The
Buddha’s
Toolbox
The Work of Loving Kindness…
Renovating the Human Mind
through
Vipassana Meditation Techniques
Table of Contents
Wisdom in a Nutshell…………………………………………………………………………….. 5
Foreword……………………………………………………………………………………………….. 5
Introduction…………………………………………………………………………………………. 9
PART ONE – The Mind
13
Chapter 1: Two Realities…………………………………………………………………… 13
Chapter 2: The Dollhouse – A Model of Thought and Imagination……. 17
Chapter 3: Perception………………………………………………………………………. 19
Chapter 4: The Seed of Our Existence………………………………………………. 21
Chapter 5: The Power of Sensations …………………….…………………………... 23
Chapter 6: Foundational Sensations …………………………………………………. 27
Chapter 7: Attention and Freedom …………………………………………………… 31
Chapter 8: More Perception …………………………………………………………… 35
The Big Picture
37
Chapter 9: Body-Thought: Another Way of Thinking ……………………….. 39
Chapter 10: The Game of Life …………………………………………………………… 41
Chapter 11: Sensations and Emotions ………………………………………………. 43
Chapter 12: The Mind at Work ………………………………………………………… 47
Chapter 13: The Imaginary Divide and Secondary Models of “Reality” 49
The Bigger Picture
55
Chapter 14: Story − A Model of Verbal Thought ……………………………….. 57
Chapter 15: Sanity …………………………………………………………………………….. 63
Chapter 16: Watching T.V. – A Model of Focus …………………………………. 67
Chapter 17: Focus in Meditation ……………………………………………………….. 79
Chapter 18: The Pool of Recollection ………………………………………………. 93
Chapter 19: universal Awareness …………………………………………………… 101
Chapter 20: Three Analogies…………………………………………………………… 107
PART TWO – Meditation
Chapter 21: Appreciating Change, Noticing Sensations & Equanimity
Chapter 22: Equanimity…………………………………..………………………………
Chapter 23: Posture………………………………………………………………………….
111
111
119
123
PART THREE − Choice, Control and Addiction
125
Chapter 24: Choice………………………………………………………………………………. 74
Chapter 25: Control…………………………………………………………………………….. 76
Chapter 26: Addiction…………………………………………………………………………. 78
PART FOUR – Biological Importance,
83
Stasis and Change
and
Love: Fear and Fury
Chapter 27: Biological Importance………………………………………………………. 83
Chapter 28: Stasis and Change……………………………………………………………. 84
Chapter 29: Love: Fear and Fury………………………………………………………. 87
PART FIVE – The Heart of the Message
89
Chapter 30: The Heart of the Message………………………………………………… 89
PART SIX – Metta
93
Chapter 31: Metta……………………………………………………………………………… 93
First Edition, Aug 2016
www.buildthefarm.org
How to make this life a good and satisfying one, beneficial to
ourselves and others…
− Gautama Buddha
Wisdom in a Nutshell
If you truly wish for something in yourself or in the world to be different…
The mind does not have direct control over our thoughts and actions; it can
only prompt or encourage our behavior through a stream of sensations that
courses throughout the entirety of the body. These sensations serve either
as impulses to act in a certain way or to create the feelings that validate and
support a particular thought, emotion or action.
Every one of our thoughts, feelings, actions and inactions is a reaction to the
underlying current of sensations.
Every time we react (consciously or unconsciously) to an impulse or situation,
the link between the stimulus and that response is strengthened; we are
further conditioning this behavior and shaping our future.
If we are unaware of these sensations, we are but puppets on a string. We
have surrendered ourselves to the mercy of our minds which tend to
orchestrate lives of habitual and compulsive behaviors based on fears and
yearnings.
Regardless if our minds are directing us into a life of struggle or a life of plenty,
when we are caught up in the commotion of our thoughts and mental worlds,
it is difficult to stay in touch with the calm kindness and deep sense of
wellbeing that abides in all experience.
We cannot stop, dam, or divert the stream of sensations; this is our true
inheritance. We can try to avoid this experience through entertainment,
hyperactivity, numbness or self-medication. But this just leaves us captive,
further strengthening the chains of cause and effect.
We can try to gain control over our lives through analysis and/or battles of
the will, but these will never truly free us from our thoughts and our internal
and external battlefields.
Foreword
5
But, we are not victims. Although we cannot change the past, nor can we
control what sensations show up in our present, through awareness we can
control the learning process! We are each fully responsible for our futures.
There is a short interval between the sensations that serve as an impulse for
a behavior and our reaction to these sensations; it is in this interval, after the
impulse but before we have reacted, that we can change learning from a
process that furthers our conditioning into a process of deep change and
liberation.
Whenever we observe sensations and do not react, not only are we
momentarily free from our conditioned habit patterns, we weaken the very
dynamic that generates that pattern.
For those of us who struggle with compulsive behavior and addiction, it might
seem otherwise. But again, the link between an impulse for an action and
our honoring that impulse is not hard-wired; we don’t have to react.
The key is that… the work is not to try to exert willpower in a given situation
– to try to control or determine what we do or what we don’t do. The work
is to develop awareness (sensitivity) to the underlying sensations and develop
our capacity to remain calm and non-reactive.
We all want to believe that we are basically aware and tuned-in to our body.
But, the hard truth is that most of us go through our entire day with our
attention caught up in the displays of thought. And, we are unaware or, at
best, semi-conscious of the dynamics that are prompting our thoughts,
feelings and actions.
The sensations are always there. Some are quite strong and others extremely
subtle. But, regardless of their strength, to notice these sensations requires
a certain strength of concentration and focus. A good example is with the
blinking of the eyes. (When was the last time you blinked?) To bring the
sensations of blinking into our awareness requires us to retract at least some
of our attention away from our thoughts and external world and focus it onto
the muscles of the eyes and face and onto our visual experience.
The fairly strong sensations of blinking show how easily the mind chooses
which sensations to hide or delete from our experience. It also shows how
with observation (focused attention) sensations build to surface into our
awareness and how quickly sensations drop out of awareness when our
attention is redirected to something else.
6
Foreword
The most helpful and beneficial thing each person can do is to undertake a
practice that increases awareness to the sensations throughout the entirety
of the body while developing a capacity for mental and physical nonreactivity.
A practice of focus that develops awareness of sensation is essential in
building understanding of the deep workings of the mind and the limitations
and the dangers of even our normal, typical thoughts and behaviors. An
untamed and untrained mind is at the mercy of the flood of sensations that
intends to orchestrate our every thought, feelings, emotions, action and
inaction. A mind that intends to keep us confined within repetitive, habitual
and compulsive patterns of behavior. An untamed and untrained mind is
confined to patterns of fear and desire as it concocts a reality that fills our
experience of the present with ideas of pasts and possible and probable
futures. This commotion is the source of all human suffering and distracts us
from the deep beauty and communion that is ever present.
On the other hand, a mind that has been tamed and trained, is not just free
from distorting commotion, but opens to the newness of every moment and
becomes a wellspring of grace and unconditional kindness.
This is the essence of Wisdom.
Foreword
7
Everyone struggles with their mind. Everyone wrestles, and at times is at
war with, their thoughts, feelings, actions, and inactions.1
Foreword
Everyone makes their way through the world using tools, machines and
devices that they don’t fully understand. Whether we are using a stick, a
butane lighter, a horse and cart, a car or the Hubble Telescope, the more
aware we are of how something is made and works, the more self-reliant and
responsive (and graceful) we become − we are less prone to frustration and
anxiety and we work with greater competency and kindness.
Our ability to accurately interpret, fix, fine-tune or change things and the
results of our endeavors are dependent upon our foundational
understanding of how things work.
All human turmoil and suffering, from loneliness to hate, stems from a lack
of Foundational Understanding of the Mind and misguided interpretations
of what we are thinking and feeling.
If we deeply understood how we think, life would be “good and satisfying”
for one and all. But, how do we deepen our understanding of how we think,
how we feel, and how we see the world?
Meditation is work towards these ends.
Obviously, people get by without meditating or delving deeply into how their
minds orchestrate their experience of reality. But, understanding the Human
Mind and its tools of the Intellect, Imagination and Perception is
fundamental in understanding any other aspect of life.
Reading and thinking about certain ideas help to build an intellectual
understanding of what is important and help to direct one’s focus and efforts.
But, Intellectual Understanding is only learning at the surface level of the
1
It is important not to vilify the Mind; at its very deepest the Human Mind may well
be a mechanism for the Greatest Learning, a washing machine of sorts for the “spirit”
(if such a thing exists), at least providing a field for self-awareness, personal
development and/or evolution.
Foreword
5
mind. For example, a person can read and think about sharpening chisels for
a life time. He can watch countless demonstrations. But, when a chisel is put
in his hands, he is still clueless. Developing a depth of sensitivity and
awareness that brings about, Deep Change, Deep Understanding and Ability
require direct experience and practice.2
Learning about the Mind is no different; Awareness, Sensitivity, Change,
Learning, Understanding and Ability all go hand in hand; to truly understand
your thoughts, to change habit patterns, to shift how you react to your
feelings, and to touch upon deep calm and kindness require a practice that
develops sensitivity to the point that you to actually feel the Mind at work.
Meditation is work towards this end.3
A person does not need to study the physics of the combustion of gases in
order to use and benefit from a butane lighter. Likewise, nothing in this book
is necessary for learning, practicing and benefiting from meditation
But, study, contemplation and cogitation are aspects of a developing
meditation practice; they are part of the development of “right
understanding” and “right thought”. Please use this book and its information
as you find befitting.
For those who already practice Vipassana meditation, I hope this work:
deepens your sensitivity; brings more confidence to what you already know
to be important; while helping to soften and expand your understanding.
And, you should be so lucky (diligent and hard working) dissolve the products
of your mind.
If you are new to meditation, I hope this work inspires you to track down a
course.
2
Depth of understanding develops through a cycle of right practice – attentively
feeling for and listening to the interaction between the chisel and the sharpening
stone; sharp focus to inspect variations in the glint of the chisel’s edge; attentive use
of the chisel, feeling for how the wood moves under the steel; then returning to the
sharpening stone for another round of attentive honing and attentive use.
3
A common conception of Meditation is that it is an attempt to stop thoughts or stop
thinking. This might or might not happen. The work in Vipassana is not to try to stop
thoughts, but just to direct Attention to physical/tactile sensations which both
disrupts and weakens the thought process and deepens our understanding of how
the Mind works.
6
Foreword
The techniques of Vipassana meditation are very simple. On the other hand,
some of the ideas behind the techniques are rigorous and mind-bending. I
have tried to balance the heaviness of ideas with simple analogies. Please,
play and work with the material and stretch the mind. But, if you lose interest
in this book, please don’t lose interest in experiencing for yourself the
benefits of meditation; please, track down a course.
Most people carry an idea that meditation is important, that it is good for us.
People promote a variety of techniques and practices that can range from 3minute meditations for the busy person to lifelong hermitages. Each practice
has its benefits. But, the emphasis of The Buddha’s Toolbox is to lay out the
structure of the human mind so that we can see the wisdom of the practices
promoted by Gautama Buddha – how a handful of simple tools fit perfectly
within that structure and work towards calming and clearing the mind,
eventually dismantling the mechanisms that divorce us from calm,
unconditional compassion and joy.
The Buddha is known for the qualities of truth, peace and compassion that
came from his meditation practice. But, what was he actually doing while he
was sitting there with eyes closed and legs crossed?
Although I had read books, actively searched the internet for “Buddha’s
teachings”, attended talks, dated a practicing Buddhist, and spent 6 months
staying at Zen Buddhist and Tibetan Buddhist monasteries, it seems strange
that I never came across what was at the core of his practice; until 4 years
ago, I assumed that he just sat there long enough, with enough determination
until the Zen switch got flipped and bingo − no mind, no thought, no
sensation, infinite love, infinite compassion.
It turns out he wasn’t just sitting there steeped in deep concentration, or
chanting or praying. He was working with scientific diligence and deep desire
to be of help; he was working to put aside beliefs and dogma in order to
investigate through his own direct experience the nature of the human mind
and the human condition.4
4
Prior to finding Vipassana, I understood that the mind had a structure and it seemed
to me (in a Zen-ish way) that anything that was of structure only fed the mind.
Therefore, any meditating on a regular schedule or for a certain amount of time, and
even “meditating” itself, was overlaying a mental structure over the present moment
Foreword
7
In his exploration he realized that it is at the juncture between sensations in
the body and our reactions to these sensations that we can step in and gain
control of the Mind, not just momentarily breaking free from the cycle of our
conditioned habit patterns, but also beginning a process that clears the Mind,
at the root level, of the of the “impurities” that generate all anguish, all misery
and any less-than-gracious thoughts or actions.
The tools are a handful of simple mental exercises that bring awareness to
the body and the breath; strengthen concentration; heighten our sensitivity
by focusing on more and more subtle sensations; and develop a calm mind
that softens into kindness.
This is more than just trying to relax and de-stress a little. He is offering the
tools to rid the mind at its deepest level of all the Conditioning (impurities)
that are the cause of all stress, all misunderstanding and all harm. What could
be more important than this?
Although this book is highly intellectual and based on scientific inquiry, please
appreciate that the practice itself opens to softness and understanding that
is beyond the need for forgiveness; at its heart, The Buddha’s Toolbox is a
love letter to the world − an invitation to embrace an opportunity to
experience for yourself awareness that transcends the self and opens to
tranquility and deep compassion.
You will have to do your own work, but you will not have to rediscover or
reinvent the tools and techniques; they have been passed down through the
generations.
There is one catch – in order for these tools to work, a person must want to
be good. This doesn’t mean that you have to be good, just that you are ready
to work to be better. This means: putting to use the virtues that you already
and rather than honor any impulse to create such a structure, the impulse could be
noted and allowed to dissolve. But now, “Zen Buddhism” seems oxymoronic. The
Buddha says that, yes, the mind has a structure… and, here are tools that fit perfectly
within that structure to impair, impede, reconfigure and eventually dismantle that
structure. There is a popular Zen Buddhist refrain, “No mind, no thought, no
sensation.” But, I do not see how singing about mindlessness has any value. Any idea
that one is supposed to not think is likely to foment frustration. The Buddha’s
instructions are to develop awareness of sensation while developing a capacity for
calm (mental and physical non-reactivity).
8
Foreword
have; being ready to develop new ones; while working to do less harm to
yourself and to others.
During the first few days of a Vipassana retreat, you set to work sharpening
your attention. During the next six days you will learn how to put your finely
honed awareness to use – noticing sensations within the framework of the
body while developing “equanimity” (developing a calm and balanced mind
that is less and less reactive, less and less judgmental). This is the essence of
the work: being kind to yourself as you develop your sensitivity to sensations
and your equanimity.
The sensations to be noticed are nothing spectacular, nothing out of the
ordinary; quite to the contrary, they are very ordinary. For example:
Sensations of heat or cold. Pressure or ticklish sensation. Tingling, pulsing or
vibration. Dryness, moisture, prickling, or pain, or… It doesn’t matter if the
sensation is pleasant or unpleasant; any sensation that is observed with
equanimity brings us in contact with a deeper reality and a deeper truth – at
any moment we have a choice: we can stay caught up in (and buffeted about
by) our thoughts and feelings and the apparently inescapable turmoil of our
lives; or, we can direct awareness to the body and breath and any
softness/stillness. With this shift of awareness comes a shift of consciousness
that disintegrates the link between sensations and our conditioned reactions;
in this moment we are masters of our own mind; we are not out of control;
and, we have opened a process for “[purifying the mind], for overcoming
sorrow, for extinguishing suffering, for walking on the path of truth and for
realizing liberation.” These are the tools for enlightenment.
Please know that although the techniques are simple, it would be extremely
difficult to learn them on your own or from a book. However, over 90
percent of the participants in the courses that I have attended have been
successful in completing the course and have begun to benefit from the
wisdom of this practice.
I am sure there are other qualified courses, but I am only familiar with the
courses taught by S.N. Goenka as they are offered by www.Dhamma.org. The
organization runs entirely through donation and is very careful to avoid the
introduction of dogma into the classes and their centers.
May all be happy.
Foreword
9
Introduction
Much of the Buddha’s current fame stems from the numerous religions that
formed after his death and the trans-cultural prevalence of statues of him
sitting with legs crossed. For the past 2,500 years people have passed down
a respect and devotion for the man, his accomplishments and his teachings.
The teachings include the importance of working on your virtues and the
value of increased awareness. He also taught that each one of us is
responsible for our own work and that we can all come out of our misery −
we can all become enlightened.
It is a testament to human stubbornness that although many lineages passed
down the importance of developing virtue (being kinder both to ourselves
and to others) and deepening our awareness, they stopped sharing what
could be easily seen as the most important discovery of all time – the actual
practice required to deepen awareness and increase one’s sensitivity.
People and institutions dropped from their teachings, curriculum and
practice the very tools needed to impair and dismantle the mechanisms of
the Mind that generate ignorance, small mindedness and our reactive,
compulsive and less-than-gracious natures. We stopped passing on the very
tools and techniques that rework the Mind so that Loving Kindness prevails.5
Fortunately for us, a small group of people in Myanmar/Burma held onto the
importance and simplicity of the actual practice6 and passed the techniques
5
Many people focus on aspects of the Buddha’s practice that are taught as the “eightfold path” and the development of “ten virtues”. These are explained and explored
in Goenka Institute’s introductory courses. But from my very small viewpoint, it
seems that people get caught up in discussing, expounding and propounding these
elements and fail to instill the importance of the actual practice which is: working to
keep Attention within the framework of the body; noticing, as best as possible, any
and all sensations as they are, without reaction, without judgment; and if there is
more than one sensation, focusing on the most subtle. As I see it, this information
should begin and end every conversation concerning the Buddha, meditation, or
desire for change. Wisdom could be 1% inspiration, 1% intellectual understanding
and 98% perspiration (actual practice of Vipassana techniques) − virtue and deep
understanding grow naturally from practice.
6
Right practice (more than right information and right belief) is the key to depth of
understanding.
Introduction
11
down through the generations. It turns out that the Buddha practiced 4
simple mental exercises – the same 4 simple mental exercises that you and I
can do to change our lives.
Although we might not attain enlightenment in this lifetime, the same tools
generate: Calmness of mind, tranquility, increased concentration, greater
sensitivity, greater awareness, greater energy, a curtailing of habitual and
compulsive behaviors and a weakening of judgments. They guide us to the
source of addiction and create deep, lasting change. They can also provide
a sense of meaning and purpose. Other benefits are: Freedom from the
smallness and nastiness of our thoughts; a mastery of the mind; Joy; deep
connection to life; kindness that is unconditional; and the comfort of knowing
that you always have the tools that you need to get back on track to work
toward these ends.
Once the Buddha understood the power of these tools, he patiently and
persistently put them to use until all that fuels self-deception and our
imaginary sense of reality was exhausted. When this process of liberation
had concluded within him, the Buddha spent the rest of his life teaching these
techniques and supporting the process in anyone who was willing.
The tools of Vipassana Meditation strengthen concentration, increase our
awareness of sensations and our capacity for calm, while developing
kindness. That’s it. What results from this work is governed by natural,
universal laws.
Again, these are very simple exercises that everyone can do. A person doesn’t
have to become a monk or give up a “normal” life. And, it doesn’t take years
to begin to benefit; the benefits are immediate. Three things are needed to
initiate the process. 1) A desire to be good. 2) An understanding and practice
of the technique. And 3) The occasional support of like-minded individuals.
(Each person is always fully responsible for his own work, but we will see later
why support is so important.)
I am no official expert in Vipassana; I have no special training or certification.
Since I was fourteen, I have worked, studied, exercised, played, and struggled
in pursuit of truth, my potential and an understanding of human nature.
These efforts could just as easily be seen as working through illness and
ailments while trying to understand social awkwardness, self-berating
thoughts and compulsive behavior. I began meditating at age 15 and
discovered yoga at age 24. I intermittently pursued counseling.
12
Introduction
But it wasn’t until I discovered Vipassana in 2012, at the age of 52, that I finally
found the tools that put an end to struggle. This doesn’t mean that I always
allow life to be peachy and full of bliss. But, I am no longer at a loss of what
to do. Yes, I can still indulge and fight and wallow and make myself miserable.
But it doesn’t have to be this way; at any moment, I can direct attention
inward, find the breath and observe sensation. Do I immediately enter a state
of calm? Not necessarily, but it is an enormous shift of consciousness; at this
moment, I am no longer totally caught up in my thoughts and lost in the
apparent reality of my life; I am closer to the truth that my anguish is selfinduced. And, (as explored in this book), I have reopened a process of selfawareness, greater understanding and liberation.
The Buddha’s Toolbox describes the structure of the mind so that we can see
why Vipassana meditation techniques are the perfect tools; how they work
to free us from the emotional tumult of our stories, curtail habitual and
compulsive behavior and open experience to profound calm, clarity and
kindness. This book is not a “how to” manual; it does not teach you how to
meditate. It is a blueprint of the Human Mind that offers Foundational
Understanding of the mechanisms that controls what we see, think, feel and
do. My hope is that with a better idea of how to fix, fine-tune and change
things, the importance and value of practicing Vipassana mediation will
become clear and encourage action.
For those new to Vipassana, please sign up for a beginner’s course. Each
person has to sharpen her own set of tools. This takes time. But, in 10 days
you can experience for yourself what many consider to be the greatest
discovery of all time. No, not enlightenment, but the wisdom of the tools to
get you there.
