Analogies

Stole them, and embellished a bit, but they get to the heart of the matter.

Our normal state is like that of holding a bell tightly. Occasionally stuff hits the bell, and makes a noise, although we probably don't realize it. Perhaps we notice it when the noise is particularly loud or long, perhaps we even label it something (like "a moment of grace"), but even then we never think to ask "what is that?" Or if we do, we focus on the hand that is holding the bell.

When we are introduced to mindfulness, it is like striking the bell. We do this repeatedly, and notice the sound it makes. It's still muffled, and to keep it "continuous," we must keep at it. We find that those magic moments happen more and more often, but we still somehow believe our hand is the cause.

Eventually we learn techniques to start releasing our grip on the bell. As we relax more completely into this release from grasping, we notice that after striking the bell, it rings for longer and longer. Repeatedly striking it does not help.

We find that the bell, and not our hand, is what is making the noise. We are surprised to learn that we are not the bell, and in fact, the bell is not even ours. Eventually, we are content letting the bell ring continuously, with no interference.

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When we are holding the bell, we find that thoughts are like words chiseled into stone. They seem somehow real, meaningful, relevant. As we release our grip, thoughts become like writing in water. They abide nowhere, are made of nothing, and have no lasting effect on the water.

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From one perspective, meditation is striking the bell. From another (usually later) perspective, it is allowing the bell to ring. Nothing could be simpler, but in some sense, nothing is harder than letting go of the bell.

(These should not be taken as instructions, by the way. I don't think it works that way. If you want instructions, pick a path and stick with it. Or if you're really foolhardy, make it up as you go along, like me.)

Another kind of experience

Okay, so following up from a few posts ago: pain is like the color red -- both just nameable experiences happening in awareness. The sense of being aware is also just another experience. And as you may have already figured out, the sense of "I am" is just another thing happening in awareness as well. That is, your conventional self is like the color red: just another thing floating on by, that has nothing to do with the real you.

A little harder to wash out than a red stain though.

Mindlessly eating your emotions

You are not your X

This is sort of an add-on to the previous post.

I sometimes teach people in meditation class that "you are not your body, thoughts, or emotions," hinting that they are their awareness. But in the class, "awareness" has an opposite (or absence), "unawareness."

In this sense, I may be rooting them (and myself) more firmly in dual fixation. The awareness that you are does not have an opposite or even a lack, as I understand it.

"But wait!" you say, what about in deep sleep, when you're clearly not aware in any sense? Well, those who have gone before say even that's not true. That may have to wait some time for me to understand.

For now, it's good to remember "I am not my lucidity or dullness," nor my awareness or unawareness. Trippy.

On the varieties of experience

Figure I'd name the post something cool, even if the content doesn't live up :)

Suppose you see a red shirt during the day, and again (from exactly the same position) in the evening when the Sun is in a different spot. Are those two different experiences, or are you having the same experience in slightly different ways? The first, I hope.

Now suppose you see the shirt under the same lighting conditions, but once you're wide awake, and the other time drowsy. Same experience in different ways? No, still two different experiences.

In general, if two experiences can be distinguished in any way, they are different experiences. The only constant is the awareness that is "having" the experience, and it cannot be labeled in any way, because labels belong to experiences.

Not so hard to grasp, but it seems to make a difference during meditation. In the "awareness of awareness" shamatha practice I regularly do, it feels like awareness itself is changing from moment to moment, which is the only thing that could really keep me from full stability. If I could actually see that the awareness is never changing, then *snap* I'd be at the end goal (of shamatha, anyway).

Presumably this is the idea when Tsoknyi Rinpoche says (in his book Carefree Dignity) that when the division between stillness and thought occurrence falls away, this is the recognition of one-pointedness. He also suggests that during the similar vipashyana practice (in Mahamudra, anyway), the "maintained" awareness is replaced by an "automatic" awareness (he likens it to a doorman calmly watching guests come and go / opening and closing the door for all of them, vs. a laser sensor being there).

"Everything is just one continuity of being alert and awake. And this alertness or awake quality is completely settled, without your having to try to settle it."

Okay, so: tying your shoelaces with awareness vs. without awareness. Same experience in different ways? Again, different experiences, and in both cases there is an underlying awareness that is cognizant of them. In other words, even when you're "unaware" in my usual sense (which itself is a more subtle thing than in the colloquial sense -- which usually means completely zoned out), you're still aware in some sense.

