pain is how you let go of it. As explained above here and here, letting go of emotional pain:
  - Reduces suffering by reducing your overreactions to unpleasant emotions.
  - Is equivalent to letting go of attachments and aversions.
  - Helps to reduce the ego because most emotional pain has ego at its root.
You can understand the reason awakening is so difficult to achieve by considering what it would take for you to respond with equanimity to assaults to your ego - to react with equanimity to losing your job, breaking up a relationship, being embarrassed, etc. etc.

Fear can also be an obstacle to awakening. The thought of really experiencing oneness, of not making any distinction between self and not-self, of not making any distinction between yourself and other people, can be frightening.
After a person first sees that the filter of self is constructed (the first stage of awakening in Buddhism), the effects are large and permanent even though the person still has a lot of work to do to stabilize that view to make it a persistent state of consciousness. This process has different names in different traditions, Buddhists may call it awakening or enlightenment, in yoga it is called self-realization, in Zen Buddhism it is called understanding your true nature.

(I would like to thank those enlightened beings who so kindly answered my questions. If I have accidentally misrepresented anything they have said the fault is entirely my own.)

Monday, August 19, 2019

"The Untethered Soul" by Michael Singer

Contents

Introduction
What You Are
Awakening
Keep Your Heart Open
Letting Go of Emotional Pain
Meditation
Surrender
The Untetherd Soul
Further Reading

Introduction

I highly recommend the The Untethered Soul by Michael Singer. In his book, Singer offers a somewhat different perspective on certain ideas that students of Buddhism may be interested in. Singer's background is in yoga and he writes about many of the more esoteric and mystical aspects of the mind in a way that is much easier to understand than the way they are presented in Buddhism.

Singer cuts through a lot of the obscure verbal gymnastics you find in Buddhism and explains very clearly how understanding the mind can cause awakening. He does not give any specific meditation instructions in the book, but if you are already meditating, the information in the book can help you understand how meditation and mindfulness practices should work and how to do them correctly. What Singer is saying is not much different in essence from my own practice (observe the mind, relax, let go of unpleasant emotions) but Singer gives a clear explanation of the nature of the mind and how to use that understanding in combination with letting go of emotions to achieve awakening.

Singer's approach is somewhat different from Buddhism's. In Buddhism you are told to meditate and someday if you are lucky something magical will happen and you will get enlightenment and your suffering will end. Singer says you have to confront unpleasant emotions to let go of them and that process leads to enlightenment.

According to his biography "He had a deep inner awakening in 1971 while working on his doctorate in economics and went into seclusion to focus on yoga and meditation."

Contents

What You Are

In The Untethered Soul, Michael Singer explains that you are awareness. Thoughts and emotions are not you, they are things you observe.

Singer uses the analogy of a lucid dream to explain how to experience yourself as awareness.

In a lucid dream you know you are dreaming. In a regular dream you are immersed in the dream, you think it is real.

When you meditate or practice mindfulness, you know you are observing thoughts and emotions, like you are watching a movie, you are mindful, you are lucid. But if you get distracted by thoughts and emotions and get carried away by them, you become immersed in them, you might notice after a while that you are thinking about something and not meditating, you were not lucid. It is like when you are watching a move and you become so caught up in it you forget your surroundings. The thoughts and emotions have taken over your mind.

By practicing meditation and mindfulness you can learn to be lucid during daily life. In an interview with Yoga Journal Singer describes this process. He does not suppress thoughts he observes them, "I just allowed whatever thoughts needed to arise, to arise, and simply tried to relax instead of engaging with them. No struggle, just deep relaxation..." By learning to be lucid, you can be what you are: awareness observing.

Contents

Awakening

If you allow yourself to experience emotional pain (Buddhists say "suffering") you will learn to let go of it and that leads to awakening: the end of suffering. But you have to confront your emotions from a lucid state of mind or you will not be able to let go. When you experience emotions and you are not lucid, you are immersed in the emotions, they will take over your mind, like distracting thoughts during meditation. You will see the event that caused the emotion as a problem needing a solution and you will be focused on that. But when you experience emotions while you are lucid, you are not immersed in them, you see an emotion as something you are observing, not necessarily as a problem that has to be solved. Because you are detached, because the emotion has not taken over your mind, you can just relax and allow it to exist until it naturally ends which is the way to let go of emotions - relax and allow them to exist until they cease naturally. When you are lucid, if there is a problem that needs to be dealt with, you will be able to do so without emotions clouding your judgement.

Allowing yourself to feel emotional pain can be difficult, but understanding that the process is beneficial can change your attitude and motivate you to embrace it so you can reap the benefits of letting go. You also quickly learn that most daily upsets are not too bad and that you can endure them quite easily. And if you observe the emotional pain from a lucid state you see emotions as something you are observing rather than a problem.

Being lucid during daily life is useful because we are bombarded with stresses that can cause emotional upsets all day long. In order to be able to let go of unpleasant emotions as you encounter them, you have to be lucid all the time.