For those who already practice the techniques, I hope this book will inspire
and offer insights that will further your practice.
There are only two mistakes one can make along the road to truth;
not going all the way, and not starting.
– Gautama Buddha
Introduction
13
PART ONE – The Mind
Mind precedes all phenomena; mind matters most; everything is
mind-made.
– Gautama Buddha
Chapter 1: Two Realities
Everything starts with the Mind; it is the Main Character of this story. In some
ways the Mind is unfathomable, unknowable, incomprehensible. The human
mind is a force of nature and as such can be both wonderfully creative and
ruthlessly destructive, often in the same instant. Some of the greatest
scientific minds can harness the force of the atom’s nucleus. Some of the
greatest military minds can, with a sense of honor and accomplishment,
orchestrate the devastation of entire peoples. Some of the greatest artistic
minds can cut their lives short through self-neglect, suicide, or forms of
incidental suicide (drugs or accidents). Some of the greatest political,
financial and business minds can build empires on environmental defilement,
poverty and economic servitude.
You may think that the above examples are extreme, but all minds are
extreme; and no matter what your life looks like on the outside, on the inside,
we are each fighting a great battle. Why any and all of this is necessary and
how did it get started in the first place will probably always remain
unanswered, but life makes more sense and has more purpose if one comes
to the realization that regardless of our other responsibilities, one of the
greatest jobs/responsibilities we have in this life is to do what we can to tame,
train and purify our minds. Not just for our own wellbeing, but for the benefit
of all.
Meditation is not about prayer, religion or beliefs. It does not set out to try
to answer the biggest questions. It is taking time to put oneself in a quiet and
clean environment (as any good scientist would do) to minimize distraction,
contamination and variables, so that we can investigate for ourselves (with
as much accuracy as possible) how our minds work.
Part of the Mind’s deceit is to make it seem as if it is complicated and
unknowable. But upon deep inspection, when we actually feel the dynamics
of the Mind at work the Mind turns out to be quite simple – the “flow” that
Chapter – Two Realities
15
we consider to be our experience of life is a mental display, an arrangement
of five to nine objects and our reactions to this display. Aspects of the Mind
are unfathomable, but the Mind creates the entirety of our experience of life
through a handful of processes, never manipulating more than nine objects
at a time.
The Mind can seem so complex, but it doesn’t have to be; and it is through
subtlety and simplicity that the Mind is tamed and all this scientific inquiry
opens up to unconditional kindness and beauty.
The Mind is a paradox − simple, astounding and unfathomable. Akin to
Gravity, that helps organize chaos into the patterns of our physical universe,
the Mind is a universal dynamic, vast and formless, with great influence and
the power to create our experience of worlds, both “real” and imaginary.
We can never investigate the Mind directly, but we can know the Mind
indirectly, by looking at how it orchestrates our experience through its tools
of the Intellect, the Imagination and Perception.
Part One of this work offers an overview of the structure of the Mind. First,
looking at each layer of the Mind separately, and then, putting them all
together to see the big picture. The overview will show us what is needed to
break free from the smaller “reality” created by the Mind/Imagination and
open experience to the greater Reality.
We’ll begin with big-“R” Reality, the essence of the universe. Everything is
complete, connected, impermanent − a flow of creation and annihilation,
arising and passing. There is no judgment, no need, no desire. There is no
longing, no loneliness, no avoidance nor hate. There are neither boundaries
nor separation. There is no self, no time, no place. This is experience before
it has been filtered by the human Mind-Imagination. The divine experience
of the here and now cannot be described, but those who try call it: “Pure
Awareness”, “Gentle Softness” and “Absolute Kindness”. “Both the Void and
Everything”. “Calm” and “Emptiness”.
Experience “is deep, difficult to see, difficult to understand, tranquil,
excellent, beyond the reach of mere logic, subtle, and to be realized
only by the wise.”
− Gautama Buddha
16
Chapter 1 – Two Realities
REALITY - UNIVERSAL NATURE
−Unity
−Infinite Connection
−Constant Change
−Love
−Compassion
−Calm
−Calm connection with all
−Joy in the ephemeral and the ever-changing nature of life
−Beauty in the cycle of creation/annihilation
−Ultimate Truth
−Grace
(This is experience unfiltered by the human mind-imagination.)
We cannot imagine this experience because the very first act of the Mind is
to filter out the enormity, the complexity and the simplicity of this
experience.
Everyone’s Mind is the same7; the Mind is a maker of maps and models.
A map, model (or blueprint) is an arrangement of symbols, icons and
conventions that embeds what is most important in order to instruct, guide,
determine or direct behaviors.
For example, a map of The Oregon Trail is a display that distills the mapmaker’s experience and encodes what was deemed to be most relevant and
useful while omitting that which was determined to be irrelevant. Later, that
display can be used by the map-maker or another person to filter and
conform our present experience according to what was learned from
previous experience, that which was deemed <good>, <desirable>, <best>, or
7
Just because this is how my mind works, does not mean that this is how your mind
works. Please keep in mind that I have chosen to write with the presumption that
everyone’s mind is very much the same, if not the same. Later, when we come to
awareness, I will again emphasize that this is only my experience and cannot be
presumed to convey your experience of awareness as well.
Chapter – Two Realities
17
<perilous>. The idea is that through a model/map of past experience we are
able to more effectively and safely traverse that region.
The more we rely on and trust our maps, the less attention we have to pay to
the present moment and our immediate surroundings; and, the more we are
free to give attention to other aspects of thought and map making. For
example, reminiscing or reevaluating past experiences, or pondering or
planning possible futures.
Some maps are created to keep track of change. But, most maps are only
useful as long as there has not been any significant change in actual world.
A Map is purposefully simplified and stylized. But, a Model can be much more
“realistic” – a three dimensional, virtual reality “holodeck” that adds detail
where needed to support a sense of reality.
When you look out into your surroundings, every thing you notice is
transformed into a Map Object and added to a Model of the “real world”.
Each Object, like a symbol on a map, is embedded with intellectual,
psychological and emotional importance. Just like features on a map, each
Object encodes <value> and <danger>: <who does it belong to>, <is it
something I want>, <is it something to avoid>, <is it something to defend>,
<is it something to kill>.
What feels like passively looking out into the world is a display of Objects that
serves as a living Model of reality that designed to guide and direct our
behavior according to what has been determined to be intellectually,
psychologically and evolutionarily important. This Model is created and
maintained through a continual stream of sensations that runs throughout
the entire framework of the body.
If we are unaware of these sensations, we are just puppets being lured,
buffeted, prompted, wrenched and sickened into action and inaction. If we
are unaware of these sensations, we are not in touch with the present but in
a state of constant reaction according to the past and our Conditioning.
The Mind is a maker of maps. If the sandbars in a bay are changing so fast
that moments later the map is useless, maps and the map-maker are
pointless. The sailor must resort to direct observation with moment to
moment sounding of the ocean floor.
18
Chapter 1 – Two Realities
In a universe of constant change and infinite connection, there is no need for
maps, a map-maker or a point-of-view. But the Mind is only a maker of maps
and models!
The Mind has limited capacity; it has limited processing power; the Mind is at
a loss in a sea of unity, infinite interconnection and infinite change. But, the
Mind has a gift, the filter of Perception whose first task is to squelch the
enormity of infinite connection and constant change.
Perception quells change by creating a sense of firmness, stability, same-ness,
and permanence; none of which are qualities of Reality. The physical world
that we see through the filter of Perception is full of surfaces, edges, intrinsic
colors and unchanging shapes. Things in this world still move, but it is nothing
compared to the infinite change of universal form. 8
In universal form, not only is everything constantly moving, everything is also
infinitely interconnected − nothing moves without moving/influencing
everything else. The Mind denies this complexity by using the boundaries
created by Perception to create objects – each appearing to have an existence
of its own, separate and distinct from every other object on display. Divorced
from their essential form and infinite interconnection these objects can be
moved about independent of one another.
Once stability and separateness have been established, the Mind, with its
tools of the Intellect and the Imagination, can set to work arranging its objects
into maps and models of the world. Some of these models represent
“reality”, while other models are expressions of creativity. Regardless if it is a
model of imagination/creativity or a model that represent “reality”,
Imagination is involved in every one of these models − what we experience
as “the real world” is one of these models; we live inside a model of the
Imagination.
8
This book do not focus on universal form (What the world is made of), but rather
on how we can observe for ourselves How our Minds create our experience of the
world.
Chapter – Two Realities
19
MODELS of IMAGINATION/INTELLECT
− Permanence, stability, same-ness, similarity, solidity, boundaries.
− Objects that are separate and independent of one another.
− Both: our Models of “reality” (one of these models is what we perceive
to be “the real world”); and our Models of imagination and creativity.
20
Chapter 1 – Two Realities
We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts.
With our thoughts, we make the world.
− Gautama Buddha
Chapter 2: The Dollhouse – A Model of Thought & Imagination
The greatest trick of the human mind is to create a sense of reality − to make
it seem as if we experience our inner and outer worlds directly, unfiltered, as
they actually are. But, this is not true.
I find it helpful to consider Thought to be a Dollhouse of the Imagination.
Every time we visit a new place, our Minds make a scene that depicts our
surroundings – we make a new doll for each new person we meet and a new
toy for each new thing that we notice. (We can make dolls and toys that are
entirely make-believe, but most of the time, the dolls and toys in our
Imagination match real people and real things.) Intellectual, psychological
and emotional importance is embedded in each Doll and Toy.
This scene of “the present moment”, or “reality”, is constantly updated by
adding, moving and removing toys and dolls as needed in order to keep track
of relevant changes in the world. This happens automatically and doesn’t
seem like thinking or imagination − it seems like we are just passively “taking
in the world”.
The principal model of the Imagination represents the present moment. But
the Imagination also uses these dolls and toys to construct scenes that
represent the real past and scenes that represent the real future. It is through
the Mind’s ability to create a sense of sameness, permanence and stability
that we have a sense of the real future; we carry assumptions and
expectations that much of today’s world will carry over to tomorrow.
The human mind is fantastically powerful, but not powerful enough to keep
up with every change in the actual world. It can however: ignore, edit,
diminish and/or delete incoming experience to create what we perceive to
be the physical world, as well as organize a cascade of sensations and
emotional responses that imbues what is psychologically most important to
us fast enough to create what seems to be a “living” experience of the
“present moment”. This is no small feat − it is the entirety of our experience
Chapter 2 – The Dollhouse
21
of life! It is a huge amount of work that the Brain/Mind9 can do in only 4/10ths
of a second. But, that means that what we experience as the “present
moment” is always 4/10ths of a second behind what is actually taking place in
the world.
In that short time, the Mind has taken the incoming stimuli of the senses and
processed it according to our previous models of reality to determine color,
shape, distance and size as well as recognize objects as “the same”, “familiar”,
or “just another one of those”.
And if there is something new, we
immediately name/categorize/classify/label/assess/ compare/judge and
pigeonhole it according to notions of prior experience and psychological
importance. Through these processes, the new is conformed to our notions
of the past and prepared as a doll or toy that will fit as easily as possible into
the psychological/emotional structure of our world-views.
We never see our actual surroundings; we see our model of toys and dolls
projected onto the framework of our surroundings.10
Our models of reality are not just representations of the external world, like
people, places, things and events; they also represent our world of values,
9
Just as we don’t need to understand quantum physics to directly observe how the
Mind creates our experience of the world, studying the structures and processes of
the brain is unnecessary for directly observing how the Mind creates our experience
of life.
10
Through a sense of permanence, we believe that all objects that are not in view are
still there. But, the mind is a master at grouping and ungrouping objects. When
looking at the world, there is really only one object or “detail” (which is itself an
object) in clear focus. There might be one or two objects in the Periphery that are
vague. And, there might be a “relationship” (also an object) that creates or defines
an association between two objects. As soon as Attention moves to focus onto
another object, the previous object of focus and its notions will be grouped as a single
object and kept active for a time in Short-Term or “Working” memory in the as a
vague object in the periphery. If this object loses relevance/importance, it will be
absorbed (grouped) into a single, catch-all object, <things in the periphery>. If the
head is turned so that the Object is no longer within peripheral vision, the Object is
absorbed into a single catchall Object, <things in the universe>. If one pays close
Attention, one realizes that the backdrop of “everything in the universe” is one single
Object; discrete individual Objects no longer exist but have disappeared into the
Margin (outside of sight), or Long-Term Memory. When the Mind activates a specific
object, it is ungrouped (reformulated) from the backdrop of Long-Term Memory, first
as a vague object, but with Concentration on the Object, the Mind will build/rebuild
clarity, detail and definition as needed. (Chapter 5 further explores: Object in Focus,
Objects in Periphery and Objects in the Margin.)
22
Chapter 2 – The Dollhouse
such as ideas, philosophies, or beliefs that are consciously or unconsciously
held to be true. And, at the center of most of our models of reality is the
“me”-doll. It is just another doll, but it seems special to us because it is used
to keep track of our internal world (our thoughts and emotions) and our
“personal experience”; the “me”-doll embodies our sense of self and
represents “who I am”.
Chapter 2 – The Dollhouse
23
Chapter 3: Perception
The instruments of our senses are similar to other instruments for perceiving
the world: like sonar, radar, telescopes, x-rays, microscopes or infra-red
goggles. These instruments take in physical interactions at the sensors,
interpret that experience, and then create some sort of display that we can
notice.
It is easy to assume that we are just looking at what is actually out there in
the world. But, what we see with our eyes is but one type of sensitivity and
one interpretation of the form of the physical world. Instruments of
subatomic physics reveal that the form of the universe is patterns of energy
with no true boundaries that exist in constant change and infinite
connectivity.
There is a state of human vision/perception that some people refer to as
“stopping the world”. This is not enlightenment; it is low-level concentration
of attention (samadhi) directed towards the external environment. But, it is
a visual realization of the flow of change without boundaries or separation…
Visual perception flattens and breaks into a maelstrom of light awareness; all
is a flow of electricity-like light energy. Just as there is no defining edge to
any eddy in a river’s running, no pattern in this storm has a distinct boundary
or determinate size. Nothing lives or moves independently of the whole.
There is no color, no surface, only regions of greater and lesser density of
light, with smaller electricity-like currents coursing through and among them.
There is still intellectual understanding, for example, a region of change is
understood to be an outstretched arm; and sounds and words are still
recognized and understood, but rather than coming from a direction out in
the world, all sounds emanate from the same place as the inner-voice in the
center of the skull. The intensity of the experience is great – this is experience
of existence as a maelstrom of change and interconnectivity.
There is nothing that is not dependent on something else. Nothing can arise
on its own accord, independent. Everything is cause and effect; everything is
conditioned and conditioning; everything (and everyone) is a participant in
and an agent of creation. This chain of cause and effect continues unbroken
if all action (all behavior) is unconscious. [Sadhatissa and Page]
Chapter 3 - Perception
25
El Tathagta (how the Buddha referred to himself) will perceive
clearly in all of such men a clean heart and see the magnitude of
their excellent morals. By what means [do such men maintain a
clean heart]? Because such men will not fallback to feeding the idea
of a self, a personality, a being or a separate individual. They will
not fallback to feeding the idea of things possessing intrinsic
qualities, not even that things have an intrinsic predisposition for
certain qualities.
−Gautama Buddha
Again, the intellect has limited capacity; it has limited processing power; it
cannot handle infinite change and infinite interconnection. To squelch the
maelstrom of infinite change, the Imagination creates surfaces, often with
distinct edges, intrinsic, permanent colors and unchanging shape. Things in
the world of the Imagination still move, but this change is nothing compared
to the maelstrom of universal form.
Nothing is permanent, stable, immutable. Everything is changing;
everything is flow. That, which has beginning, has end; the coming
together portends deterioration. Such is the other characteristic of
existence that must be understood, not only intellectually, but
[empirically, experientially].
Otherwise, impermanence is the
source of suffering. But, how to experience [the truth of the
changing nature of all existence] directly? Here’s how… − Ramiro Calle
In universal form, nothing moves without moving and influencing everything
else. To negate infinite connection, the intellect uses the surfaces and
discrete boundaries it has created to limit and define “objects”. This creates
separation − as if each thing (each object) has an existence separate and
distinct from every other object in the world. Through this interpretation of
universal form, the Imagination creates a display of the world which is
manageable, in which each “thing” appears to exist and move independently
of each other.
But any sense of permanence, sameness, stability or solidity is a deceit, a
deception organized by Perception in order to make a display of the world
that the Intellect can control. Any sense of disconnection and loneliness are
just as much products and tools of the Imagination as are size, shape and
color.
26
Chapter 3 - Perception
Chapter 4: The Seed of Our Existence
The Mind is a maker of maps and models. A map, model or blueprint is a
pattern that embeds what is most important in order to instruct, guide,
determine or direct behaviors. But, what motivates the Mind? What are the
deepest goals and principles that govern the nature of the maps and models
that a Mind will produce?
What turns the Mind on and guides every aspect of its life-long work is our
Conditioning. This Conditioning is the seed of our existence and carries the
blueprint for our deepest needs and purposes; our Conditioning is the
orchestrating force for: all our maps and models; all our experience; and all
our behavior.11
On their own, the Mind and its Conditioning do not have a physical existence
in our universe. The Mind and its processes are the dark soil in which the
Conditioning takes root and grows through; the patterns and purpose of the
Conditioning only come to the light of day when they burgeon forth as an
experience displayed within the Field of Imagination. This encompasses
everything that we experience. All that we touch, all that we see, all ideas,
memories, our sense of body, our sense of self, our sense of responsibility,
emotions, our hopes and dreams are all products of Thought that have been
orchestrated by our Conditioning and displayed in our Imagination. Again…
We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts.
With our thoughts, we make the world.
− Gautama Buddha
It doesn’t matter where we think our Conditioning comes from. We can
believe we are responding to past personal experience, genetic inheritance,
connection to nature’s cycles of similarity, assimilated cultural patterns or
“family baggage”. It can be considered personality or “just who I am”, or soul,
or archetypes, or the influence of the stars, or karma, or God, or all of the
11
The Buddha offers that it is our Conditioning that prompts the Mind and starts the
process of birth/rebirth. I have had no experience to validate or invalidate
reincarnation; and until you or I do, it is not deeply important; the work is to focus
on what we can directly observe for ourselves. So… all I can conjecture is that until a
Conditioning comes along, the Mind is either inert or non-existent, or maybe there is
just one Mind that services all Conditioning.
Chapter 4 – The Seed of Our Existence
27
above. Vipassana meditation is not concerned with belief; Vipassana
meditation is mental exercises that tame and purify the Mind so that
awareness, freed from the commotion and smallness of Imagination, is direct
experience of Reality, Truth and Beauty − which is at the heart of every
religion.
Our Conditioning is the seed of our existence. When Conditioning arises
through human form, the purpose and needs of the Conditioning must work
through the patterns of creation and survival that govern all of the animal
kingdom – the primal forces of passivity and aggression; fight, flight or freeze;
and what to kill and die for. Everything that takes place within the
Imagination is mandating what to pursue and hold on to and what to avoid
and eradicate. This is often described as “clinging and craving; aversion and
hostility.”
This may appear to be a negative outlook on the human condition, (yes,
people can act in grace and some conditioning is to the good, both helpful
and beneficial), but it is dangerous to lose sight of the pettiness of the human
mind and the flood of human atrocities is just as rampant today as in any
other time in history. But, this is not cause to be disheartened. A deep
change is needed for which we can only do our part. This is why meditation
is so important.
− Deepest Patterns of Survival and Creation
− Primal Forces/Passivity/Aggression
− Fight or Flight or Freeze / What to Kill and Die For
(Always Outside of Awareness and Direct Observation. One can only guess
at the dynamics of the Mind and its Conditioning through observation of
experience displayed within the Imagination)
THE MIND and its CONDITIONING
Conditioning − The seed of our Existence. Motivating and guiding the Mind
in the production of all its models. The impetus for all mental activity
28
Chapter 4 – The Seed of Our Existence
Chapter 5: The Power of Sensations
At first blush, sensations might not seem that interesting. But, sensations are
your life! Through sensations the Mind creates: your experience of the
world; your experience of your body; your sense of you; and, your every
thought and every mood. Sensations are the means by which the Mind
attempts to orchestrate your every action. And, it is through sensations that
you access Reality.
Now that sensations might be a bit more interesting…
It is easy to believe that we passively take in the world; that we see the world
as it actually is. And, that our experience of what is going on inside us is also
direct and unfiltered. But this is not how it works.
The Mind and our Senses are a virtual reality machine; the eyes are virtual
reality goggles. Information of “what is out there” comes through the eyes,
but this information is devoid of shape, color or meaning. The Mind very
quickly takes this experience and arranges it into a scenario according to its
own interpretation − adding shape, color, size, distance, meaning and
intellectual, psychological and emotional relevance. It then projects this
display, in effect, onto the front of the eyeballs so that when we believe we
are looking out into the world we are actually watching the movie that the
Mind is showing us on the front of our eyes.
The Mind does this with all our Senses, including our sense of internal
experience. And thus, our Mind orchestrates all of our experience of life
through a flood of sensations not just at the eyes, but through an entire
virtual reality suit , from head to toe, that conveys a sense of shape, color,
softness, solidity, loudness, inner-voice, imaginings, irritation, temperature,
delight, bitterness, fragrance, stench …and meaning, purpose and capacity.12
All our experience is an act of Imagination – a virtual reality “production”
orchestrated through a continuous stream of sensations projected onto and
within the framework of the body.