So perhaps this particular vipashyana practice with awareness is a nice supplement and booster for the shamatha practice: find the awareness that is constant.

No big deal, I'll just go find the Tao now.

Must be doing something right, because I just had one of the best sessions that I can remember. The key for me is remembering that I want this. Not want in a craving sense, but that I know this is the right way to be going. Thoughts seem so... passé. It's like I'm asking to be drawn into the source.

Now to update the comment I made on my previous post: what I'm suggesting may not be so outlandish. Consider shikantaza, the Zen practice of "just sitting." As I understand it, it incorporates both shamatha and vipashyana into a general awareness practice. And occasionally, one experiences kensho -- which sounds an awful lot like popping into rigpa.

The One True Way

Now that I'm back in retreat, this blog will switch back from being "general purpose" to being something more like a retreat journal.

I've read a bit about the distinction between Mahamudra and Dzogchen -- purportedly the "highest teachings" in Tibetan Buddhism (which seems to fancy itself as the highest form of Buddhism, or something). To an outsider, they look nearly identical. But for centuries, those schools argued back and forth about which method was superior. And perhaps more importantly, about which end result was "higher."

At some point, it seems, one of them finally relented and said "ok, yeah, they're exactly the same." Presumably with a bit of grumbling from the stakeholders on each side. But I get the feeling they still consider themselves superior to other branches of Buddhism, to say nothing of non-Buddhist schools.

To think that any one approach has a monopoly on enlightenment seems a bit silly to me. So I think I'll do what I'm sure I've been warned not to do, and mix and match. There are several pieces that seem consistent across approaches I've "studied" (okay, read briefly about: Tibetan Buddhism, other Buddhist schools like Zen and Theravada, Advaita Vedanta, and some new, secular "non-dualist" schools, ...):

1. Awareness seems to be the lynchpin of this whole thing. (Or perhaps "now"-ness. They seem the same to me.) I'm willing to buy this one, as it has always seemed to me that awareness precedes everything, including physical reality.

2. The non-existence of an independent "self" (anatta in Buddhism). Okay, Advaita doesn't quite say there's no self, but rather that it (Atman) is identical with the source (Brahman). This sounds easy to believe as well.

I'll use the words "the source" as a stand-in for Brahman in Vedanta, Dharmakaya in Buddhism, Tao in Taoism, etc., since I take them to be the same thing. Or non-thing. Or whatever.

3. The non-existence of... physical reality (sunyata). I'll leave this one alone for now, as it's furthest from my own experience and hard to take at face value. But I'm willing to investigate it.

Put these together, and you get things like Wu Wei, the Taoist idea of doing without doing ("Do nothing, and everything is done" -- I love that quote). Normally, if you try to stop "doing", one of two things happens: you become inanimate, or else mindless. The latter, taken to its extreme, results in some sort of dissociative state, which is not the idea. Being aware without feeling that you are the one "doing" is hard, to say the least, but it seems to follow from the first two.

It is possible to misconstrue these in many ways (e.g., #3 seems to suggest nihilism, which is wrong; #1 and #3 together may give solipsism, which is maybe even worse; all three together give... dissociated solipsism? Shudder). Which is presumably why there are codified ways to approach these ideas.

Nonetheless, given that many of them bicker (less true with the latest "non-dualist" schools -- but maybe they also have less to offer), I'm going to follow my own nose. I think the Buddha had a brilliant idea in dividing meditation up into two categories: shamatha (mental quiescence) and vipashyana (clear seeing; insight). It makes sense that one would need a mind that is both calm and penetrating to make progress.

Exactly how, no two teachers will agree on, but it seems hard to go wrong by practicing maintaining lucid awareness. Sure, at first it may be dualistic (as in unsupported shamatha or shamatha without characteristics), but hopefully it progresses toward the non-dualistic approach (rigpa) that many agree is closer to the truth. It's sort of like progressing from "doing aware" to "being aware."

So although the school I'm currently "affiliated" with (by virtue of getting guidance from a lama) teaches that one cannot progress to the second without special induction (the pointing out instruction), there seem to be enough others who managed to go without it that I won't sweat it too much.

Okay, back to the cushion with me.