Letting go of emotional pain does not just free us from suffering, it changes our basic understanding of who and what we are. Over a lifetime we have built up a "reality" in our mind with thoughts about who we are, what we are, how we relate to the world, how other people should act, what is right, what is wrong, what is good, what is bad etc. etc. But this is not reality. It is just thought. And it limits us. To escape beyond our self constructed boundaries we have to disassemble our mental prison. Allowing ourselves to experience emotional pain can help us disassemble this illusory reality. When things in our experience don't match our expectations, we feel threatened, we feel emotional pain. We protect our mental model of reality by pushing away pain or by clinging to our ideas, Every time we feel emotional pain it is telling us about a flaw in our model of reality. Emotional pain can help us to deconstruct the illusion of reality if we allow ourselves to experience the pain and let go of it because by doing that we are accepting that our mental model of reality is flawed and in time it will be so weakened by so many accumulated flaws that we will be able to see through it. That is awakening.

Contents

Keep Your Heart Open

Singer frequently says you should always keep your heart open. Never let it close. When he refers to the heart closing I believe he is referring to the feeling one gets when one feels an unpleasant emotion arising and feels anger, resentment or something that puts an emotional barrier between the person and something or someone else. It is possible to be mindful and notice when you are putting up emotional barriers and in some cases you can decide not to do it.

Singer is not advocating suppressing unpleasant emotions. In The Untethered Soul he frequently says you should observe emotions from a lucid state so they do not take control over you, but you should allow them flow freely. Don't try to stop them or distract yourself so you don't feel them. Always just let emotions flow in meditation and in daily activities. It should become a way of life. If you do this, emotions arise and pass away and you don't bottle them up or put up defense mechanisms. This is a central theme in the book. The numerous times Singer discusses the subject shows how important he feels it is.

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Letting Go of Emotional Pain

Singer says you should try to let go of emotional pain during meditation and in daily life. If you want to try it, here are a few reminders that may help you to stay lucid and let go.

Remember:

You are just awareness observing thoughts and emotions.
Stay lucid - don't let emotions, thoughts or impulses take over your mind. Do this by observing them, not by suppressing them.
Start with small things. Once you see that emotional pain will cease naturally if you just allow yourself to feel it, you will come to understand and trust the process and it will become easier to tackle the more difficult issues.
Try to be relaxed as much as you can. If the situation permits do relaxation exercises or a relaxing form of meditation to enter a deep state of relaxation.
If possible allow yourself to feel the emotional pain until it naturally ceases. Depending on the situation it might be more appropriate to do this later in private. Feeling emotional pain until it ceases naturally is how we let go of it. and doing that frees us from the delusions that separate us from enlightenment.
Unpleasant emotions are not "true", or "real", or "reality". They are illusions. They arise, exist for a time, and fade away - they have no permanent existence. One person may feel an unpleasant emotion, but another person in the same situation might not. You might notice that when you are lucid you do not have the same intense emotions that you do when you are not lucid and thoughts and emotions have taken over your mind. Unpleasant emotions can be eased by relaxing types of meditation. Unpleasant emotions are temporary, and subjective, they are not true, or real, or reality. They are illusions.
If your mind becomes turbulent, just relax and watch your mind be turbulent, watch it go round and round trying to figure out what to do, but stay lucid, don't let thoughts, emotions, and impulses take over your mind.
If it is too much, take a break and do a relaxing form of meditation.
It may also help to develop a daily meditation practice that helps you to relax and lifts your mood which may counterbalance the emotional pain to some extent.

Contents

Meditation

In this interview in Yoga Journal, Michael Singer explains a little bit about how he would meditate, it involved deep relaxation:
https://www.yogajournal.com/meditation/surrender-experiment

YJ: How did meditation quiet the voice for you? Singer: When I first started to meditate, I didn’t really know what I was doing. I just wanted to shut up that incessant chatter in my head. So I took the time each day to sit by myself in a meditation posture and use my will to either push away the thoughts or struggle to turn my attention onto something else -- like a mantra or visualization. That created some quiet, but it didn’t last, and it was a struggle to get into a really quiet state.
As I matured in my spiritual practices, I began to surrender inside, just like I was doing in my outer life. I just allowed whatever thoughts needed to arise, to arise, and simply tried to relax instead of engaging with them. No struggle, just deep relaxation -- regardless of what the voice was saying. Over time, like magic, my awareness lost interest in the thoughts and ceased to become distracted by them. If I walk into a room with a television on, I can notice it is there, but I don’t have to actually watch it. Likewise, I can notice that the voice is saying something, but I don’t have to actually listen to it. That became my meditation: deeply relaxing and not engaging in anything the voice of the mind was saying. Over time, as I let go of the chattering mind, I began to fall into beautiful states within, like deep peace or waves of joy and love. This began happening both during meditation and during daily activities. Interestingly, when the inner state becomes beautiful, the voice of the mind has much less to say. It’s as though the vast majority of its talking was about how to be OK. If you are already OK, both the heart and the mind become still and melt into the beauty of the moment. That is the gift of yoga.
...
Though I have consistently maintained daily practices, my true practice of yoga is done inside at all times. It is this internal practice of constantly letting go of whatever disturbance arises within that has allowed me to stay centered through these amazing situations life has presented to me. Yoga is like a fine wine that becomes better over time. You start by letting go of the little things that irritate you for no reason, like the weather, or someone else’s attitude. Of what purpose is it to get disturbed by things that are just passing by and are pretty much out of your control? So you begin the practice of allowing the shifts in your inner energy to just pass through internally. You do this by deeply relaxing and giving them the space they need to pass. It is very much like relaxing into an asana. The more you relax, the easier it becomes, until at some point it becomes an enjoyable experience. It can be the same inside if you begin relaxing and releasing early enough in the process. Then something bigger happens in life that challenges your willingness to relax and let the reactionary disturbance pass by within. Your tendency is to resist the uncomfortable feeling and control your environment so that you don’t have to deal with the inner disturbance. But your commitment to yoga demands that you let go and use each situation life puts you in to go beyond your comfort zone. This is the true practice of yoga, and it becomes your way of life.