12
We will look more closely at how the Mind constructs meaning, purpose and
capacity in Chapter 15.
Chapter 5 – The Power of Sensations
29
People who have worked to develop great sensitivity will share that just our
thoughts alone have great influence on events in the world. But, just a little
investigation reveals that each person’s contribution to the world and to
humanity is governed by how we treat this display and how strongly we
validate the intent, the reality and the “message” that is being inculcated by
the Mind and its Conditioning through our thoughts, words and actions − the
more strongly we believe the accuracy, truth and righteousness of our
thoughts and imaginings, the more strongly we react to this display and
carry/propagate the purpose and needs of our Conditioning into the tumult
of the world.
If you are totally content with how things are, (which can either be a highly
enlightened stance or a submission to denial), then nothing more need be
done. If you are adequately content with how your Conditioning is
orchestrating your existence or have faith that your Conditioning has your
best interests at heart, then, by all means, continue to be unconsciously or
semi-consciously reactive and bound to your Conditioning’s control. But,
how are you going to help yourself or anyone else without foundational
understanding of the Mind and the human condition? Greater wisdom,
consciousness and grace come with working to develop sensitivity to the
mechanisms involved so that we are more aware of how the Mind’s creates
the display of “our experience” and how it prods and encourages our
reactions.
30
Chapter 5 – The Power of Sensations
Chapter 6: Perception, Attention, Awareness, Importance,
Sensitivity, Consciousness, Learning and Our Experience
We are almost done… But, we need to understand the role of Perception and
Attention in determining what becomes “our experience”.
Perception, Attention, Focus, Concentration, Awareness, Importance,
Sensitivity, Consciousness, Learning and “Our Experience” are all
interrelated.13
One idea is that our nervous system has a limit as to how much
sensation/experience it can process at a time. Through Attention and Focus
we are able to best allocate this limited resource according to our current
needs. We can notice things in a larger area but with less detail (for example,
noticing a pattern) and when needed, Attention can be focused in on a
smaller area which decreases awareness in the periphery but increases
sensitivity, detail and subtlety in the limited area.
For example, with peripheral vision you can discern the general pattern of
knots in a board, but all the knots are vague, without detail. In order to gain
clarity and detail, for example to notice cracks or color variation within the
knot, attention must be focused in on a particular knot. As focus gets tighter,
smaller details surface; for example, the growth rings within the knot. And,
counting the growth rings takes even greater Focus and Concentration.
A few people can count up to 7 Objects14 through Patterns at a glance, but
most people cannot count higher than the number of fingers on one hand
with peripheral vision; for example, 3, 4, or 5 coins thrown onto a table. You
can only count higher by bringing each Object, one at a time, into the area of
Focus and saying its number.
Without letting Focus leave the letters “noch” in the diagram on the next
page, try to count the words in any of the surrounding peripheral paragraphs.
Then, try focusing strongly on a word in the middle of a paragraph within this
13
If you would like to make a diagram/flowchart that shows the interrelations among
these processes, I will add it to the next edition.
14
The Mind is a master at projecting its Objects “out in the world” to create things
that seem to have qualities and traits that exist on their own, apart from us and our
mental activities. But, there are no things in the Real World. I have capitalized
“Object(s)” in this chapter to emphasize that these are Mental Playing Pieces
(symbols or icons used to build Map-Models).
Chapter 5 – The Power of Sensations
31
text and see where the boundary lies where you can no longer discern/read
a word.15
The role of Perception and Attention is to regulate our sensitivity −
determining which sensations remain unconsciousness and which sensations
enter our experience at either the semi-conscious or fully conscious level.
Perception, Attention, Awareness, Importance, Sensitivity, Consciousness,
Learning and Our Experience are all inextricably linked; this model for visual
Focus (from Wikipedia) works for all aspects of Thought and Imagination and
helps show the Mind’s pervasive use of Permanence.
The Mind works very hard to create a sense of stability; stability is essential
in order for the Mind to begin any further work in creating its models and in
maintaining our belief in its reality. The more stable and permanent we
perceive and believe the world to be, the less the Mind has to work to update
its maps of reality and maintain its deception.
The default is for us to believe that the world is already “out there”, already
made, with all its colors and details, whether we can see them right now or
not. The Mind needs us to believe that the world is basically stable, even to
the point that some things are unchanging. And, it is just a matter of reaching
out or turning our gaze in order to discover new things or confirm something
we already knew.
This may not seem like that big a deal; after all this stabilizing of the physical
world in a natural part of a person’s development that begins in the first days
of infancy. But, it is the pervasive and far reaching sense of permanence
which allows, creates and maintains assumptions and expectations, not just
in the physical world, but throughout all aspects of Thought: our world of
ideas and relationships and our sense of self. These assumptions and
expectations embed our Conditioning’s contrived Importance into
everything − giving the Mind leverage to control every aspect of our lives.
15
It is easier to notice the transition from Periphery Experience to the Focus required
for Object formation when counting leaves on a nearby tree. Each count requires a
Focus that pulls a blurry form out of the periphery, isolates boundaries and creates a
clear Object, <that leaf>.
32
Chapter 5 – The Power of Sensations
When you look softly out into your surroundings, you see larger patterns but
there is no clarity or detail; no Object has been singled out; everything is
vague. The Mind might discern, define, and/or highlight a pattern in the
Periphery by naming it or directing a bit more partial attention. But, if
Attention doesn’t move onto this Object, it remains vague. Only when
Attention moves to focus in on a particular Object, does a process of
adding/building clarity and detail begin.
At any one moment, there is really only one Object in clear focus. If we stay
within the “boundaries” of that Object, we can move Attention around to
build “Detail”. Each Detail is in its own right an Object. When Attention
moves to focus on another Detail, the previous Detail lingers a short while in
Short-Term or “Working” memory as an Object, but when the Detail loses
Importance, it is grouped/absorbed into the in the catchall object
Once we have created an Object and added any details/attributes (each of
which is an Object in the Mind’s eye), the Objects and its associations are
being grouped as a single Object/Concept, for example, <the board with
knots>.
But in truth, it (the Object with its details and associations) rather than letting
understanding allow this filtering to stop and experience go back to fully
participating in the universal flow of infinite interconnection and constant
change.
Depending on how the board is Important, for example, I am making a bed
and choosing which board to use as the cap of the headboard, when I switch
focus to inspect another board, (even if the board is currently outside of my
peripheral vision), the Mind will keep the first board more active in the
“periphery” (the “fringe”) of my Mind’s eye.
During this process, the Mind is adeptly darting the Attention about: focusing
on the actual world to build details of the new board; focusing on the
“memory-Object” of the first board to build/retrigger/ungroup attributes;
while building a new Object which serves as <my assessment of which board
is best>.
I choose the second board. The first board looses Importance and gets
absorbed/grouped within a larger Object, <boards standing up in the back of
the shop>.
Chapter 5 – The Power of Sensations
33
The Mind will further group Objects as needed to keep the Field of “working
memory” as tidy and manageable. Through a sense of permanence, the
assumption is that all these Details and Objects are still in existence.
(Unconscious;
Outside Our
Experience;
Objects grouped in
Single Catchall
Object <Things in
the World>)
(Semi-Conscious;
Vague Experience;
Vague Satellite Objects
Pattern;
Objects grouped in
Catchall Object
<Things in Peripheral
Awareness>)
(Fully Conscious;
Clear Experience;
Detail;
Concise Object)
The Mind, through a sense of permanence, would like us to believe that all
things are out there, fully vibrant in clarity and detail. But careful observation
of peripheral vision shows that clarity and detail only occur in a small area of
our visual experience. The truth is that the Mind must use a lot of energy to
add color and detail and create definite, sharp, clear boundaries for its
Objects. As soon as focus moves away, the Mind clings to its work through a
sense of permanence and stability; it avoids having to let go of that object to
allow it to reenter the deeper truths of infinite connection and constant
change. This might not seem like that big of a deal. But this apparent rigidity
and stasis of physical objects that is essential in order for the Mind to create
any of its models gets carried to purely mental objects, like human qualities
like, honor and integrity, or relationships. Here, the deception of stability and
34
Chapter 5 – The Power of Sensations
permanence creates assumptions and expectations that when violated, can
result in internal upheaval and external violence.
<Things in the Periphery>.
There might be one or two Objects that are vague in the periphery;. Then
there are the two catch-all ObjectsAs vague Objects in the Periphery lose
Importance, they will be absorbed (grouped) into a single catchall Object,
<things in the periphery>.
The Margin is a single catchall Object, <things in the world>, that holds all
Objects that are out of sight and not currently active in Focus or the
Periphery. As best as I can tell, the Mind never has more than 7 Objects on
display at any one time!16
these can be Dolls or Toys, or “Relationships” or Associations (which are also
Objects) 17
When we close our eyes, our World of Thought works through these same
dynamics: Objects moving in and out of Focus; lingering in the Periphery; and
as they lose Importance, vague individual Objects are absorbed into catch-all
Objects of <things in the periphery> or <things in the world>.
With careful observation one can notice that these individual Objects that
have moved into the Periphery have lost clarity and when they have moved
into the Margin they are completely gone from the Mental Display and only
exist as Concepts in Long-Term Memory.18
16
I learned a lot about Grouping, Ungrouping and Recollection by playing with
recalling the players of the Oakland A’s baseball teams when I was a kid.
17
Associations, Notions and Relationships are tricky. They are single Objects that link
one Object with another through Intellectual and/or Psychological Importances.
These Importances are supported by sensations throughout the Emotional
Physiology. Intellectual Relationships are created through definition and therefore
are explicit and easily brought under Focus and described. For example, what is the
relationship between a minute and a day? But, Emotional and Psychological
relationships are by their very nature nebulous as they are supported by a vast
number of sensations throughout the body and mostly remain vague in the
periphery. It can, therefore, be difficult to bring Psychological/Emotional
Relationships into Focus and give them Definition.
18
Long-term Memory is still a mystery to me. All that I can tell is that it does better
recollecting Objects and Stories of Events (things that have been codified through
Chapter 5 – The Power of Sensations
35
When a person reactivates a Concept, the Object reemerges into vagary and
then, depending on focus, will gain in detail and clarity.
At any one moment there is only one Object or Detail in focus, one or two
satellite Objects vague in the periphery, a relationship or association (usually
brought to notice through the inner-voice) and some supporting “emotional”
sensations(most of which go unnoticed), and a catch-all Object for <the
periphery> and another for <the world>. In this way the Mind builds our
experience, moment to moment, of the world with never more than seven
Objects active at any one time.
Attention and Focus seem to be a clever way to maximize a limited resource,
bringing extra sensitivity to that which is deemed important, while ignoring
that which is determined to be irrelevant. But, upon inspection we learn that
Perception, Attention and Focus’s primary role is to maintain the Mind’s
deception of reality by keeping us mostly unconscious.
Throughout the virtual reality suit, the torrent of projected sensations never
stops; it is always there, throughout the entire body. But, the Mind veils
awareness of this experience by piling on layer after layer of desensitivity over
all experience until we are in deep, dark sleep.
Now, to wake us up and to control us, the Mind thins some of this
desensitivity from different locations of the body19 which allows
awareness/experience of the underlying sensations to strengthen and
surface towards our notice. These sensations can be any aspect of our
experience of life: heat, pressure, sounds, tickle, visual notions, ideas, etc.
If the Mind wants those sensations to enter our notice and become part of
our experience, it will focus Attention20 on the area of the sensations. If it
wants to further embed that experience in our consciousness, the Mind will
orchestrate a verbal account of the experience.
By orchestrating Attention and regulating both the intensity of the original
sensations and the intensity of our secondary (usually verbal) experiences of
language), than it does “pulling up” the background experience from which the
Object or Story came out of.
19
Sometimes it feels like “layering” and sometimes it feels more like one layer that is
being thinned and thickened.
20
How the Mind orchestrates Focus and Notice is looked at in Chapters 16 thru 19.
36
Chapter 5 – The Power of Sensations
those sensations, the Mind determines what remains unconscious (totally
outside of our awareness), what sensations enter our experience at the semiconscious level, and which sensations/experience enter “full awareness”.
In short, moment to moment, the Mind determines: what sensations to
create/project throughout the framework of the body (which it hides); then,
by varying sensitivity/desensitivity, it builds awareness; instills what is
important; and directs our Attention, both within our model of our body and
within our models of the world.
By orchestrating what we notice, the Mind creates and limits “our experience”
of life.
Only in deepest, darkest sleep, are we truly unaware of these sensations.
Otherwise, whether we are awake or asleep, “conscious” or “unconscious”,
the body and psyche are always fully aware and continually reacting to every
sensation the Mind creates.
Whether we are conscious or not of these sensations, it is through sensations
that the Mind tries to control/orchestrate all aspects of our lives by
triggering our reactions and prompting our behaviors.
My favorite example of just how easily Perception edits our experience is in
the blinking of the eyes. We blink every three to five seconds, but unless we
are paying close attention, the Mind edits out this fairly large movement of
the facial muscles and the fairly long, repetitive black-outs from our
experience. With concentrated attention we can regain awareness of our
blinking, but as soon as we are distracted and our attention is directed
elsewhere, blinking and its disruptions again disappear from our experience.
How many times did you blink while reading the last paragraph? Once a blink
goes unnoticed, it is gone − we cannot go back and remember the last time
we blinked.
If Perception can edit out the fairly intense sensations of blinking, what other
experiences are being edited out, going unnoticed and/or disappearing?
We can dismiss some editing as just removing sensations that would be a
distraction, like the touch of our clothing or the blinking of our eyes. But,
sensations are the strings by which the Conditioning tries to tug us about;
and, a huge part of the Perception’s editing keeps us from noticing the very
Chapter 5 – The Power of Sensations
37
sensations the Mind is using to orchestrate all our feelings, thoughts,
“memories”, words, actions and inactions.
If we are unaware of these sensations, we are but puppets on strings. But,
like the blinking of our eyes, with Concentrated Attention and Focus these
sensations can be noticed!
And, with yet deeper Concentration, there is experience that is below and
free from the commotion and attempted control of these sensations.
38
Chapter 5 – The Power of Sensations
Chapter 6: Foundational Sensations
All experience is sensation. But, we rarely notice raw sensation by itself; the
moment of notice of raw sensation is almost always accompanied by a higher
level understanding/interpretation − sometimes I will notice a tickle at my
ankle, but usually the moment of notice already entails an interpretation and
is understood to be, “Oh, there is an ant on my ankle.” But, all “higher-level
experience” and even Understanding itself is a composition of raw
sensations in concert.
What sensations make up your experience of the idea, Pride? 21
Most sensations come and go, doing their part in orchestrating our behavior,
outside of our notice. Every sensation/experience, noticed or not, has been
created by the Mind and is a product of the Imagination. Except…
The development of a new life begins when a Conditioning prompts the Mind.
The Mind and its Conditioning begin by creating a Field of Foundational
Sensations that serves as the substrate onto which the Mind projects the
products of Imagination.
Foundational Sensations are different than “raw” sensations. The Field of
Foundational Sensations is created by the Mind, but it is outside of
Imagination. This would be like turning on a television with nothing playing
on that channel, just flickering static. If you pressed one eyeball against the
screen, you would see that each Foundational Sensation is an individual,
short-lived, squiggle of a flicker. But, there are always lots of them in a parade
of constant flux, arising and passing. If you watched a silent movie with your
eyeball glued to the screen, there would be no experience of the movie, no
color, no shapes, no action, no meaning, no purpose, no emotion, nothing to
think about − just more flickering of Foundational Sensation.
Within the Field of Sensations, Imagination has no existence. In order for
Imagination to come into play, Attention must be pulled back, like backing
away from the T.V. screen, until we begin we lose touch of individual flickers
and experience becomes firmer, a more even vibration. It is on this “surface”,
21
I notice the inner voice; pressures and pullings in the face, neck and torso; and,
sensations in the chest and center of the skull that convey a grasping of meaning.
Chapter 6 – Foundational Sensations
39
“texture” or medium that the Mind projects the products (the sensations) of
Imagination.
As an example, close the eyes and squiggle the fingers of one hand while
moving the hand about. This is close to the experience of individual
Foundational Sensations, but only if you could feel the fingers while they
were extending; as soon as a finger reached full extension it would disappear
until a new flicker began with the next extension.
Entry into the Field of Foundational Sensations is tactile. But, experience of
the Foundational Sensations themselves is somehow both tactile and visual.
If you held your hand in front of your face and projected a movie onto your
squiggling fingers, most light would pass through and you would understand
nothing of the movie. However, if you dressed 1,000 of your friends in
Vantablack22, asked them to stand at 15 paces to create a screen of squiggling
fingers onto which you could project your movie, you might be able to
interpret some of that experience as color, shapes, objects, movement,
characters and maybe even deduce some of the storyline.
The transition is similar to changing Focus when looking through a window
pane in low light. When focusing through the window, you can see the shrubs
in the garden, but when focus shifts you all of a sudden see yourself floating
in the garden. Perception immediately adjusts this interpretation to, <I am
seeing a reflection of me in the glass>.
The combination of these two analogies is about as best as I can do to
describe the transition from direct observation of the parade of individual
Foundational Sensations to a vibrational fabric/medium that is stable
enough, firm enough, for the Mind to go to work; there is a shift of Focus that
involves a jump in scale (backing away from the T.V. or moving squiggling
fingers 15 paces away) that is perceived as a kind of firming that enables
higher level experience to be projected onto it; not just light, but surface,
weight, tension, heat, movement, pressure, etc.23 And in concert, these
22
A material that absorbs 99.965% of light.
I personally have only experienced the transition from Foundational Sensations to
the projected sensations (experience) of color; movement of pressure at the
fingernail; the surface/skin of various fingers; and, an idea/notion of “my ability to
observe” that was supported by pressure and tightness near the center of the skull.
I personally do not know if Smell, Taste, External Hearing and Inner-Voice also work
in the same way, but there is story of the Buddha telling a man that all 6 of the “sense
40
Chapter 6 – Foundational Sensations
23
sensations can orchestrate notions of hope or responsibility or sadness or
ideas or thinking or...
Depending on one’s level of focus, all this projected experience can still reveal
some of the vibration/flickering underneath it all, but as you back further and
further away, the vibration becomes less and less obvious, until experience
becomes stable, even solid.
As far as I can tell, Foundational Sensations are devoid of meaning,
information, pattern or purpose except to serve as the substrate onto which
the Mind and its Conditioning can project higher-level sensation/experience
– the products of Imagination that constitute our experience of life.24 I am
not positive, but it seems that Foundational Sensations continue to do their
thing, unaffected by Perception’s firming or what the Conditioning projects
on top of them.
doors” (the 5 senses and the inner-voice) are just different staircases of a gazebo;
they all lead to the same place, the same realization.
24
Experience in the Field of Sensations is subtle and difficult to discern. But, because
there is some sort of shift in scale, the experience of discrete Foundational Sensations
seems larger and more distinct than some of the finer, more nebulous “textures” of
experience at other levels of Attention. Although Foundational Sensations are
somehow both slightly tactile and slightly visual, it is important to not get caught up
in visual experience. Access, or opening, to the Field of Foundational Sensations is
through tactile experience. A person can work through feeling for sound or feeling
for the sensations of vision within the framework of the body. Within the Field there
are no boundaries; there is no “edge” that becomes the “surface” of the skin of my
finger; there is no “Body”, there is no World. But, it may very well be that the Field
does have a shape. It seems that the screen created by the Foundational Sensations,
onto which the Mind projects its sensations, is in the shape of the Body and all
sensations that create our experience of life and the world is limited to that screen.
And, any time our Attention is off the body, we are fully wrapped up in Imagination
and displays of Thought. Touch is the only sense that is both within the framework
of the body and encompasses the entirety of the screen. And, as we will see in
Chapter 19, it is through tactile experience that one comes in contact with universal
Awareness − and understanding opens up to deep Truths, Wisdom and Kindness.
Chapter 6 – Foundational Sensations
41
Chapter 7: Attention and Freedom
The goal of all projected sensations,25 noticed or otherwise, is to direct us in
honoring our Conditioning’s needs and purposes. These sensations often go
unnoticed. But, just like the blinking of the eyes, depending on our
concentration, focus and sensitivity, we can notice them. The key to
becoming more aware, more conscious, and less controlled, is through
Attention and Focus.
In order to orchestrate our conscious and semi-conscious experience and
keep us on Conditioning’s path, the Attention it is mostly darted about our
displays of our physical and social surroundings, our inner-voiced thoughts,
and our intellectual26 and emotional physiologies. The Attention never stays
at any one place more than a fraction of a second.
Large, strong, bright, loud, intense sensations, or abrupt shifts in patterns
quickly enter our notice and will draw our Attention. But, when the Mind
wants to bring sensation up to the surface more slowly or if it wants us to
notice softness, subtlety or detail, it must slow and narrow Attention and
calm mental chatter; this Focus initiates the process of increasing sensitivity
(a decreasing in desensitivity). This process is the same whether you are
investigating something in your surroundings or sensations in your body.
When the desired level of intensity/subtlety has been attained and the
purpose for bringing these sensations into our conscious experience is
served, the Mind redirects the Attention by relayering desensitivity and
generating Importance somewhere else.
Each shift in Attention27 can be noticed, but usually goes the way of the blink
of an eye, unnoticed. Perception does its best to smooth out the jumpy,
broken, skittish, frame after frame nature of Attention so that our experience
seems to flow. The Mind is so good at smoothing out our experience that
25
From now on the term “sensations” will refer to projected sensations.
Intellectual physiology − the sensations that create meaning and understanding.
27
Some people say that Attention shifts up to 60 or 70 times per second. Which
makes sense because vision alone easily processes at least 14 frames/jumps per
second.
Chapter 7 – Attention and Freedom
43
26
even when we are looking for jumps in Attention, just noticing two or three
jumps per second requires concentrated effort.
Here’s the deal… It seems that the Mind cannot stop the process that
increases sensitivity in the area of focus. Focus is the Mind’s “hot-potato”;
Focus must be continually passed around because if it is held too long in any
one place, it will start to melt through desensitivity and we might notice the
sensations and the dynamics that the Mind is trying to keep off the radar.
The Mind can hide the sensations that serve as impulses and control by
keeping us (our physiology) subdued or over-stimulated. And/or, by keeping
us caught up in displays of thought and entertainments that keep Attention
“off the body”. This helps explain why the Mind can be so prone to drugs,
both stimulants and depressants; music; and background noise or voices. It
also explains the prevalence of depression (a general bogging down of
sensitivity) and anxiety (a general short circuiting or haywiring of sensitivity);
in a trade off of Cognitive Functioning and Emotional Intelligence the Mind
opts to hinder Concentration and Body Awareness.28
But, the Mind does not have complete control over the Attention. If
important, we can consciously commandeer the Attention and hold focus on
some place on the body and the process that builds sensitivity will begin.
And, sensations that the Mind normally keeps off our radar will begin to
enter our notice!
Some of these sensations are like the blinking of the eyes; they are right
there, just underneath/outside our awareness. And, all it takes is an instant
or two of concentration and perception’s veil will thin, allowing awareness of
those sensations to surface.
But, many other sensations, both subtle and quite intense, are deeply buried;
and it takes a well developed Attention to bring these experiences to the
surface.29
28
I have never found an upside of Anxiety. But, Depression was the gift that finally
slowed me down enough to start noticing the sensations of emotions and
psychological dynamics.
29
A person might start out with zeal and try to burn her way into the deepest layers
of experience, but this is not advisable; it is important to develop sensitivity to
sensations everywhere on the body. Courses develop Concentration and hone
Attention to whatever level is natural for participants in the first three days. They
then spend the rest of the course working with scanning techniques at that level of
development. When people get home, they only use the honing technique when
44
Chapter 8 – Attention and Freedom
Life is a Learning Process. What we do today is guided by yesterday’s
experience and, in turn, will influence tomorrow’s behavior.
But, this process does not lend itself to growth. The entire universe unfolds
to cycles of similarity; including life on Earth. As much as we may want to
disagree, The Learning Process is no different; The Learning Process is a
Learning Cycle that primarily builds repetitive, limited, habitual, conditioned
patterns of stimulus and response.
If all my actions today safely and adequately navigated every situation I
encountered in my physical, social and psychological worlds, then tomorrow,
why should I risk doing anything differently? Tomorrow, consciously or not,
not only will I respond to similar situations with the same reactions as I did
today, XXX I will do my best to reencounter today’s situations.
Even if it is just an adequate existence, it is safest if today is, as much as
possible, a repeat of yesterday.
And, the learning cycle continues… Everything we think, feel, believe or do,
is a reaction based on our previous experience. And, everything we do
strengthens/deepens that pattern of behavior – confirming that this is the
appropriate response/reaction to a situation or a given impulse.
Once a pattern of stimulus/response is entrained, anytime that the
Conditioning needs or wants to recreate this particular experience,
commotion or behavior, it will run this pattern of impulse-reaction again.
Every thought, emotion and behavior is a reaction to some condition. But,
no matter how deeply it is ingrained, no reaction is hardwired to its
impulse.30 A conditioning (a group of sensations devised to trigger a specific
reaction) is only an impulse (a prodding and prompting) to action.
needed to get settled into a meditation session; otherwise, they continue to work
through scanning techniques. Only when a person returns to another course is the
Attention further sharpened. This guidance assures that a person’s practice will
continue to deepen and give results, but in a way that Attention, Sensitivity and
Experience all develop healthfully, hand-in-hand.
30
This brings up the questions, “Is every reaction bad?” And, “What is right action?”
Personally, I have spent little time with these questions. But, it does seem important
Chapter 7 – Attention and Freedom
45
When we observe sensations without reacting, we break the cycle of cause
and effect; we are free from the Mind’s control and our Conditioned
responses.
This is so important in understanding meditation that I will repeat it:
All that we are and all that we do is reaction/commotion linked to previous
reaction/commotion and entrains what is Important and how the
Conditioning will try to orchestrate our lives in the future. This cycle of
condition and response has great momentum, but it is not inevitable; if, at
any moment we observe sensation/experience without reacting, nothing
happens; the mechanism falters; we are in this moment, free from
Conditioning’s control; and we have weakened the link between the impulse
and the behavior.
The Mind might try to dismiss this as <nothing more than a momentary
freedom>. But, all we have is this moment and the value of every moment of
freedom cannot be overestimated. What may seem like a small deal, like not
following an impulse to scratch your nose, is a big deal; you are exercising
your ability to not react which is not a matter of strength of will, but is a
matter of sensitivity and awareness.
Yes, more sensations will be sent our way, intent on running the show and
tweaking our lives; but, if we remain attentive and calm, eventually the root
stock of all Conditioning will be depleted. Without motivation, the Mind will
come to a standstill, recede to nothing, and experience will open to Real
Peace, Real Joy, Real Harmony.
to practice for two hours a day not reacting to anything. This practice weakens all
Compulsion and Reactivity. The way I see it is: the greater freedom from compulsion
and conditioned reactions, the greater opportunity for right action to prevail.
46
Chapter 8 – Attention and Freedom
Chapter 8: More Perception
Here is how large-level perception works. You are walking through the woods
and come across a maelstrom of form known as a <bear>. While searching
for recognition/familiarity, the Imagination adds color and size and shape and
texture. Oh, this is “one of those”. All this is going on in the processing part
of the brain; nothing yet has been sent to the perception part of the brain −
you have not yet consciously seen or experienced anything. The brain
continues processing to determine the value of this object. And this is where
our personal values and Conditioning come into play. Depending on our
Conditioning, the processing brain triggers our physiology to start building
sensations and flooding the systems with hormones and neurotransmitters
which will prepare us for both mental and physical activity. All this takes
about 4/10ths of a second.
The physiology is now primed and the processing brain finally sends the
image of the bear to your perception and (unless you were noticing the
building of these sensations) you will react to the image according to your
Conditioning. I might soil my pants and begin running. Another person, a
hunter, might drop to one knee and ready her gun. And a child, who loves
teddy bears, might cry in delight, “Look Mommy, a bear!”
Depending on your neck of the woods, coming across a bear might be rare,
but this is how all perception works. All our emotional responses, from the
biggest to the smallest, and all our mental and physical reactions are
primed/prepared prior to our visual and/or auditory experience.
Sporting events tend to be a more common experience. Here it is easy to
watch my own and other spectators’ large reactions to a ball going through
the goal – half the people will jump up and shout in delight while the other
half goes through the cataleptics of dejection: a dropping of the head with a
despondent “arrrghh”, or vein popping profanity. There is no intrinsic,
inherent value of a ball crossing a line; there is no intrinsic, inherent value in
anything; nothing is good or bad − only thinking makes it so; it is only the
values that each person’s Mind brings to the game that gives each moment
of the event its emotional importance.
This is fairly easy to see in other spectators at a football game, but harder to
see in ourselves when we are furious with a loved-one.
Chapter 8 – More Perception
47
I especially appreciate my own reactions when at an event for which I have
no emotional investment. At first, I am just bored or appreciating good play.
But, it can be as difficult to watch a sporting event without taking sides as it
is to watch clouds and not see shapes. At some point in the game, I start
having stronger reactions and catch myself rooting in favor of one of the
teams. This is what the Mind does: it limits change, it creates boundaries, it
invents patterns and shapes, it defines objects that are separate from one
another, it creates relationships among objects, it attaches value to the
objects and their relationships, it determines how it wants you to react in
thought, emotions, speech and actions. Next, it triggers the physiology which
is based in the primal forces of animal nature; and then, through sensations
it spurs us to make judgments, build a point-of-view and a taking of sides
(which need defending), and propels us into action.
The human mind is a war machine. Even at something as non-essential as a
football match, fans can lash out with lethal force.
48
Chapter 8 – More Perception
The Big Picture
OUR EXPERIENCE
The surfacing of awareness/experience of sensations and models of Imagination into our
consciousness that creates the entirety of our afferent experience of life.
If these sensations/experiences are observed without reacting, we free ourselves from our
conditioned responses and begin a process that rids the Mind of its Conditioning
FILTER of PERCEPTION
Modulating the veil of desensitivity to allow some experience/awareness of Imagination
(below) to surface as Our Experience (above)
FIELD of IMAGINATION
Permanence, stability, same-ness, solidity. Objects that are separate and independent of one
another. Models of “reality” and Models of Imagination and Creativity.
(We can notice things in this field to greater or lesser extent depending on the thickness of
Perception’s desensitivity and the focus of Attention)
Gross/Afferent Sensations. Nothing exists in the Field of Imagination until Conditioning
projects an interpretation, meaning, evaluation or judgment on top of the flux of
Foundational Sensations (see below).
CONDITIONING
Orchestrating all activity within the Imagination and Our Experience (top) by projecting
higher-level experience of gross sensations, value, judgment and importance on top of the
flux of Foundational Sensations (below). When working through the human form,
Conditioning must honor the dynamics of the animal kingdom:
Deepest Patterns of Survival and Creation
Primal Forces/Passivity/Aggression
Fight or Flight or Freeze / What to Kill and Die For
(The Conditioning itself is always outside of Awareness and Direct Observation.
FIELD of FOUNDATIONAL SENSATIONS − A Field of Reality
Experience in this field has not been processed by Conditioning; it is outside of Imagination!
The substrate that the Mind/Conditioning firms to create the canvas/medium on which (or
through which) Conditioning orchestrates/builds all activity in the Field of Imagination
(we can notice things in this field to greater or lesser extent depending on one’s
Concentration and Focus of one’s Attention)
THE MIND and its CONDITIONING encompass everything here and above.
One can only guess at the Dynamics of the Mind and its Conditioning through observation of
the products of the Imagination as they surface into Our Experience.
The Conditioning is the seed within the Mind and the impetus for the formation of the Senses
and all mental activity. The Conditioning is the impetus for a new life and carries one’s
deepest needs and purposes.
REALITY − UNIVERSAL NATURE
(Experience unfiltered by the human Mind-Imagination.)
(Available as direct experience − but not if the Mind-Imagination is active)
Unity −Infinite Connection −Constant Change −Love −Compassion
−Calm −Calm connection with all −Joy in impermanence and ever-changing nature of life
−Beauty in the cycle of creation/annihilation −Ultimate Truth
49
50
Chapter 9: Body-Thought: Another Way of Thinking
Not only do we think by moving around visual notions of things we have seen
(our dolls and toys), we also think by playing with past experiences of our
body’s movements and things we have touched, held or moved. We all think
this way all the time, but usually we are so focused on other aspects of
thought, like the inner-voice and visualization, that our touch-thought/ bodythought goes unnoticed. This aspect of Thought is so off our radars that we
don’t even have a popular name for it. The fancy name is Kinesthetic
Thought, but I usually prefer the terms Body-Thought and Touch-Thought.
The sensations of body-thought often get lost behind the stronger experience
of visualization. Visualization is movement of the body connected with sight.
But body-thought uses a lesser-known sensory system called “proprioreception”. Sensors in the joints and muscles send signals to the brain about
the angle of each joint and the force that each muscle is exerting. Through
this information the brain keeps track of the location and movement of limbs
and torso. Whether our eyes are open or closed, the two systems work
together to create our body-awareness.
We can use notions of past bodily experience to imagine doing everything our
real bodies can do. But, body-thought is most noticeable when we are
engaged in flights of fancy: imagining lifting a car, jumping a hundred meters
or crawling into a mouse hole.
Although body-thought and visualization usually go hand in hand, a simple
exercise often reveals how disparate they are. Read the rest of this
paragraph, then close the eyes and follow the instructions: Rub the hands
together for a few seconds. Then extend the arms more-or-less straight.
Close the hands but extend the index fingers and move the hands and wrists
so that the index fingers are pointing towards one another. Remember, this
is all done with the eyes closed. Move the hands slowly towards each other
and when you feel that the fingertips are about 10 cm (3 inches) away, pause
for a few seconds. Still without opening the eyes, move the fingers yet closer
together and pause again when you think you are at 1 cm (1/2 inch). Now,
move the fingertips as close as possible without letting the fingers touch and
stop. Now, open the eyes.
Because kinesthetic thought/visualization is imagining your body doing
something that it is not actually doing now, it must pull the attention off the
Chapter 9 – Body Thought
51
body in order to work. This might not be readily apparent, but you cannot
imagine the size and weight of a ball in the palm of your hand or imagine
throwing it, if you are strongly aware of the sensations of your actual arm.
Although kinesthetic thought only works if attention is off the body, it does
create experience within the framework of the body. This is because the brain
very subtly activates the muscles that would be involved if you were actually
doing the movement, like the slight movement of the lips that some people
do when reading. Because focus is off the body, this muscular activity usually
goes unnoticed. For example, while watching a sporting event our bodythought is constantly mimicking the action to create a vicarious experience of
the movement and impacts taking place on the field. Depending on how avid
a fan, we can get so carried away with body-thought that our muscles will
twitch strong enough to create noticeable twinges, cringes and jerks. Or, you
can notice an aficionado at the symphony internally playing an instrument or
conducting.
A note on lucid-dreaming
One of the primary techniques in learning to lucid dream is to practice looking
for your hands in dream-state. Once you find the hands, you can practice
controlling the hands and eventually the entire body. But this practice does
not develop the skills of Vipassana; dreams (and drug induced experiences)
are fully within the Field of Imagination and do nothing to develop wisdom.
If you catch yourself in a lucid display, even though the hand or arm looks and
feels absolutely real, it is not the real arm − the work is to find the sensations
of the real arm. Although this work does not make for a good story, it has
you well in the river of greater consciousness. Pulling out of a lucid display
greatly develops one’s capacity to disregard displays of apparent reality and
with a just little more work a person can realize that this is direct experience
of the imaginary vibrancy that the Imagination projects onto our eyes open
experience of our surroundings.
52
Chapter 9 – Body Thought
Chapter 10: The Game of Life
As long as the Mind is active, we cannot directly experience Reality. So, how
do we go about calming and eventually stopping the Mind?
We never can observe the deeper dynamics of the Mind and its Conditioning
directly. We can only deduce what the Conditioning has in mind by discerning
and studying the patterns and products of the Imagination: our thoughts,
feelings and behaviors. But, this work never results in change at the deepest
level; knowing that an activity, e.g. alcohol or eating sugar, is affecting my
health or ruining relationships does not stop me from drinking or eating
sweets. Knowing that I am behaving like a child or like my father helps, but
does not free me from the pressures to behave like that. Our lives are still
confined to the realm of the Imagination and continue to be
guided/puppeted/controlled by what our Conditioning determines to be
important.
In order for change to be permanent, the cause of the behavior must be
removed at its roots − which is at the level of our Conditioning.
It doesn’t matter what level of sensitivity our attention is at; it is what it is.
However, what is important is: in this moment we are exercising our capacity
to remain equanamous and not react to whatever commotion our
Conditioning is sending our way. And in this moment of non-reaction, we are
breaking the normal pattern of our Mind and changing Conditioning at its
root level. Over time, sensitivity and our ability to allow calm will develop
and we will catch the onset of Conditioning’s commotion sooner and sooner,
but this is just the natural development of meditation practice.
Again, the work is noticing what is available for us to notice in the moment
and exercising our capacity to not react, because… everything that takes
place in our heads and in the world, from neediness and irritation to warfare,
begins as sensations that are designed to get us to react. But, the link
between sensations (an impulse) and an action is never hardwired, it is never
set in stone, it is not rigid; it is not inevitable; it is always soft; we never have
to react!
To explain this, imagine The Game of Life. The playing surface is an opaque
sheet of glass. The playing surface is well lit, but the rest of the room is dark;
you cannot see any of the other players. Most of the pieces are entirely
Chapter 10 – The Game of Life
53
wood. But, each player’s figurine has pieces of metal embedded in it. You
cannot touch anything on the table directly, but each person is given a
magnet. By moving the magnet under the table, you pull, draw, tug and yank
your figurine about the board. Each player is given a secret objective and sets
to work using his figurine to move the other inanimate pieces toward his
objective. Again, you cannot see the other players, and no talking is allowed.
But, you can try to use the body language of your figurine to motivate other
players to help you move pieces towards your goal.
But in the version of the game of life that you and I are playing right now, we
are not the player in charge of the magnet; we are the figurines on the field!
We can only see the playing surface; we cannot see who is controlling the
magnet. From the point of view of the figurine we feel that we are in charge.
But our entire lives − everything we think, feel, say or do is a reaction to the
little (or large) impulses of sensations orchestrated by the Mind and its
Conditioning! If we are unaware of the sensations, we are just puppets. If
we are aware of the sensations but still react, we are semi-conscious puppets.
But we don’t have to react! The impulses are not directly connected to our
motor pathways, the connection is soft like the little tugs of the magnet
underneath the table. It only takes sensitivity to sensations and a little
conscious stillness to overcome the force of the impulses and hold the
figurine (ourselves) in place. This is Huge. This is the secret to life.
Meditation brings wisdom; lack of meditation leaves ignorance. Know well
what leads you forward and what holds you back, and choose the path
that leads to wisdom.
− Gautama Buddha
Each time we don’t react to an impulse, the pathway that supports that
dynamic is weakened. This is not just a change in the neuro-physiological and
bio-chemical pathways; it is change at the deepest level of Conditioning, at
the very essence of our existence!
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Chapter 10 – The Game of Life
Chapter 11: Sensations and Emotions
All experience is sensation and all sensation occurs within the framework of
the body. Our Attention never actually leaves the boundaries of the body
Even when we are looking at the farthest star, our Attention only goes as far
as our display of the world projected onto the front of the eyes.
Still, there is a major difference between Attention focused within the
framework of the body and Attention that feels like it is focused “off of the
body”.
Within the models that serve as the framework of the body we find:
Foundational Sensations; raw sensations, such as heat, pressure and pain;
corporal sensations, such as hand or knee; sensations of the innervoice/inner-hearing; “feelings”; and highly conceptual thought.
When paying attention, one will notice that all other displays of Imagination,
such as memory, my surroundings and all aspects of creative thinking, float or
focus Attention somewhere “off of the body”. These “external” displays
loose power or dissolve completely when Attention is turned “inward”, within
the framework of the body.
The build up to an emotion is a constellation of probably 18 to 7,219
“supporting sensations” surging throughout the entire body (I am just making
up numbers, but there are a lot.) Most (or all?) of these sensations can go
unnoticed and the Imagination keeps on working just fine! The supporting
sensations are within the framework of the body, but the emotion itself only
comes into existence when all this commotion is connected to a cause and
projected onto an external display of the Imagination: a thought of a person,
an event, an interaction, a memory or a likely scenario.
You will not be punished for your anger; you will be punished by your
anger.
− Gautama Buddha
I am learning that for what I’d call anger, I might notice the jutting of the jaw;
tension in the neck; and tension in the back of the right hand and wrist. I
might also notice tightness or discomfort in my calves. Sometimes I feel
pressure in the chest. If I was more attuned, I might be able to notice an
increased heart rate, heightened blood pressure and heat in different parts
of my skin due to constrictions and dilations of my veins.
Chapter 11 – Sensations and Emotions
55
It is important to appreciate that the “emotional physiology” is the entirety
of the body − from skin to bones. We get some glimpse of this through our
expressions: Made my skin crawl, gave me goose bumps, made my hair stand
on end, made my blood boil, it was gut wrenching, it took my breath away,
my stomach is in knots, made my heart skip a beat, I was about to jump out
of my skin… Supposedly, every emotion also varies one’s breathing in some
way. There are also all kinds of hormones and neurotransmitters released in
the preparation of any emotion which alter the functioning of probably every
organ, every muscle and every cell.
The same list of expressions shows how easy it is to believe that our emotions
are caused by or triggered by external events. But, our emotions are
preloaded by our Conditioning; the Mind is constantly creating places to plug
in broken or righteous thoughts and their emotions.
It is so easy to believe that people and events in the world cause our emotions
– and that anyone in their right mind would also be having the same thoughts,
feelings and reactions. But, our perception of the world is always a half a
second behind. In that half second, the Mind has taken the time to set up the
emotional trip-lines and booby-traps within our physical and social worlds.
Not a single emotion is caused by external events; we are each just traipsing
through our own personal emotional minefield that we have set up for
ourselves.
We are each entirely responsible for our reactions to events in the world!
Nobody else and nothing in the world makes us feel, say or do anything.
Our awareness is rarely 100% focused on any one thing or on any one of our
senses; our attention is usually divided among several places of interest.
When we are listening to someone: we are partially listening to the words in
order to build the scenario that will represent our understanding of the story;
while part of our attention is caught up creating another scene or two in
contemplation of how we might respond to the speaker; we might also be
noticing that we are hungry; a friend just passed by; and a scene representing
some random “memory” just flashed by.