A more clearly defined form of meditation that would also be a good compliment to the book is this:
https://www.lionsroar.com/how-to-meditate-dzogchen-ponlop-rinpoche-on-mahamudra/

In this type of meditation you first sit quietly and relax for a little while. Then begin to notice any thoughts that arise. Observe a thought but do not continue along in a train of thoughts. If there are no thoughts, just sit being aware of awareness. If you are not sure what "being aware of awareness" means, think any random word for example "automobile", when you are thinking it, you are observing a thought, when the thought is over, you are left being aware of awareness. If any unpleasant feelings arise, go back to relaxing for a while and return to observing thoughts and awareness when you feel more at ease.

Contents

Surrender

Singer also discusses the subject of surrender. That subject can be best understood by reading another book by Singer, The Surrender Experiment. What Singer means by surrender is that you should not resist what life brings you. The Surrender Experiment is an autobiography of Singer's life in which he decided early on to always take the path that life presented to him without regard to his personal likes or dislikes. The result was that he started out meditating in the woods and step by step, trying to help people who came to him, he ended up the CEO of a billion dollar company and the director of a spiritual temple where yoga and meditation were practiced and taught.

Singer had bought a parcel of land in the woods in which he planned to mediate in seclusion. After he built a house for himself on his property, someone in his community asked him to do some construction work. That led to more requests from others and Singer eventually formed a construction company. Singer funneled the proceeds into building a temple on his property where people from the community met to practice yoga and meditate.

When Singer bought one of the first models of personal computer on the market, he wrote programs for himself until the owner of the store where he bought it asked if he could refer clients to Singer. That eventually led Singer to form a software company. The software company grew and grew and merged and merged until Singer was CEO of a billion dollar company.

Contents

The Untethered Soul

The Untethered Soul web site is here:
https://untetheredsoul.com

If you are interested in the book and have access to e-books from your library, you might be able to borrow a copy. I borrowed the e-book through hoopla (hoopladigital.com). It is also available to borrow from overdrive.com but there was a waiting list when I checked there.

Contents

Monday, August 12, 2019

The Relationship of Serenity and Insight

The type of meditation I recommend can help you to be more relaxed and produce a pleasant, serene, contented mood. Developing this skill can improve the quality of your life. This type of meditation is sometimes called serenity meditation.

You can experience further improvement in your quality of life by taking your meditation practice one step further: by developing insight.

The pleasant state produced by meditation can be used to practice another type of meditation called insight meditation. One way to define insight meditation is that it is the process of observing the source of unpleasant emotions. Unpleasant emotions are often accompanied by physical sensations within the body. Noticing these sensations will help you to become aware of changes in your emotional state. When the mind is quiet and unpleasant emotions arise, the mind will also notice what caused the unpleasant emotions to arise. In many cases the mind will observe that the mind itself is the source of thoughts that caused the unpleasant emotions.

(Some unpleasant emotions might be caused by innate biochemical factors and not thoughts - I am not referring to those type of emotions here).

When you are in a relaxed, quiet, pleasant mood, any type of unpleasant mental state that arises and disturbs your pleasant mood will be very obvious to you. The pleasant state produced by meditation provides a background against which unpleasant emotions are readily noticeable. Being observant while meditating and throughout the day of what disturbs the pleasant mood produced by meditation will cause the mind to learn how it causes unpleasant emotions and it will learn to change the way it thinks in order to stop creating unpleasant emotions.

Related Reading

One Tool Among Many: The Place of Vipassana in Buddhist Practice by Thanissaro Bhikkhu

Pages

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Saturday, April 4, 2020

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II.

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IV.

Saturday, September 28, 2019

Tuesday, September 24, 2019

Saturday, September 21, 2019

Related Articles

Tuesday, September 17, 2019

Sunday, August 25, 2019

Enlightenment Is Giving Up Your Concept of Self

Meditation and Spiritual Practices Help You To Give Up Your Concept of Self

When You Give Up Your Concept of Self, You Realize You are Just Awareness Observing, You Stop Distinguishing between Self and Not-Self, and You Stop Overreacting to Emotions That have Ego at Their Root.

How Meditation and Spiritual Practices Help Free a Person From Their Concept of Self:

Monday, August 19, 2019

Monday, August 12, 2019

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