The inner-voice and highly conceptual thought take place somewhere inside
our heads, but all other thought, pulls at least some of our Attention off the
body. This “lifting” of the Attention off of the body and the projection of the
display of thought somewhere else can be subtle and difficult to notice. When
we are recalling an event or listening to another person’s story of something
that has happened, we project partial attention in what we think is the
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Chapter 11 – Sensations and Emotions
direction of where the event occurred. If we are thinking about a person, we
direct attention towards the place in the world where we last saw the person
or where we think they are now. And, when we are creating a purely
imaginary scenario, we create a world somewhere off of our bodies in which
the events can take place. As a person’s meditation practice develops, both
the movement of the awareness within the framework of the body and the
lifting of attention off the body become more evident.
Every time we notice something or we think of something our emotional
physiology has already been triggered, for example, muscle tension and
faster heart rate. If our awareness is strongly caught up in the tumult of our
thoughts and the more these thoughts seem real, the more the organs of our
emotional physiology are working overtime and the more we are deepening
our imprint for that pattern of response.
All aspects of thought occupy some of the same physiology that we use to
sense the world. For example, if I am listening to a song in my head, I will be
less aware of the sounds in my surroundings, while mental imagery decreases
my visual awareness. The stronger our thoughts − the less sensitive we are
to the physical world, our internal environment, and the present moment.
Simply placing the awareness on or in the body dis-empowers the
Imagination and frees up the sensory and emotional physiologies − by doing
so, we calm the emotional tumult of our perpetual thoughts and the innate
intelligence of the body is allowed to take care of and heal itself.
Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it
at someone else; you are the one who gets burned. −Gautama Buddha
It is easy to lose sight of the enormity of the forces underneath our dollhouse
that are governing our sense of reality, our actions and our inactions − they
are the primal forces of survival: fight, flight or freeze and what to kill and die
for. That is why we are just as capable of killing in defense of an idea as we
are to kill in defense of our children. It is also why we can send our children
to kill and die when an elder or official says it is important.
It can be easy to disregard phobias as simply an illness or a malfunctioning of
the brain. But, phobias are just the far end of normal functioning of the
Imagination. Phobias (and neurosis) reveal the power of the forces
underneath all of our arrangements of the Imagination and the subjectivity
of all our emotional connections; all of our emotional reactions are just as
Chapter 11 – Sensations and Emotions
57
imaginary as a phobic response. “Normal” or “healthy” functioning just
means that the emotions attached to our thoughts, ideas and actions are
more internally and/or socially acceptable. One might think that evolution
would weed out neurotic behavior, but I have noticed that neurotic behavior
often gives that person a lot of social clout – as others often acquiesce rather
than contend with the intensity of the person’s emotions.
Phobias also provide insight as to how difficult it is to disconnect and/or
rearrange our emotional reactions once they have been attached to a
situation or idea. Even when a fear (or other emotion) is blatantly imaginary,
it is still outside of our conscious control to change; we cannot simply choose
to not to react or choose to have a different emotional reaction.
The power of Vipassana is that we are learning to notice the surfacing of
sensations before we have been triggered, before we have reacted, before
emotions have coalesced as a projection onto a display of thought. By
working on our equanimity (our mental non-reactivity and our physical
stillness) the impulses by which we are puppeted have less influence on us.
This is not a matter of willpower; when an impulse to react is noticed and met
with equanimity, without effort, the reaction does not take place. This
capacity ebbs and flows, so don’t expect to be free from all habitual behavior
after one ten-day retreat. But, any change from typical unconscious behavior
is monumental. Even if it is just one time out of ten that we don’t react, it is
a major shift in consciousness; it is moving mountains.
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Chapter 11 – Sensations and Emotions
Chapter 12: The Mind at Work
When our models of reality are active, we don’t see the world directly. We
see our virtual world, our models, laden with their psychological importance
and conditioned emotional triggers projected onto the framework of the
actual world.
But, even when our eyes are closed, and our experience is at best drab, crude
renderings of people and things, it is easy to believe that we are thinking
about real people and real things.
The Mind’s fundamental deception is to make it seem as if we are all taking
in the one and same world. And, that this world will continue to exist whether
I, you or our neighbors are here or not. But the truth is that I only see the
world that my Mind creates for my sense of me (my “me”-doll) to live in − the
world that gives existence to the needs, values and purposes of my
Conditioning.
You only see the world that your Mind creates for your sense of self (your
“me”-doll) to live in − the world that gives existence to the needs, values and
purposes of your Conditioning.
Our social world, our shared “reality”, is a layering of all of our individual
virtual worlds, one on top of another. Seen as such, it is amazing that this
system works at all, but it has let us grow together into the most versatile,
creative and manipulative species on the planet.
The Mind does not simply create and move about our figurines; it also
assesses and attaches value and importance to every object active in a
scenario. Is it dangerous? Can I eat it (or is it useful in some way)? Is it for
procreation (or somehow beneficial to my survival)? These assessments can
be reduced to: things to be desired (or held on to), and things to avoid (or
eradicate). These values are not just for the objects themselves, but for the
relationships the Mind creates among objects as well.
The scene for the present moment is updated to take into account changes in
the actual world; but this takes place after the Mind has conformed incoming
experience to our models of the past. Our “direct observation” (what we see
as “the real world”) is the display of a mental model that has already been
molded by our past experiences and contains our deeper psychological values
Chapter 12 – The Mind at Work
59
as they pertain to our objects, relationships and our current mental/emotional
states. Our psychological values (as determined by our Conditioning) direct
our attention within this display of the world according to what is most
important for us. For example, at a sporting event: one person notices the
game, another person notices fellow spectators, a third person is interested
in the food, and another is lost in thought about work.
Here’s an example of the Mind at work. When we walk into a room and
notice that a table is in a different location, our Mind has already updated our
model of the real world by moving our matching toy for that table into its new
location. The Mind now has two models active: <how the table was> and
<how the table is>. Meanwhile, the Mind, according to its Conditioning,
assesses what psychological tension is best to create between these two
models and how it wants us to react (i.e. our ensuing thoughts, vocalizations,
actions and emotional projections), which it primes through a flood of
supporting sensations. A half a second later, after we have walked into the
room and the Mind has had time to make its changes, to determine what is
important and to prime us for reaction, Perception shows us our model of our
surroundings, highlighting the new location of the table. And, as example,
one person will walk into the room, notice that the table has been moved and
feel delight (because he had mentioned earlier that it needed moving).
Another person will walk into the room and feel irritation because the table
isn’t in its “proper place”. And, another person will feel terror because he
had left the house locked and there is no reason that anyone should have
entered the house and rearranged the furniture.
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Chapter 12 – The Mind at Work
Chapter 13: The Imaginary Divide
and Secondary Models of “Reality”
All our experience (what we see, feel, think, touch, taste) is produced by the
Mind and takes place in the realm of Imagination. But, the Mind does what
it can so that only half of our experience seems like imagination. This is when
we are thinking about how things could be different. Otherwise, the Mind
wants us to believe that all other experience has nothing to do with
imagination, but is in fact reality.
The Mind creates two aspects of reality for us: a general, universal reality,
that assumes/encompasses everything that is currently taking place as well
as everything that has ever occurred in the universe; and our personal reality,
that which we know and understand about the world through our own direct,
personal experience. But, none of this experience is the Big Reality –
Universal Truth.
Our direct experience of The Present Moment and our recollection of Past
Direct Experience do not feel like thinking or imagination − it feels like we
are just passively taking in what is or recalling what was.
But, we build a lot of our understanding of the world (our reality) through
other people’s accounts. (See next chapter: Story) And, this is where it gets
tricky; because, depending on our Attention, we will notice that thinking and
model-making are always involved in stories; and, at some point, either
consciously or unconsciously, a decision has to be made as to whether this
story is to be true or make-believe.
The whole point of Primary Models of “reality” is that they should not seem
to be models at all; after all it is reality, and except for our small personal
contributions, reality exists on its own, apart from us. So, once a
determination has been made that a story is true, the Mind does everything
it can to ignore or deny our involvement and thought processes so that the
information can sit as comfortably as possible within our Models of reality.
One half of the Imaginary Divide holds our Primary Models of reality: our
models that represent the present moment, the real past and the real future.
On the other half of the Imaginary Divide we place our Secondary Models of
Chapter 13 – The Imaginary Divide
61
reality – these are models that we make in order to play with and explore
Possibilities.
To create Secondary Models, we extract toys and dolls or entire scenes from
our Primary Models of “reality” and rearrange them to create new scenarios
that depict or explore: <what could have happened>, <what should have
happened>, <what might happen>, etc.
This idea that there is an Imaginary Divide that separates our experience of
reality from our experience of imagination, is only half accurate − it is how
the Mind wants us to see it; simple, black and white.
So, how do we know the difference between thoughts that are serving as <a
real memory> and thoughts that are serving as <what should have
happened>?
The Mind determines how we are to regard a display of thought by creating
several “Players” and “Seats” (which is synonymous with “a sense of”).
Depending on which Player is given credit for the original experience, and
which Players are given credit/responsibility for storing, maintaining and
recalling an experience, the Mind creates the various Arenas of Thought.
(Remember that all Thought is Imagination).
The list: the “real” past; the “real” present; the “real” future (assumptions
that most of the world will still be the same tomorrow); the imaginary past
(how the world could have been); the imaginary present (how the world
could be right now); the imaginary future (how the future might be); and
fantasy (that can be past, present or future, or timeless).
And now, a partial list of the Players: Nature (or God), Pure Intellect, personal
intellect, conscious (or personal) imagination, creativity, a seat (or sense) of
control, a seat of responsibility, a seat of observation/awareness and
Chronology and a sense of Time. (Note that Imagination with a big “I” is not,
and never will be, a Player.)31
31
I will use capital “I”− Imagination to refer to the processes that create all Models
within the Imagination. I will use small “i”− imagination to refer to conscious
imagination, creativity and personal involvement that only play roles in conjuring and
manipulating Secondary Models of reality and Fantasy worlds. (See, The Bigger
Picture, page XXX.)
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Chapter 13 – The Imaginary Divide
Credit for Primary Models of reality is given to Nature. Any assessment,
judgment and especially any adjustment within Primary Models of reality is
done strictly through Pure Intellect with its tools of Logic and Reason and its
capacity to discern Truth. No acknowledgment whatsoever of any kind of
Imagination (big or small) is ever allowed in Primary Models of reality!
Pure Intellect is always very impersonal; it is governed by higher principles
and dynamics, universal laws and universal truths; the Mind makes sure that
Pure Intellect is divorced from our personal existence and our personal
beliefs.
To the contrary, creating and playing with Secondary Models of reality feels
like creativity and imagination with personal involvement, personal
responsibility and a sense of control – as these are my thoughts, my
assessments, my judgments, my playfulness, my choices and my decisions.32
Here, on this side of the Imagination, Secondary Models of reality are open
to conscious imagination (creativity and fantasy), and both Pure Intellect and
personal intellect.
At times, we create scenarios in the imagination that are pure fantasy. But
mostly, we use Secondary Models to create scenes that assess how reality
could be (or should be) different. They can be of the past, present or future:
<what I should be doing right now>, <what a friend was supposed to do>,
<what I could have said differently>, <rehearsing what I will say>, <what I
hope will happen> or <what I would rather be doing>.
For example, we use Secondary Models of reality when we want to figure out
what we would like to do tomorrow... We pull up <tomorrow’s world>, get
out our favorite toys and dolls and have them do different things, go different
places and eat different foods. We get into our thought-bodies and run, jump
and snuggle. All this mental and emotional activity, every body-thought,
32
It is important to appreciate the power of Judgment and the role it plays in creating
and maintaining “reality”. Judgments, whether conscious or not, control truth and
reality; they determine what is fact and what is fiction. Within Secondary Models,
Judgment is “assessment” and “evaluation”. Within Primary Models, Judgment is
“certainty”, “truth” and “righteousness”. At any point that an idea, story or
assessment is deemed true, that idea, story or assessment is embedded in our
Primary Models, the realm of reality, and has sway over all our future thoughts,
emotions and actions.
Chapter 13 – The Imaginary Divide
63
movement of a toy or doll, as well as every assessment, such as <that would
feel good>, or <that’s impossible>, or <that would be fun>, is orchestrated
through projected sensations. When a certain scene is deemed <the best>,
then we know what we would like to do tomorrow.
Here on the secondary stages (in the realm of imagination) the Mind allows
the “me”-doll to feel like it is the director and in charge of the action. The
“me”-doll can direct a scene from “off-stage” or put itself onstage as a central
character in the action that it is orchestrating.
Even though the “me”-doll feels like it is in charge and responsible, the
creation of all Secondary Models of reality (as well as our sense of control) is
also orchestrated by the Mind through the projection of sensations! If this is
disappointing, that is okay; your “me”-doll is deepening its understanding of
the value of meditation.
There is a third field within the Imagination, Uncertainty, which we will look
at later. On page XXX is a visual of the structure of the Mind and Imagination.
Notice that all aspects of Thought, both that which is considered to be reality
and that which is “readily acknowledged as imagination”, are products of the
Imagination.
Since everything starts out fully as Imagination, to create any sense of reality,
Imagination’s contribution must be completely denied. Imagination is always
there, still working. But, in a total takeover, the Mind hides Imagination away
and imbues EVERYTHING that Imagination does with its version of Real-ness
and Aliveness. In a total reversal, the Mind takes a world of make-believe and
makes it all real!
To establish a baseline for reality and to help separate what we experience
as the present moment from other aspects of Imagination, the Mind makes
its Model of The Present Moment vital and detailed with a natural vividness.
The Mind can still make experience more intense, more vivid. But, it saves
this extra juice to control our Attention within the display of the present
moment and to instill Importance. (See Chapter XXX: Control)
Doing everything it can to make it seem that this experience has nothing to
do with our Mind and Imagination, the Mind gives credit for this experience
to Nature and, if need be, to the Nature of the Senses. The objects in this
display of Imagination are imbued with stability; boundaries; permanence;
inherent/intrinsic traits and qualities; and an existence of their own, apart
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Chapter 13 – The Imaginary Divide
from us. The objects of the Imagination that depict our surroundings are
displayed in a way that that feels like we are looking out into the world at
things in the world that have nothing to do with us. And, that our
involvement/control in this experience is limited to where we are directing
our attention and if we are manipulating any thing in our surroundings.
The features that distinguish our model of The Present Moment from models
in other arenas of the Imagination are: Being Awake, Natural Vividness,
Credit to Nature, a Panorama, Extreme Detail and a sense of Now.
While we are awake and negotiating our physical and social worlds, no other
arena of Thought/Imagination is given natural vividness.
This is easily tested by simply looking into the surroundings then closing the
eyes. Or, if you are blind, picking something up, putting it down and
recollecting what was just in your hand. The only other time natural, presentmoment vividness comes into play is when we are asleep and not needing to
negotiate our physical and social worlds, or in hallucinations.33 I know from
lucid dreams and sometimes for a few moments after meditation that some
experience can exceed natural vividness, somehow tapping into the extra
juice and taking on a hyper-real or magical quality.
Models in all other Arenas of Imagination are constructed in this closedeyes, drab, crude, almost detail-less34 rendering of our dolls and toys. (This
includes our recollection of Past Direct Experience; which we just tested a
moment ago by closing our eyes.) But, it doesn’t seem to matter; Models of
reality built in this drabness still seem real; the drabness is simply ignored
and we give over to the Mind’s version of Realness/Aliveness that is being
infused into the experience. This is the Mind’s clever way that allows us to
get lost in thought in any number of displays of reality or imagination, but if
33
I have never had a drug induced, hallucinatory experience and, to the best of my
knowledge, I have never had a hallucination. I have had a few lucid dreams and while
resting, a couple closed-eyed lucid imaginings that eventually Reason could separate
from Present Moment Model experience. There was a “vision” that persisted
whether I had my eyes open or closed, but it was colorless and outside of Logic. And,
there was another vision that again was independent of eyes open or closed, which
defied Logic, but was terrifyingly real.
34
For example, reread the sentence in the text that holds this footnote, then close
the eyes and count the number of words from memory.
Chapter 13 – The Imaginary Divide
65
sanity prevails, we will not confuse these displays to be the present moment
real world.
All this “thinking” can take place without any use of language − nothing but
moving around our visual and tactile notions of past experience. But once we
have learned language, we tend to focus primarily (or exclusively) on the
auditory thread of concepts that comes through our “inner-voice/innerhearing”. Although language has become our primary mode of thinking, our
sense of place and the relationships among our toys and dolls are still the
foundation of our mental worlds.
It is easy to assume/believe that we are in control of our imagination and
creativity, and that by thinking (playing and/or struggling with different
arrangements of our dolls and toys) we are engaged in a learning process to
understand what is <best>, <most accurate> or <truest> − that this work will
help us to better shape the future or that by more fully understanding past
events, we will be better prepared for similar events in the future.
But, the deepest function of all thought (that which is not “right thought”)35
is to feed the mechanism which keeps our sense-of-self “alive” while honoring
the deepest dynamics of our Conditioning. Whether it is serious,
concentrated thought or the Mind’s star player, “The Monkey Mind”, an
enormous part of thinking is actually efforts to prevent deep change and to
keep learning at just the surface levels in order to protect the mechanism and
the psychological status quo.
When we stop to notice, we can appreciate how random, repetitive,
incessant, incoherent and unnecessary most of our thoughts really are, and
that they are not about to produce any meaningful results.
35
Any thought or action that arises as a reaction to the sensations of Conditioning,
strengthens or deepens that behavior and will show up again in our future. However,
there are thoughts and actions that are based in grace, kindness and truth. These
actions arise and pass and do not agitate or defile the mind. These actions are taught
as “the eight-fold path”, and are described as “right” thought, “right” speech, “right”
action, … (Because some people might infer that if some actions are “right” then
other actions must be “wrong”, Victor Daniels suggests using the term “helpful and
beneficial”: helpful and beneficial thought, helpful and beneficial speech, etc.)
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Chapter 13 – The Imaginary Divide
The Bigger Picture
The Structure of the Mind and Imagination
OUR EXPERIENCE
FILTER OF PERCEPTION
FIELD OF IMAGINATION
The “Dollhouse” or “The Theater of the Mind”
READILY ACKNOWLEDGED
AS iMAGINATION
− imagination
− Intellect
− Logic
− Creativity
− Reason
− Fantasy
− Sense of ownership and control as
these displays only exist in “my”
imagination
− Personal Responsibility
− Secondary Models of Reality that
explore possibilities, both for our
“Inner” and “Outer” Worlds
− How the World Could Be Now
− How the World Could Have Been
− How the World Might Be Later
CONDITIONING
Nothing occurs in the Realm of Imagination (above) until the Mind/Conditioning projects
raw sensations, shape, value, judgment, importance, meaning or purpose onto the flux of
Foundational Sensations (below).
Honoring: Deepest Patterns of Survival and Creation
Primal Forces/Passivity/Aggression
Fight or Flight or Freeze / What to Kill and Die For
FIELD of FOUNDATIONAL SENSATIONS−A Field of Reality
Prompted by its Conditioning, The Mind initiates a flux of Foundational Sensations. These
sensations seem to be devoid of meaning or purpose except to provide a
substrate/medium by which the Mind/Conditioning can work.
(Depending on Attention, these Sensations can be Observed Directly)
Experience in this Field seems to be unaffected by what Conditioning projects on top of it.
Outside of Imagination, this is a Field of Reality.
UNCERTAINTY
APPARENT “REALITY”
− Exists apart from me and is outside my
control
− Principle Models of Reality used to
keep track of Inner and Outer Worlds
− Real Past (How the World Was)
− Real Present (How the World Is)
− Real Future (Assumptions/Beleifs as to
How the World Will Be)
− Truth
− Certainty
− Righteousness
− Stories that are believed to be true
− Values, ideas, philosophies, or beliefs
that are consciously or unconsciously
held to be true.
− Emotions
THE MIND and its CONDITIONING encompass this and every other Field above and are
responsible for all activity in all Fields.
Our Conditioning is the impetus for all mental activity and carries our deepest needs and
purposes (and probably, life lessons).
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Chapter 14: Story − A Model of Verbal Thought
The foundation of Thought is the Models that we use to keep track of our
physical and social-emotional worlds. The physical world (our sense of place)
is organized through the spatial arrangement of our objects. This is done
through touch, sight and sound. Our social-emotional world is built upon the
values given each object and the importance given to each relationship
between objects.
This is why it is very difficult to memorize a list of concepts, numbers or
unrelated objects; they just float unconnected to what is most important to
us – our physical and social worlds. People who compete in memory contests
connect items to their physical and social worlds by building a special living
room in their imagination. They place each item in sequence on the next
piece of furniture in their room while creating a story that links each item
with the next.
The foundation of Thought is visual, tactile, auditory and emotional, but once
we have learned language, we tend to pay less attention to those aspects of
thought and focus primarily (or exclusively) on words − the auditory thread
of ideas that comes through our “inner-voice”.
Verbal language was a boon to society and civilization; without language, we
must rely on body-language or pictures to attempt to share with others what
is happening in our Imagination. However, it is important to understand how
language and Imagination work in order to be aware of their limitations and
dangers.
Story Time
Any thought involving words is a use of Story. Story involves stringing
together our words for dolls, toys, activities, ideas and emotions to encode a
scene in our intellect/Imagination. We use story both to think to ourselves
and to share experience with other people.
But words (names) are very different than dolls and toys. The dolls and toys
of our imagination have a one to one correspondence with a particular thing
in the world; we make a doll for each new person we meet and a toy for each
new thing we notice and that doll or toy only corresponds to that particular
person or thing. One doll → one person. However, a word represents a
concept or a category for a group of objects; one name → millions of objects.
Chapter 14 – Story
69
Think of how many things you call “cat” – imaginary cats, drawings of cats,
stuffed animal cats and every real cat that you have ever met or are going to
meet.
The advantage of having imaginary scenarios that represent “the real world”
is that our understanding of the world is not limited to just our own direct
personal experiences (what we see, hear, smell, taste and touch). We can
also update and add to our understanding of “the real world” by listening to
other people’s Stories about things that have happened or might happen.
This might involve creating new dolls and new toys and a new sense of place,
or it might just require moving our existing figurines (what we already know)
into new arrangements. (We also update and add to our understanding of
the real world through the stories we tell ourselves.)
An event is millions of occurrences and interactions that interweave what is
most important to each of the participants from moment to moment. This is
more than our Intellect can handle. But, what the Mind and Perception can
do is build a scenario of the event with a handful of our dolls and toys and
inject it with whatever emotional juice our Mind deems necessary to honor
our Conditioning and bring life to this experience (See Chapter 23: Addiction);
this beaded tapestry36 is as rich a portrayal of life as the Mind/Imagination
can muster.
But, when we want to share our tapestry with another, we can’t download
our entire experience, all at once, into the mind of another; we can only share
one single concept at a time, like lining up beads along a string. It is the best
that we can do; Story is always a limited attempt to describe an entire
tapestry one bead at a time.
So, out of this entire tapestry that you have created to depict an event, for
example, “what happened the other night”, you have to decide what is most
important to share. As you follow your thread of thought and say the name
of each concept out loud, I activate each of my matching concepts to build a
scene in my imagination that is hopefully similar enough to constitute
understanding and sharing.
What I actually have in my head is but: the activation of few of my old dolls
and toys; maybe some revamping of some of my old dolls and toys to create
36
Any sense of Continuity is a trick of Perception’s editing – a “filling in”; all
experience can be noticed as a slew of discrete, individual events. Many mindfulness
techniques work to develop awareness of dis-continuity.
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one or two new ones; and some of my old life experiences arranged in a novel
way. But, this is enough. This is how the Mind works; it animates a few dolls
(and plants and bugs and things), decrees other objects as “inanimate” and
fills in its version of life around these objects. We are so used to going along
with the show that a few concepts strung together, with some intellectual
and emotional fill, is enough to constitute believable reality and life.
Even though I just built this scene entirely from my own past experiences, I
suspend disbelief and somehow treat this display as if I have experienced
something that is apart from me and my own personal experiences!
And, if I have no other reason to suspect otherwise, I will adjust my
understanding of the “real world” accordingly.
Remember, the Imagination has two main divisions: that which is deemed
true and constitutes reality; and scenarios in the imagination that “I” or
others have constructed through creativity. One half of the Imagination
maintains our Models of reality. The other half of the Imagination is where
we evolve our Secondary Models of reality and our flights of fantasy. This
may not seem like a big deal, after all we just took a deep look at the thinness
of reality construed through Story and nothing seems different; my world
isn’t unraveling.
But it is a big deal.
Unless there is reason to think otherwise, the information gleaned from your
story of <what happened the other night> is treated as a truth. Years later, I
may have no recollection of how or when I learned of this event, but the
series of events are recalled as facts.
Creating and maintaining a believable reality is deeply important for the
purposes of Conditioning. The Mind builds reality and controls our behaviors
through our reactions; the more real and more true something seems, the
more readily and more fully we are likely to react to it. If everything seemed
fake or make-believe, the Mind would have a hard time getting us out of our
hammocks and motivating us to take care of ourselves and others, (or,
whatever it is that our Conditioning has in mind).37 So, on one level, I know
37
At other times, the Mind can go the other route and allow life’s fakeness to come
to the surface. Now, not real, not important or “dissociated” from our surroundings
or ourselves the Mind can either subdue us into doing nothing or carry us into actions
that would otherwise be morally repugnant.
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71
my mind is totally preoccupied with making sure that I still believe in its reality
and that I can keep displays of imagination separate from what is to be
considered real. But mostly, it seems that my mind shows little concern for
the reliability and accuracy of accounts of reality as long as things in my world
remain copasetic or normal/usual.
Some people seem more mindful of our fallibility when it comes to assessing
and assigning truth –they seem to keep track of the probable accuracy and
reliability of each story. This is very tricky because every story told is filtered
at least three times: by what was important to the observer/teller at the time
of the event; by what was important to the observer/teller at the time of
telling; and by what was important to the listener at the time of the telling.38
But for most of us, the Mind makes sure that the division between
imagination and reality is black or white, all or nothing. It is called the primacy
effect and once the Mind has determined that an account is fact or fiction,
that information becomes stubbornly fixed in one half of the Imagination or
the other.
The Mind builds a huge amount of our world-view (our reality) through story;
most classroom education is just that – sitting in a box and building an
understanding of the world through other people’s accounts. Everything that
we understand of the world that we did not learn through our own direct
experience is built upon Story − which is always just another layer of
reorganization of our own personal past experiences. Our reality built
through Story is a house of cards. The Mind does its best to keep us
uninterested in how this reality is made. The default is: that which is true is
true and that which is make-believe is make-believe. Period. Simple as that.
If there is any uncertainty at the time of telling, we might quickly ask, “Is that
true?” Or, “Are you sure?” But otherwise, we build our reality out of Story
without a second thought.
Sometimes life will knock us for a loop and our grip on “reality” will be
unraveled for us, but the Mind quickly sets to work trying to regain control.
Depending on the shock, regaining composure can take milliseconds, six
months or a lifetime.
38
I have noticed people use an apparent ability for assessing the reliability of
statements and their “better than average memory” as leverage in a conversation,
but turn out to be just as fallible as the rest of us.
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To consciously, willingly, unravel one’s sense of reality takes work.
We adjust our world-view according to other people’s stories all the time.
And, a lot of our inner dialogue (the stories we tell ourselves) is an attempt
to adjust and fine-tune our understanding of the world (adjust and fine-tune
our models) so that life makes sense. And, any Story that we regard as <true>,
influences what is important to us and determines how we are going to react
in the future.
What we are today comes from our thoughts of yesterday, and our present
thoughts build our life of tomorrow. Our life is the creation of our mind.
− Gautama Buddha
Nothing is created once and then just sits static in existence. Everything that
seems to be stable, is a pattern of change that is recreated moment to
moment. Our sense-of-self is no different and must be constantly
regenerated. A large part of our mental noise is building scenarios in which
to plug-in the emotions and “truths” which are the foundation of our senseof-self: frustration, anger, charity, hope, <I’m an idiot>, <People are idiots>,
<I work hard>, <Life is unfair>, <If I can just…>, etc.
I resurrect my fears
And redirect my anger
Over and over and over again.
− Doris Treissman
Chapter 14 – Story
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Chapter 15: Sanity
The intellect works very hard to maintain its deception of “reality”. Our very
sense of sanity is dependent upon a comfort and confidence in our ability to
distinguish what is real from that which is imagination – the deep assumption
is that we are pretty darn good at it.
Every time we struggle with uncertainty, and cannot unconsciously or semiconsciously determine that a story is <real> or <not real>, the Mind runs the
risk of us stopping and carefully examining what is taking place (See Chapter
18: The Pool of Recollection) and possibly realizing: that all reality built from
Story is at best a thin approximation of what might have happened − created
by rearranging a few crude notions of my own past experiences and letting
the Mind fill-in the rest.
The Intellect abhors uncertainty and as quickly as possible wants to place
information on one side of the reality divide or the other. We can still remain
uncertain about choices. But when it comes to facts or stories, the Mind will
decide for you − if you go to bed uncertain, when you wake up your Mind has
probably already determined whether the information is <true> or <madeup>, and has embedded the model and its importance in the appropriate half
of the Imagination.
No one saves us but ourselves. No one can and no one may. We ourselves
must walk the path.
−Gautama Buddha
Even if there were a pill or a tap on the forehead that could do the work for
us and completely dissolve the veil of deception created by Perception, it
would not be advisable. The path to liberation entails a development of the
Mind, our system of beliefs, the body and the nervous system.
Discipline yourself as a horse-dealer trains a thoroughbred.
−Gautama Buddha
Even if a novitiate’s systems could handle the force of a quick foray into
Ultimate Truth, the Mind is not going to allow it; your intellect fervently
believes that it is solely and wholly responsible for your wellbeing and is not
going to sit back and take a break now and then to let some deeper
understanding of life run the show for a while.
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For the Mind to remain in the driver’s seat, it must make sure that we are
“bought in” or holding onto what we experience as reality. To get the Mind
to let go of the steering wheel and then climb into the backseat in a safe and
beneficial way requires calmly deepening awareness to the very mechanisms
that create this reality.
The Mind has many defenses to distract, dismiss or dispel any idea, story or
experience that is confronting the frailty of its hold on reality: disinterest,
denial, sleepiness, heaviness, pain or distraction (either pulling attention into
any commotion in the surroundings or creating a thought that is so important
that the attention is lured away). But less obvious defense mechanisms are:
laughter, anger, tears or blinking.
Humor often makes use of the Mind’s existential discomfort concerning
uncertainty. There is a genre of jokes that start by telling you something that
you easily assume to be either true or false – you quickly place this
information on its appropriate side of the reality divide. Then, later in the
story, new information reveals that you have been duped and you must
extract the information from one side of the divide and move it to the other
side. “I flew in from San Francisco yesterday.” “Boy, my arms are still tired.”
On one level, the Mind enjoys this because it is a puzzle (together the two
pieces of information are not readily connected; they don’t readily make
sense). The Mind quickly goes through various permutations: both
utterances are true, but unconnected. Both are false… Eventually the Mind
will connect flying and arms with birds and wings.
Part of laughter can be pleasure from social connection. Part of laughter can
be pleasure from mental connection – the snapping together of the various
pieces as you figure it out. But, laughter has another important mental
function. Laughter is fluff that dispels the discomfort that comes with
struggling to place or having wrongly placed a story on its appropriate side of
the Imagination.
In the end, we still don’t know the truth about either utterance, but at least
we came up with one “fun” possibility. Then, before we delve any deeper
and realize that any reality that we have established through Story is
circumspect, we laugh − <Okay, that was fun, now back to business of
maintaining reality>.
Blinking can do the same thing. Stories are such an integral part of our reality,
that the default is for stories to be true; even stories that we know are fiction
(or even animation) seem to be true enough to elicit strong emotional
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responses. A story has to start somewhere. And, every story is temporally
supported/embedded in “reality” by bookending each story in two catch-all
assumptions: <everything that happened before> and <everything that
happens after>. The intellect doesn’t just fill in before and after; it fills in any
gaps within the story. Movies use this to their advantage all the time. One
shot shows a zombie, head intact. The next shot shows the hero swinging a
blade. Final shot shows the zombie hitting the floor and head rolling away.
The Intellect-Imagination is very good at filling gaps with assumptions
because this is how we see. It seems to us that our visual experience is
continuous, unbroken. But when you turn your head to survey your
surroundings, the brain/Mind can only make a series of snapshots and the
intellect fills in whatever assumptions and denials are needed in order to
make it seem like our visual experience flows.39
Remember that the Mind is a master in creating, editing, contorting and
deleting our experience. Anything that is psychologically awkward or difficult
can be dismissed or deleted simply by blinking. The intellect just deletes what
was happening, reboots, and usually without even noticing, we are now
totally caught up in the midst of a new story.
39
The Mind/Imagination/Perception work very hard to create stability, continuity
and permanence. Developing awareness to the impermanent, staccato nature of all
experience, from the larger cycles of birth and death to the smallest dynamics of
sensation and consciousness, thins the veil of deception and afferent “reality” and
opens understanding to deeper truths.
Chapter 15 – Sanity
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Chapter 16: Watching T.V. – A Model of Focus
In order to get caught up in a story, our Attention must be carefully focused
just within the frame of the story. If the focus is either too wide or too
narrow, we can no longer suspend disbelief and we become detached from
the story or the story dissolves. This is most obvious when watching
television or a play at the theater, but it is true for all stories, fact or fiction,
whether we are listening to another person or thinking to ourselves.
If you are caught up watching a movie, your attention will be focused just
within the picture on the screen. You know this is just electricity dancing
around to create patterns of light, but it doesn’t matter – we are all experts
at “suspending disbelief”.
We interrupt this program with a special bulletin…
“Suspending disbelief” is an awkward and loaded phrase. But, the definition
from Wikipedia boils down to this: In order to make something that we know
to be fake or fictitious, more believable, we simply disregard the fact that it
is not real [we know this really is just a two-dimensional electronic display of
actors faking it in a montage of short snippets] but we can let go of that for
the sake of enjoyment.
The idea is, that if we want to have stronger connections with the characters
and more intense emotional reactions in a situation we know to be makebelieve, we simply disregard that fakeness and it becomes more real. But
something is amiss… this is wrong… this is not what we actually do… the
Wikipedia entry is treating small “reality” as Big Reality. The entry shows a
lack of understanding as to how our Minds distinguish experience that is to
be treated as reality from experience that is to be treated as imagination.
All of our everyday experience starts with a suspension of disbelief − a
sacrifice of direct experience that would reveal that all our experience is one
of the following: the flux of Foundational Sensations; a vibrant display of toys
and dolls projected onto the front of the eyeballs; memories or thoughts of
possible pasts, presents or futures created by assembling crude notions of
past experience (an activation of toys and dolls) with the gaps “filled in” and
imbued with the Mind’s version of life.
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Everything in the Mind, except foundational Sensations, is Imagination. But,
the Mind denies Big Imagination entirely by removing it completely from the
Picture! The Mind takes a universe of make-believe and infuses
EVERYTHING, (YES, EVERYTHING) with REALNESS/ALIVENESS.
A big part of growing up is learning how to make sure that we don’t treat
everything as real; for my son at age 5, Mickey Mouse and Santa Claus were
very real! As adults we have learned which situations and environments tend
to produce experience that we are suppose to treat as fiction, make-believe,
not true. But, when the book Gulliver’s Travels, by Tom Swift, came out in
XXX, a large percentage of the population believed it to be a true account. In
XXX, when Orson Wells broadcast The War of the Worlds, on radio as if it were
a newscast, people XXX?killed themselves. And, in XXX, when NASA showed
the world a movie of men walking on a moon, a lot of people actually believed
it.
Discerning truth and reality from imagination, fiction and lies is the base of
competency and our very sanity. So, how do you do it? Seriously, give it a
couple minutes, if not a couple of weeks, of serious consideration. The Mind
wants us to think that it is obvious, but it is not. You can watch a totally
fictitious cartoon, like Wall-e,XXX and have real emotions. And, you can
watch a historically based cartoon like Pocahontas and some of that
information will get stored in your Models of reality.
The default is for everything to be real. Most “reality” is given over to Nature
or God. But, when something is to be consciously determined to be true/real
or false/fiction, the Mind gives credit for the determination to Pure Intellect
with its tools of logic and reason. If the experience is to be real, then nothing
more needs to be done; as the deception is everything starts out real. When
the determination is false/fiction, the qualities of realness and aliveness are
not deactivated, but credit for the experience is given to someone’s
conscious imagination/creativity (either your own or another person’s).
Knowing that what you are watching on TV is fiction does not necessarily
affect how intensely you respond to the action; that is still totally determined
by three factors: how your Conditioning wants to play you at that moment;
the level of your Attention and the direction of your Focus (Are you totally
caught up in a display of thought? Or, are you partially aware of sensations?);
and, your Equanimity.
Here’s the thing… when an experience is to be make-believe and is given over
to imagination/creativity, just the bare minimum of reality is retracted; But,
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not by diminishing any of the vitality of the experience, but by attaching
credit and logical information as markers/reminders of “not-real” alongside
the experience. As kids, our elders helped us (or broke our hearts) by telling
us, “this isn’t real.” But, as we grew, we learned to make that determination
for ourselves, to the point that it has become a mostly unconscious act. So
much so, that as adults, it can be hard to acknowledge that all that separates
our experience of reality from our experience of imagination is our telling
ourselves “this isn’t real”.
But this is what we do… In order to mitigate reality during a story or a movie,
the Attention occasionally does one of its millisecond darts over to one of
these markers to trigger a little, “this isn’t real”. This can be done by opening
Attention for a split second to notice the T.V., the room, or my hands and/or
legs that are within view. Or, it can be done by a micro-notice of a display of
logical thought that was created just for the purpose of mitigating reality.
But, as soon as Attention is fully refocused within the action, experience again
is fully real!
When we recollect the Story that was within the movie, the markers/
reminders are again used so that, we do not make the mistake of treating the
Story as fully real.
Back to the regularly scheduled program…
It doesn’t matter the size of the screen; it can be a colossal I-Max wall or a
wristwatch T.V. If we are focusing attention just within the screen, even
watching a fiction movie on our smart phone will have the quality of reality.
Our experience is a strange combination of three factors. One, we know we
are in our seats, in front of the television. Two, much of our experience is as
if we are within the frame of the movie, observing at a mostly safe distance,
in a way that somehow does not disturb either the characters or the action.
And three, at times we can let ourselves be so drawn into the story that we
have physical and emotional responses as if we were actually there within the
environment or as if we have become one of the characters.
There is nothing like a good horror movie to show all of us (even those of us
who consider ourselves to be highly rational) how susceptible we are to
“falling into” stories and how all experience within the Imagination, even a
ludicrous monster trapped inside a T.V. set, starts off fully real.
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Whether we are plugging in emotions into a work of fiction or into a display
of “reality”, all of our emotional experience is false, make-believe, a product
of the Mind-Imagination. All emotional experience is a reaction to the
constellation of supporting sensations designed to engender one of the
base/primal human emotions: ecstasy, joy, desire, fear, anger, sadness or
(my favorite) disgust; or, a remix of these sensations to create a hybrid
emotion. True, Real experience is limited to: Unity, Tranquility, Calm, LovingKindness, Sympathetic Joy or Compassion for those who are still lost within
the turmoil of imagined “reality”.
It is good to be aware that the Mind, not wanting to lose control, will often
send in an impostor disguised as one of these experiences. For example, for
Tranquility or Equanimity, the Mind will send in indifference or drowsiness;
for Compassion − pity or empathy (a mimicking of the emotion); for Unity −
aggrandizement or accomplishment; for Joy with others − exuberance; and
for Love − selfish affection.
An apparent aspect of sympathy and compassion is empathy, our ability to
put ourselves in another’s place and feel something of that person’s
experience. But, we must be careful as it is quite possible that what feels like
compassion is entirely made from our own Conditioning and is a projection
of our own personal past experience.
Our ability to project ourselves into another’s experience has the very deepest
roots – it is how “we” come to life! In order to carry out Conditioning’s needs
and purposes, the Mind builds the senses, which it then uses to construct
displays of the Imagination that revolve around “Centers of Experience”.
A Center of Experience is embedded in every doll and toy (every physical
object) within the Imagination. Each Center of Experience creates a point-ofview. And the perceived boundaries of each object allow “experience” to be
deemed as either “internal” or “external” to that object. Everything in our
Mind now exists separately, isolated from one another.
Throughout history, battles have raged over truths pertaining to Awareness.
And, it is no different today.
The next few chapters share the development of my understanding of
awareness that comes through direct observation. When I will use the terms
Awareness, with a capital “A” or universal Awareness, small “u”, Big “A”, I am
referring only to an Awareness that is the backdrop to the experience of the
personal universe created through and within my own Mind and
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Imagination. How this Awareness pertains to the physics and dynamics the
shared “framework” of the world which is external to my experience and onto
which my mind projects the traits of its objects, I don’t know. How this
Awareness pertains to ideas about God or Universal Intelligence, I don’t
know.
How different is your mind from my mind? Do you differentiate between
your personal attention and any larger Attention? If so, how and why? I
really don’t know, but I can tell that I carry a strong assumption that everyone
has a universal Attention and everyone’s direct experience of universal
Attention is probably very similar. If so, then each person’s experience of
their own universal Attention would unify Humanity.
Regardless of the biggest picture, just touching the Awareness that is the
backdrop to my little world of experience is still a source of Unity and Extreme
Kindness. (See Chapter 19: universal Awareness) And, understanding the
mechanism that warps and disintegrates this Awareness distributes it among
a myriad centers of isolated awareness is key in understanding how we think,
feel, and see the world. It touches upon many religious, spiritual and
scientific truths. And, it sheds light on much mis-understanding.
Awareness is vast, without bounds, a soft, disinterested,40 fully awake-ness
that is, paradoxically, both detached, unmoved, unshaken by anything and
yet, fully present with everything that happens within the Mind.
This Awareness is always there, everywhere within the Mind, but the mind
distracts our notice of this Awareness through the commotion of its projected
sensations and by embedding isolated awareness in each and every Center
of Experience (every physical object/every Toy and Doll) it creates.
Every Object is made real. The Mind then distinguishes among “living” and
“non-living” objects by dividing isolated awareness into either animate
awareness or inanimate awareness.
Just as the Mind can create a “sense” of color or distance, it can also create a
“sense” of urgency, a “sense” of hope, or a “sense” of responsibility. It can
40
“Disinterested”: fair-minded, unbiased, impartial, without prejudice, neutral,
objective, able to see all sides. Not to be confused with “Disinterest”: indifference,
lack of concern, lackadaisical attitude, apathy.
Chapter 16 – Watching T.V.
83
also create and embed apparent capacities and abilities. Any and all traits
and abilities can be projected/embedded temporarily or permanently into
any Object; just watch children play with their toys.
The Mind further distinguishes between “animate objects” by also
embedding a variety of traits, capacities and abilities. internal change;
maturation and development; ability to recreate a similar pattern of
maturation and development. And some objects are given think aboutOther
traits Supported by ideas of an “outside world”, our “body’s boundaries” and
“personal experience”. Some objects are given awareness (the more
complex objects in the animal kingdom?). And, then there is intelligence and
conscious awareness
The Mind determines whether a Doll or Toy is to be “animate” or “inanimate”
by embedding each Center of Experience with either or inanimate
awareness. What happens to Awareness depends upon each person’s ideas,
beliefs, and experience. But, for many people, awareness seems to be solely
determined by/and confined to the characteristics and capabilities of each
object or organism.
The strength of this sense of separation and aliveness can vary depending on
a person’s focus, sensitivity and personal and cultural beliefs. For one person,
everything might seem scintillating, vibrating, alive,. Another person might
feel the world as contrived, vapid, cardboard or cartoon-like. These are both
accurate perceptions of the Mind’s creation.
In humans, the idea/perception of a discrete, individual, personal, animate
attention is supported through: a seat of consciousness awareness; a seat of
(or capacity for) observation; a seat of responsibility; and, a seat of control.
But, none of this would be possible without a sense of separation; and that
extra special Primary Center of Experience, that serves as a sense of self.
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By projecting myself into another Center of Experience, I can “try on another
person’s shoes” or, (the source of anthropomorphism), I can try on, as much
as possible, the experience of the rock sitting in the dappled sunlight
underneath that oak tree.
The Mind every physical thing (each Doll and Toy). Now, “seen from” the
point-of-view of any particular Center, experience will either be internal or
external. can be seen as each Center of Expereince will have “internal
experience” and Centers of Experience deny Unity and allow a sense of
separation among objects. Afferent experience and certain personal and
cultural ideas and beliefs support the notion that awareness is a
capacity/state that vies in only some objects; those objects “are alive”. “You”
are one of those objects. Depending on how people see things, other traits
and processes must be present:
In order for the game of life according to a Conditioning to begin, the Mind
does what it can to make it seem as if awareness/consciousness is not a
general, ubiquitous audience, but instead (from a scientific frame of mind and
afferent experience): is a capacity that seems to be dependent upon the
senses and nervous system; is limited to what a person notices; and will
disappear when certain brain functions cease to function or that person dies.
Through Perception, awareness is no longer an omnipresent, passive
knowing, but has been relegated to a discrete point-of-view somewhere in
your nervous system or being (or for many people in their “spirit”).
The Mind veils Awareness then parcels it out through Centers of Experience.
This is crazy, but as long as you are adequately functional within your physical,
social, and psychological worlds, it doesn’t matter which of your dolls the
Mind chooses to embed its Primary Center of Experience.
We all step into different roles and use different “registers” every day − we
use different vocabulary, tone of voice and social rules depending on whom
we are interacting with. People with multiple personalities are just the far
end of normal functioning; the Mind just readily switches which figurine
within their game of life will currently function as their primary character
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(their “me”-doll) by pulling primary awareness (their seat of consciousness)
out of one figurine and embedding it into another.
When we are caught up in a movie, our Minds have created a Doll for each
character. We then use each Doll as a Secondary Center of Experience (a seat
of observation/consciousness/attention) to keep track of who did what; who
saw what; and, who will be influenced by what is happening.
It is by our ability to pass/project/install primary awareness into one of these
secondary seats of experience/awareness that we can temporarily adopt the
point-of-view of: an invisible observer within the frame of the story, a “fly on
the wall”, or one of characters.
How much we become lost in the experience from this new point-of-view
depends once again on the millisecond dartings of the Attention.
Surrendering our sense-of-self to take on awareness from another Center of
Experience is a dream within a dream, and might seem weird or difficult. But,
we do this all the time; we do this so often that it is normal and goes
unnoticed.
While watching a movie, if we widen our attention to take in the entire room,
the movie loses the force that we had been giving it. Try it sometime… at
home, the theater, or (if it doesn’t seem rude) when you are listening to
someone talk. Open your attention to notice as much of the surroundings as
possible without focusing on any one thing and see if leaving the frame of the
story doesn’t distance or deaden the story.
Some meditation techniques make use of this broad attention to divorce us
from story and impair thought. They invite people to pull the attention to the
back of the head and gaze out, as if to take in the entire panorama of the
world all at once. This gaze hinders focusing on any one thing, making it
difficult for the Mind to define boundaries and divide the scene into separate
objects (which perception must do in order to begin inventing relationships
and organizing any kind of story).
In Vipassana, when a person has begun to notice some kind of sensation
everywhere on the body, they can start working with broad/global attention,
noticing at once as much of the body at as possible. But, attention still
remains within the framework of the body.
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To fall into and stay within a story, the attention has to be fully in the story
itself. Some people enjoy watching movies because they enjoy “losing
themselves” in the story. But, other people enjoy watching a movie with a
critic’s eye. At times, allowing themselves to be more absorbed in the action
and at times pulling out slightly in order to dart about the formulation of their
own ideas and judgments.
Like waking from a bad dream, if for whatever reason our experience of a
movie gets too intense, we can simply pull our attention completely out of
the frame and ground ourselves in the present surroundings − after all, “it’s
just a movie.”
We can distance ourselves from story by pulling partially or completely out of
the frame. But, we can also disrupt Story by getting too close.
Let’s watch a movie on an old black and white television set. But, we are
going to start by sitting super close, with our noses touching the screen. All
we can see is the “snow” of the screen – flickering little dabs of light and dark.
Just like finding shapes in the clouds, the Mind will try to conjure any pattern
it can within this randomness, but it cannot! This is like trying to map a
constantly shifting sandbar; the Mind, Perception and the Conditioning are at
a loss.
If we back up just a little, we lose sight of the individual dabs of light and dark.
Although there is still a slight vibration and variation in the area, perception
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sees the area as a stable hue of gray. But, a single fuzzy color does not make
for much of a story.
Backing up further, the Mind can finally organize the experience into a stable
pattern and compare that pattern with previous experience; we recognize a
shirt. We don’t know anything else, and a single object detached from our
personal importances does not make a story in itself. The Mind needs
Duality; it needs at least two objects that it can play off of each other to begin
to weave a story, create relationships and plug in emotions. As the Mind only
exists in story (the interaction between objects and their relationships), it is
desperate. Our Minds will start to use any associations it has with that
object/concept to anticipate story, wondering what is going to happen
and/or creating possible “back-stories” as to who the shirt belongs to and
how it got to be here now.
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Still a little further back… Now, there are several objects that can be defined
and even though the picture is still only partial, the Mind can set to work. The
Mind can plug in emotions for the action and relationships within the story
itself as well as run emotions according to how these objects affect me
personally. This is my friend Bob. And, I can see part of his cat’s head.
At the next level of focus, level-5, we have backed off to a distance where we
can easily maintain our awareness just inside the frame of the story. Here
the Mind controls our attention and emotions through a flood of sensations
and the story becomes as much a part of our present reality as the Mind
wants it to be.
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At Level-6, focus is greater than the frame of the Story and suspension of
disbelief is compromised. Because we know this is a video, we know the
action is not taking place right now and we cannot give the action presentmoment Importance; we can still be interested in the action, but because
Attention is not within the frame of the story it won’t have the same visceral
impact; we cannot get lost in or wrapped up by the action. If this is a video of
Bob’s life, then the information is stored in my Models of the real past. If this
is a movie that Bob acted in, then I store the information both in my Models
of reality, <Bob made a movie> and in my Models of imagination <the story
that Bob acted in is make-believe>.
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Chapter 17: Focus in Meditation
Backing away from a television is more than an intellectual exercise. It helps
understand the role of focus in creating and maintaining story. And, it helps
understand how and why Vipassana meditation works.
As a person’s Concentration and Focus develop, the Attention stays longer
with more subtle sensations within a smaller area of the body. This
development is not backing away from the screen, but it is like starting at
level-5 (totally caught up (or lost) in the apparent reality of the world and life
as we know it) and moving closer and closer to the T.V. set.
Just moving Attention onto the body is a major shift in consciousness. But,
paying attention to the movement of the breath in a larger area of the body,
like the throat, back, chest and jaw won’t develop sensitivity to subtler
sensations. This is like watching T.V. at level-4; we are more body-aware, but
we are still functioning at a level of afferent reality.
At level-3, sensations are still “gross-afferent” − which means the Mind has
already interpreted and objectified the experience. For example, you still
have an idea of which body part you are currently paying attention to and
names to the sensations are often internally voiced, e.g. “a stiffness in my
neck”.
A fairly good gauge for level-3 Attention would be the concentration required
for you to notice the blinking of your eyes? If you haven’t already, please,
give it a try.
Attention must focus and mental chatter must calm a bit to create a field of
curiosity (a calming and building of sensitivity) so that we are more likely to
notice the commotion of the blink when it comes.
During the
waiting/anticipation, Focus will home in on different details, maybe noticing
one eye and then the other. And, within this field of curiosity and interest, it
is very likely that other sensations that were under the radar will begin to
surface and maybe enter our notice.
If you are looking for relaxation from you meditation, you might be
disappointed; the reward for relaxing and calming into level-3 Attention is
opening to greater sensitivity, greater awareness, greater detail, greater
vitality. And.., greater resistance from the Mind/psyche to retract you from
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this process. Like creating stories that you are too busy, not worthy or not
able; or employing other tactics to derail the process. A large part of the work
(at least for me) is to do our best to acknowledge then calmly as possible,
dismiss these ploys by returning Attention back on to the body and breath.
Honesty is, knowing that I am nothing. Truth is, knowing that I am
everything. Between these two, I live my life.
(Recollection of a quote given during a yoga class)
Attention at level-3 floats more quietly at about the size of a soft ball (14cm
in diameter), occasionally focusing in tighter to bring detail or vague
experience to light. Sensations that were always there, but under the radar,
might surface: a “pain” in the back; “discomfort” in the belly; “tightness” in
the throat; heat; itchyness; …and the list goes on. Anything that seems to be
the “same”, “persistent” or “permanent” or seems to have fairly determined
shape or boundaries is an indication that Conditioning/Perception has
already been at work and has already manipulated our experience! Although
level-3 focus weakens Story, the Mind will still create a display of thought and
try to lure all or at least partial Attention into is commotion. For example,
“That injury is still haunting me.” Or, how this “ailment” is holding back my
yoga practice, or making me feel less desirable.
As experience opens to level-2, we start to lose the shapes of objects. The
“ache” (or whatever experience) is still there, but as we look closer and
explore where “the ache” begins, boundaries become diffuse. When delving
into the area, it can seem like the sensations are always moving away just
before I can really focus on them. With perseverance, we might notice that
“the ache” is made up of pricking, pressure or pulling. Or, sensations of
temperature, weight, movement, or a gluey dynamic that is working to hold
or bind “things” together. The Mind still labels, but we are skirting the
boundary of emotional influence!
As we drop deeper into level-2, we are dropping below afferent reality and
contacting subtle sensations; we are more aware of vibration, tingling, or
fuzziness. Any attempt to really focus onto and/or hold onto sensation is
likely to be met with frustration, because at this level of Attention we notice
the fleeting, ever-changing nature of experience.
When Concentration is strong in level-2, my experience can be fuzzy, nondescript tingling or vibration. During “part-by-part” scanning, Focus varies
from the size of a fingertip to that of a golf ball (around 3 cm.). When
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Concentration stays strong and this field of Focus and is slid about the body,
structure/sensation/experience that comes into the field of focus, rather than
becoming more detailed, becomes more fuzzy or even dissolves completely.
(This would be like highlighting a section of Bob’s shirt at level-3 and dragging
it around the screen so that the image on the screen, under focus, becomes
fuzzier or dissipates completely.) Not only does the experience of sensations
shift, but ideas and interpretations about the structure/sensations also
weaken or dissipate!
Yes, sometimes similar experience/similar sensations will be rebuilt. But, at
times, things that were considered “a persistent ailment”, (like a cranky,
sunburn-like soreness/tightness under my right scapula), will dissipate, never
to return.
These experiences begin to build a deeper understanding; what seemed to
be a physical ailment could be a purely mental construct. And maybe, these
sensations, that had been residing under my scapula for as long as I can
remember, were part of the supporting sensations that the Mind brought to
the surface whenever it wanted me to be cranky about something.
You will have to do your own research, but, if I were to swear to anything, I
would swear that this is how it works.
It seems that the Mind does not put all its eggs in one basket; the Mind still
finds ways to orchestrate plenty of surliness, crankiness and anxiety through
other, probably mostly buried sensations elsewhere in my body. This might
seem like magic… It is also hard, lifelong work.
Awareness continues to deepen by appreciating change at all levels of
experience and following the instruction, “whenever there are two or more
sensations, focus on the most subtle.” At level-1, the constantly changing
nature of sensations becomes obvious. There is no discernible pattern, so
there are no objects, no relationships nor emotions. Goenka offers that this
is a bio-chemical or electro-magnetic dynamic that is present in all living cells.
There is probably nothing earth-shaking or spectacular about this experience,
it is what it is. Acceptance of what is, without wanting anything to be
different, is an important quality of Mind that is required for Attention to stay
both soft and focused. To notice “pain” or any sensation that is regarded as
“discomfort” and wanting it to go away, or noticing any sensation that is
regarded as “pleasant” and trying to hold on to it, “tightens” Attention and
pulls it out of the softness, surrender and acceptance that is required to for
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Attention to stay within level-1 experience. Although constant change is
evident, it is more a field of flickering, tingling or vibration which seems like
it could be comprised of very small, short-lived individual flickers or tingles;
even here at level-1 Attention, the discrete nature of individual sensations is
not readily discernible.
This description of different levels of Attention/Experience makes it all sound
fairly simple. And, at times it is, with very discrete jumps or shifts in Attention
and Experience. But, please know that Attention is rarely 100% focused
within a particular level of Attention. Usually, Attention is divided with each
part independently moving in and out of different levels of experience with
varying degrees of focus and awareness.
It is good to sweep or scan the Attention so that you ensure that you are
covering the entire body and learning where there are areas that are “void of
sensation”; (again, the sensations are already always there; the radar is just
not yet fully tuned up). But sometimes, the conscious movement of Attention
is relegated to daubing or plopping the Attention from one place to another.
It is what it is. A few times, moving the Attention has felt like flipping a truck
tire.
The practice is to develop tactile awareness. Some people describe their
experience of the movement of Attention as a team of benign (helpful and
beneficial) ants advancing along the body. Others, as if sitting in an empty
pool and feeling the water advance up the body as the pool is being filled. Or
in reverse, the advancement of sensation as a bucket of water is being slowly
poured on top of the head. Because this is tactile awareness, practitioners
will eventually notice that Attention has a textural quality, and that the
scanning of Attention can feel like the touch of a piece of cloth moving over
the skin − the size, weight and fineness of the cloth varying with intention and
depth of Attention. For example, the end of a wool scarf, a remnant of
bandana, a feather, a swatch of silk, or an even yet finer, slicker, smoother
nature. 41
41
For 18 years I, as much as possible, practiced a form of firmly energized breathing,
called ujjayi breath, to the point that friends said I did it while sleeping. One of the
benefits is that it makes it easier to be partially aware of the breath both while
meditating and throughout the day. It became so second nature that I could not
breathe without slight constriction in the throat and audible sound. It was nine
months of Vipassana practice before the habitual tension in the throat subsided and
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Goenka describes some of his experience of constant change as “bubbles and
wavelets”. I would describe very little of my experience as “bubbles and
wavelets”. When so, they seemed to be larger, over a larger area of the body,
and I have no idea of how they fit in with levels of Attention.
Smaller, finer, is not better. Sometimes there is large tingling, sometimes
small. Sometimes large vibration or pulsing, sometimes small. Sometimes
large pressure, sometimes sharp pain. What is important is noticing what is
without judgment.
With continued concentration and modulation of focus, Attention might
open into level-0. This would be like closing one eye and pressing the open
eyeball against the glass of the T.V. screen. My attention opened to this level
of experience on day 6 or 7 of a personal retreat while following suggestions
found in, Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha, an Unusually Hardcore
Dharma Book, by Daniel Ingram, which can be found online at
www.Dharmaoverground.org.
The invitation is to divide Attention between the index fingers of both hands.
If there is a strong tingling, flickering sensation at both hands, then begin to
jump the Attention back and forth, noticing as much as possible a single
sensation before switching back to notice a sensation on the other hand. As
the Attention jumps back and forth between the index fingers, the work is to
modulate Focus until discerning about 7 to 10 flickers of sensation per
second. This may seem impossible, but as Ingram points out, you are
processing way more than 10 experiences per second while you are reading
this. 7 to 10 sensations per second seems to be the rate at which Attention
enables one to to notice the onset, development and disappearance of
individual Foundational Sensations.
I learned just how strongly connected the texture of awareness is to the strength of
the breath. Yes, ujjayi breathing makes it easier to notice the breath; it is like wearing
a wool T-shirt with every breath surfacing sensations in the shoulders, neck and torso.
It also makes it easier to feel “the breath” (maybe prana?) in other parts of the body,
like the hands, forearms or feet. But, it hindered focus and yet deeper, finer
sensitivity. With ujjayi breathing, my practice had developed to the level of dowsing
emotional conditioning embedded in the body-mind-breath structure; it facilitated
emotional and energetic release, which at some level was cathartic, but it limited
calm and kept awareness from getting below the level of emotions.
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When Attention was fully in level-0, experience was entirely the flux of these
flickering sensations; there was absolutely nothing to indicate higher
meaning nor any indication as to the purpose or destination of any singular
sensation or group of sensations; there was no idea or indication that these
sensations could, would or should have anything to do with my experience of
the structure of my “finger” or “fingernail”.
But, when Attention tightened or wandered, a transition occurred and
experience of individual Foundational Sensations firmed to tingling and
vibrations that offered a fuzzy surface-ness onto which the Mind projected
sensations and understanding – creating and defining the boundaries of the
of the index finger and tip of the middle finger on my right hand.
As Attention transitioned in and out of level-0, other experience was
understood to be “pressure at the fingernail that followed the movement of
my attention”. When attention dropped back into level-0, all this was gone
again, no pressure, no finger; just experience of the flux of meaningless,
purposeless flickering Foundational Sensations.
Continuing to follow suggestions by Ingram, I then felt for the place that was
responsible for the observation of the experience at my fingers. This area, in
my head, also opened up to a texture of about 7 to 10 sensations per second.
Attention was pinging around to notice the transitions back and forth from
Foundational Sensations to projected sensations at either “the fingers”, or
the “structure/process” that was supposedly responsible for “my observation
of the sensations at the fingers”.
And, it was immediately obvious that there was no observation of the fingers
taking place inside my head!
Only a delicate balance of effort and surrender allows Attention to open into
and remain within the Field of Sensations. Following any desire/impulse to
form a full thought or look hard at anything is enough to pull Attention back
into the realm of Imagination. Transmitted through the written word,
especially with “millisecond dartings”, this experience might have a sense of
mania; but, please know that all experience and learning within the Field of
Sensations takes place within great delicacy.
At first, while in the Field of Sensations, the presumption/default was that
this was “my attention” observing the Parade of Foundational Sensations;
why wouldn’t it be?
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The gift of Ingram’s exercise was that while Attention stayed within the Field
of Foundational Sensations it became obvious that there is awareness already
there, present with the experience of the arrival, development and
disappearance of each Foundational Sensation as it happens. There is no
need for any other form of observation or awareness or consciousness to
acknowledge or note what is taking place.
And, when Attention moved about to different locations in the body and in
and out of level-0 expereince, it didn’t take long to realize that…
This Seat-of-Observation (this place where “I” supposedly notice things) has
nothing whatsoever to do with actually noticing the experience at the
fingers!
It didn’t matter what the experience was; it could be the projected sensation
of a “finger”, or the experience that was trying to create or hold space for the
notion of <my observation>; it could be the shift to the Parade of underlying
Foundation Sensations…
The awareness that resides in the Field of Sensations is responsible for all
Awareness and Consciousness; at every level of experience this Awareness is
always there, everywhere within my universe, taking in every Foundational
Sensation and every projected sensation that the Mind creates, the moment
it is created; no observer, no self, no “me” necessary.
Directors Cut…
And, it was understood that both this apparent “seat-of-observation” and a
sense-of-self were a ploy by the Mind to appropriate Awareness and create
Importance around a “self” that needed defending so that this Playing Piece
would be more reactive and easier to manipulate according to Condition’s
needs and purposes.
This is a lot, but let’s slow it down to see what is happening frame by frame.
Awareness is always already there, present with every experience; nothing
more need be done! But, immediately after some of the Parade of Sensations
at the fingers is already “observed” by Awareness at the fingers, sensations
are projected onto Parade of Sensations in the skull that the Mind hopes we
will believe is the Seat of Observation, the place/process that is <responsible
for the observation at the fingers>!
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Why go to all this trouble to give credit to someone, someplace else for a job
already well done? Within Awareness everything is unified and calm. There
is no contention; there are no problems. With no division, with no stress,
with no judgments, no fear, the Mind cannot proceed to honor its
Conditioning, the Game comes to a standstill, rests in Peace. Only by
commandeering Awareness and meting out awareness smothered in its
sensations, can the Mind create division in your mind. Now there are
separate objects and individuals. Now there is tension, things to need, things
to care for, things to defend, things to protect and to fight for. Now there are
things to kill and reasons to die.
Just as Perception veils all sensation, the Mind commandeers Awareness and
hides it in plain sight through the belief of personal awareness does its best
to hide it behind the commotion of created a Center of Experience with its
own point-of-view and the power to observe things “at a distance”. Now to
By defining personal boundaries and personal experience, and giving the
“outside world” a separate existence the Mind had giving enormous credence
to a sense-of-self that is the reason for responsible for awarenessby creating
the perception that awareness is a capacity limited to our mind, our
attentiveness and our focus, it has. Mortality
The seat-of-observation cannot notice or observed anything; it is blind! It is
an empty cardboard box in the middle of the head that Perception conjures
on top of a Parade of Sensations with a sign painted “Observation of Tactile
Experience”. And a warning, “DO NOT OPEN”.
All Awareness is always already there, observing/present with everything!
Perception controls our experience of awareness by veiling Awareness
completely. Then, just like a director putting together scenes in a zombie
movie, Perception thins then thickens the veil at certain times at certain
places to create a sequence of experiences!
What seems like my attention moving about my body, is the veil being
thinned at various places to allow Awareness/Experience to momentarily
intensify in one area and then another. To direct “my attention” to my right
hand, the veil is thinned a touch and Awareness/Experience of projected
sensations intensifies at my right hand. But, as of yet there is no experience
of Notice or my Attention. The only Notice has been through the background
Awareness. Notice, my Attention and my Awareness are special effects
created through artful editing of frames of Experience.
Back to the movie…
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A shot in the movie shows a zombie approaching a terrified innocent and the
hero placing himself between the zombie and the innocent. The next shot
shows the hero swinging his blade horizontally, at neck height. Followed by
a shot of the zombie hitting the ground and his head rolling away.
This next bit is very important… The next shot of the movie has to
immediately show who in the movie saw this experience.
In an actual movie, the director would show a shot of the innocent’s eyes
looking in the supposed direction of the action. Or, if it is suppose to be
repulsive, the director will ask the actor to close the eyes and look away. This
actor was on break during the shot of the swinging of the sword, but no
matter, as long as the movie is edited so that the shot of the actor’s eyes
comes immediately after the head of the zombie rolling away, the audience
will believe that the actor actually saw the beheading.
This is where the cardboard box comes into play. Immediately after Attention
was built at the back of my hand, Perception thins the veil around “the-seatof-observation” to intensify Awareness/Experience at specific location in my
head, so that a belief is created that this area was responsible for observing
the experience of the hand.
Now, to jump Attention to my left elbow, Perception slightly thins the veil to
let some Awareness of Sensation surface at the elbow. And then, another
immediate shot of the cardboard box. I am not so sensitive to notice, but
supposedly, every “act of awareness” in our experience is immediately
followed by a shot of the seat-of-observation so that each observation seems
to be due to my awareness and my attention.
Movies are made at 24 frames per second, which is fast enough for it to seem
to us like continuous action. At 12 to 14 frames per second, our vision can
isolate individual frames, and movement within a movie becomes
fake/staccato as one image jumps to another. Perception can generate at
least 30 acts of awareness per second. Each of these experiences is followed
by an experience of observation/awareness (another shot of the cardboard
box that supposedly noticed what just happened.) The Mind would rather us
not notice the repetitive shots of the seat of observation and for creating an
experience of afferent reality, it is not necessary; so (just like the blinking of
the eyes) even though it continues to happen umpteen times per second,
Perception deletes these head shots from our experience. This jumping back
and forth from a place of experience to the “place of observation” and the
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“seat-of-observation” is what builds Attention, and can be noticed by some
meditators.
A large part of our sense-of-self is embedded in our seat-of-observation, as
well as our reporter/commentator, our sense of importance and our sense
of responsibility. All these notions can be located as sensations in specific
areas in the head with some supporting sensations in the face and body. For
example a sense of responsibility can be supported by sensations of pride or
it can be supported by sensations of overwhelm. Just like the seat-ofobservation, all these “seats” and their supporting sensations
(feelings/emotions) turn out to be contrivances, no more than empty
cardboard boxes designed to get us to believe another ruse of the Mind.
The techniques mentioned above come from Mindful Meditation practices.
But, Vipassana practice does not look for any particular thing or experience,
just noticing what is. It might not come as quickly and a person might not
have a mental model to codify her experience, but a deep understanding of
these truths will come through Vipassana global awareness, part by part and
bi-lateral scanning techniques, and appreciating the fleeting, impermanent
nature of all experience.
Direct experience of level-0 and the Field of Foundational Sensations brings
deep insight and understanding. But, as we are about to see in Chapter XXX:
Universal Awareness, noticing individual Foundational Sensations is not the
Holy Grail; please, continue to appreciate change at all levels of experience
and when there is more than one sensation notice the most subtle.
Re-run
As we move closer to the T.V. screen and as focus gets smaller, Story begins
to dissolve. Even closer, we can see that there are no solid surfaces and that
which conveyed a shape, a person or an object is but a dance of ever changing
dots. When focus is close enough to where everything is change, any attempt
to create stability or shapes is meaningless − we are well below the level of
Story and we are free from the emotional content involved.
This is the progress of our meditation sensitivity as well. What seems like
pain or difficulty is just a mental construct residing at higher-level experience,
levels 3, 4 or 5. There is a practice (sometimes referred to as “dissecting a
gross sensation”) in which a person floats the attention in and around these
sensations and/or penetrates the area with sharper focus to explore more
accurately the location of the apparent boundaries of this experience and
what this “pain” is really made off (Is it heat? sharpness? twisting? or
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pressure?). In the process, attention might open to lower level sensitivity
where stability and shape are meaningless; mental “realities” and their
stories will lose power and experience shifts.
If available, most meditators are not going to have a tooth pulled without
anesthesia. However, the “pain” that surfaces in my back after 8 minutes of
sitting still or the sensations of “sickness” and “ailments” have time and time
again shown to be psycho-somatic – eventually42 dissolving with close, calm
attention.
Suspending judgments around “illness” and “ailments” is important work;
Conditioning’s attempts to control often surface at gross levels as sicknesslike sensations/symptoms. If you can remain unknowing, attentive and
equanamous during “an illness” (even if a pathogen has been diagnosed), you
might find that the experience has not “knocked you off course”, but has put
you “back on track” or has taken you further downstream. Wellbeing does
not mean not being sick or without ailments…
When faced with the vicissitudes of life, one’s mind remains unshaken,
sorrowless, stainless, secure; this is the greatest welfare.
–Gautama Buddha
Working with “gross sensations” and working in areas that seem devoid of
sensations can be hard work, but it does wonders in developing our
concentration and focus, and teaching us to open up to and work at levels of
greater sensitivity.
It is normal to be caught up as the main character in the movie of your life.
But, if you catch yourself complaining or wanting things to be different, the
only way to deeply change the world or your character’s behavior is to drop
under the story of your life by developing equanimity and sensitivity to the
sensations by which the Mind directs every aspect of your life. And with
work, attention will drop into the “Field of Wisdom”, the subtle sensations
that are well below the apparent emotional “reality” and you will know
moment to moment freedom from Conditioning’s control.
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The tightness, pressure and rigidity of my chin have yet to prove to be psychosomatic after 5 years of dowsing and delving.
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It is helpful to remember to appreciate the changing nature of all experience
because one’s Focus and Concentration are also changing moment to
moment. It is not uncommon that after an experience of “easy free-flow of
energy” a meditator will feel like he finally got it, and knowingly or
unknowingly create an expectation that he has established a new level of
work/experience. But, the development of Concentration and Focus is less
like digging a mineshaft in bedrock, where you work hard for a while then
enjoy life for a bit at this new depth of understanding. The development of
Concentration and Focus is more like trying to dig a mineshaft in a marsh.
And, quite often after “a break-through”, the next sit will be particularly thick,
agitated or difficult in some way. This is like getting to the next level of a
video game. And you will have to “up your game”, by returning to the basics:
accepting the present moment as it is; finding the breath and any sensations;
kind observation of judgments or wanting things to be different; noticing how
the attention now moves or doesn’t move; and, the only measure of progress
is one’s equanimity (even if that is appreciating your lack of equanimity in this
moment). “Storms” are part of the purification process and one day you will
find you have dug an ocean.
It doesn’t matter what level of experience a meditator is encountering at the
moment; it can change moment to moment. Sensations can be gross or
sensations can be subtle. The grass can be tall, the grass can be short. The
work is to pass attention over this area as it is with equanimity and moving
on.
An avid golfer, but of little means, takes a job as a groundskeeper at the
county club. At work, he mows the greens. Off-hours, he practices his “short
game”, trying to hit the ball as close to the hole as possible. He is determined,
and sure enough, the number of shots that are closer to the hole is increasing.
There comes a week when three of his shots go into the hole! He is now that
much more intent. But weeks, then months go by, and not another shot falls
into the hole.
It is easy to get distracted by benchmarks and unique or interesting
experience. But, his work had nothing to do with getting the ball close to, or
even in the hole. His work was mowing the grass. In meditation, experiencing
individual sensations, or reading about level-0 experience, might create a
sense of accomplishment similar to hitting a “hole-in-one”. But, tightening
the target and creating expectations can lead to frustration and a sense that
something is missing. Don’t get sidetracked; the job is: getting up early, and
while most people are still asleep, with bright attention, calmly and kindly
mowing the grass.
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Chapter 18: The Pool of Recollection
In chapter 11, Story – A Model of Verbal Thought, we looked at how Words
differ from Dolls and Toys in the Imagination − each Doll and Toy representing
one particular thing in the world, whereas, each Word is a concept that
represents a group or category of things. In this chapter we will look at how
focusing just within the frame of the story maintains our suspension of
disbelief and makes Concepts come to life.
A word at the level of concept is like a rock: concrete, unchanging, easily
picked up, moved around and passed from one person to another. At the
level of concept, “whale” is the same as “whale” is the same as “whale”. But,
on closer inspection this single thing turns out to be a clump of dirt, an
aggregate of past experiences, meanings, notions and emotions all bound
together.
When dry, a dirt clod is concrete and easily manageable, but when submersed
in water, it quickly dissolves and breaks up into its constituent parts. At the
boundary of our conscious and unconscious is the place where Imagination
unfolds and aspects of thought surface into our awareness. I call this place
the Pool of Recollection.
A word held above the surface of the pool stays at the level of concept − easily
handled, but also dry, lifeless and devoid of feeling. But, when a word is
dropped into the pool, it creates a splash of cognitive understanding as it
breaks apart into a tumult of its myriad associations – all of its meanings,
“memories”, visual and tactile notions swirl about in that realm just between
our conscious and unconscious.
In the first half of a moment when a concept has been activated, notions
tumble about, like bubbles in an eddy’s turbulence. Some notions might be
larger or stronger than others, but often no particular image, feeling, emotion
or “memory” clearly stands out or is easily discernible. However, if attention
lingers for a second longer, the display starts to calm and notions begin to
separate and surface or pass by again, but more slowly (all this is done
through the thinning and thickening of desensitivity) − some images and
“memories” that initially flashed by, return to consciousness with more
clarity and detail.
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With still deeper curiosity and attention, one might notice that the running
commentary of the “inner-voice” is watching and influencing the display −
and Recollection is understood to be a creative process in which nothing is
ever static or the same, but always forming/displaying new associations,
connections and arrangements. With deep attentiveness to the process of
recollection, each activation of a word is a novel display of notions and
emotional charge; and “whale” is different than “whale” is different than
“whale”.
With yet deeper, quieter, softer attention (bordering on sleep) awareness
drops under the surface of the pool and while still awake a person relaxes
into an oceanic expanse or enters a conscious dream state. This is not the
goal or work of Vipassana; this is floating in the Realm of Imagination with
Attention off of the body; it does not engender wisdom.
When we are listening to a story, the each word/concept is quickly dipped
into the pool. This effectuates the overall feelings and meanings of the
concept and, if needed, allows us to locate our matching doll or toy which is
plucked out and added to the newly forming map/model/scene that is being
built just above the surface of the pool.
Even though each concept is quickly removed, aspects of each concept
continue to ripple in the pool and the emotional physiology. As more and
more words/concepts from the story are activated, the pool and emotional
physiology is filled/agitated by traces of all the notions of concepts and
relationships within the display. This psycho-mental-emotional commotion
is what gives <life> to the story.
Whether we are thinking our own thoughts or taking in another person’s
story, for our Models of reality to seem real and our Models of Imagination
to be interesting, it is crucial that one’s attention remains at the level of story
– that our attention stays predominantly focused within the “frame” of the
new scene, just above the pool. As long as attention does no more than dip
under to pluck out a chosen association, we deny that we are building this
experience completely from our own past experience and the story seems to
have an intellectual, psychological and emotional existence of its own.
Our ability to rearrange our past experience into something that we believe
to be both new and real is most noticeable when the listener does not already
have an exact matching doll/toy/map-object from previous experience to add
to a scenario. Without a matching object, the listener must rearrange pieces
of past experience to create a new object. For instance, if I am unfamiliar
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with the whale you are talking about, I will take my concept for “whale” and
all my counterparts of the other words you are using to describe your
particular whale and dip them into my pool of recollection to create a splash
of cognitive/emotional experience. Before noticing that this new whale is
being construed entirely from my own old experiences, the experience is
scooped out the pool and collected into a new object and treated as if it has
an existence all its own − the whale you are talking about.
Memory…?
The Mind hangs on to some deep assumptions with dear life: the past is
always static and true; and memory is an accurate playback or recall of past
experience. After all the past is the past and the actual facts of what has
taken place can’t change.
But, the Mind has to allow some flexibility regarding our Models of the past.
Since our knowledge of the past is never complete, the Mind has to at least
let us add to our models of the past; and yes, sometimes we make mistakes.
We are used to adding to this static truth. But, difficulty arises when new
information or experience confronts that which we already know − what we
already hold to be true. Now, the Mind has two options. The first option
happens more often than we would like to think, and that is to completely
disregard the new information or experience; blink the eyes and poof, gone
− never to think of or talk about again.
The second option is to allow some remodeling of the past.
Without much thought we easily accept some minor editing and alteration of
the past − “Oh, I just realized…”, or, “I just missed that.” The Mind simply
disregards the momentary lapse of certainty and immutability.
Sometimes this editing is a little more intense and some facts have to be
altered due to an error in judgment or due to another’s deceit. But very
quickly, things return to business as usual, and the past is still static and true.
Even some very large remodeling can happen in deep denial, without much
awareness, because the emotional repercussions are just too intense.
All remodeling in our Primary Models of reality is only done by Pure Intellect;
this denies that it is a creative and subjective process. Most rethinking is not
to change the facts themselves but is aimed at deepening our understanding
of events.
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However, some rewrite cannot be so easily assimilated or dismissed; some
events do not enter so quietly into our world of truth and ideas. Instead, they
wreak havoc as we: try to understand what happened at the time of the
event; try to understand the course of events that lead up to the event; and
try to understand the basic assumptions of myself and life that would allow
such things to happen.
The Mind will go into overdrive purportedly to figure out the truth. But, the
truth is most of our Minds just want to piece together an adequate answer in
order to regain some semblance of control and stability. (Of course there are
those of us who will milk a crises for everything it is worth (or as much as our
family and friends will put up with), because our Conditioning thrives in
chaos.)
The end of love-relationships can be tumultuous because: feelings of True
Love and Gratitude might be scarce and the more beastly forces of human
nature that are always there underneath our veneer of normal/civilized
existence now surface in a desperate attempt to put things back together.
Retracting reality always sends the Intellect reeling, and during the onslaught
of emotional rewrite, we are having to retract a lot of reality from what we
thought or hoped was true about me, about the other person and about the
relationship, even to the point of rearranging the facts of what we believe did
and didn’t happen.
Whether a person is aware of it or not, the creative processes used to create
stories of make-believe or play with possible futures are just as active when
we are “remembering” an event.
Let’s first look at the creative process when building a display of a possible
future. For example, if I am planning a party for next month, I have a model
<next month’s party>. Each time I want to work on “the party”, I activate the
model and begin playing with possibilities, often creating dozens of
Secondary Models to try out new ideas. All these scenarios and their
emotional importances then get scooped up together as “the newest
aggregate of possibilities for <next month’s party>”; I readily acknowledge
the newness of ideas and my involvement in the process, even taking pride
in my creativity and cleverness.
Working with our Models of the real past is no different than working with
our Models of the future, except we somehow deny the creative process and
our involvement.
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Memories are stored, as any other concept, as an aggregate of associations:
dolls, toys, ideas, activity and emotions. When this clod/concept is dropped
into the pool of recollection, just like any other concept, it breaks apart into
a flurry of its myriad associations. We build a scene above the pool to
represent our memory as particular associations and details that seem to be
pertinent for this re-membering are plucked out of the pool and added to the
display.
Each recollection of an event is a novel reconstruction that is under the
influence of creativity and feedback from the person’s current mental and
emotional states. That which is important to the Mind right now, creates a
filter and point-of-view to which we are usually unconscious. So, out of this
splash of myriad associations, the Mind decides what is important to notice,
what is to be ignored or denied and from which point-of-view (this time) the
thread of the story is going to come. What seems like just passively replaying
an event is actually telling ourselves a new version of the story, that can
consist of tangents and asides and revamping that can be as novel as new
ideas about planning a party. But denial insists that “we” or “our
imagination” had nothing to do with it because “we” and “imagination” can
never have anything to do with our Models of reality!
When the Mind is ready to move on, this telling of <the event> is re-solidified
as a concept. But, it is not treated as “the newest
interpretation/reconfiguration of the event”, but is treated as “the exact
same event”; but, the event can have been vastly rewritten, especially
concerning the underlying emotional charge.
The default is: the facts of the past can’t change. But a memory is never static
or fixed, but an entirely creative process creating a display that evolves every
time it is dropped in the pool, reassembled above the pool and put back away.
The purpose of Memory is not accuracy. The purpose of Memory is the same
as all our experience, to gently guide us, strongly direct us, or (conjuring the
fear of death) all but insist that we react according to what our Conditioning
deems most Important in this present moment. The Past does not exist; it is
the biggest, most important Cardboard Box; it is the tool that the Mind uses
to stabilize all Models within the Imagination.
The deep deceit is that memory is simply the recording, storage and accurate
playback of a past experience. This belief/assumption of accuracy gets
carried over to all our Models of the past, even those that we have built
through story. But, with just a little bit of contemplation, we can
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acknowledge that our understanding of the past built through other people’s
stories is less reliable. Our direct experience, Seeing is Believing, is still the
anchor for confidence in reality and our memories.
However, psychologists are learning just how fallible all memory is, even our
memories of an event we observed just 20 seconds ago. A lot of this research
comes through studying the reliability of witness testimony. Even without
interference, witness testimony can be unreliable. And when tampered with,
a researcher can often easily alter a person’s memory of the color of a jacket,
the sequence of events, and even plant new objects, new people or entirely
new actions into what a person believes is the course of events.
Personality seems to play an important role in the confidence one has in the
details of his memory; a confident person will be more likely to be adamant
about a wrong memory, whereas a meeker person may voice uncertainty
even when his recollection is accurate.
This can be a hard pill to swallow, but − the Mind (and therefore, Humanity)
is not concerned with Accuracy or Truth. Not only is “our memory” very
fallible, but almost everyone’s ability to discern whether a person is telling
the truth or lying is not much better than a guess. In a study, people from all
walks of life were asked to watch videos of people giving testimony and
determine if they were telling the truth or lying. It turns out that almost
everyone’s ability to determine whether a person is telling the truth or not is
only accurate slightly higher than 50%. This includes lawyers and judges. The
only group of people who showed to have an ability to actually discern
whether a person was telling the truth or lying was secret service agents; they
were accurate 80% of the time.
Why memories and dreams seem real…
When you look out at the world, your Mind organizes your figurines into a
display of <the present surroundings> just above the Pool of Recollection.
Attention is embedded in one of the figurines to be the “me”-doll and this
display is projected onto the front of your eyeballs; we feel like we are looking
out, through our eyes, into the world. It is in this display, just above the pool
of recollection, where your game of life plays out.
I have no sensitivity whatsoever to memory “storage”. Does the Mind from
time to time gather up a display, with its psychological and emotional
importances, and store it all away as a memory? If so, when? And, how
often?
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However, I can be aware of memory (re)construction. When we are
remembering an event, we have dropped the clump/concept for that
<memory> into the Pool of Recollection and the creative process has begun
and certain details are plucked out to begin to reconstruct enough of an
experience to satisfy the intellectual and emotional intentions for recalling
that memory. For example, answering a friend’s question, “What did you
have for lunch yesterday?”
I can be particularly sensitive to the process when someone asks me a
question about my past without triggering a specific event. For example,
“How did it go last Tuesday?” With nothing to easily drop into the Pool, I can
feel Logic going to work, activating whatever concepts might pertain: What
day is today? How many days ago was Tuesday? Why would this person be
interested in my Tuesday? Do I have a regularly scheduled event/activity on
Tuesdays?
People, places, patterns and temporal clues surface. Whenever a notion (a
person, place, event, pattern, etc) is noted, it has been momentarily plucked
out (isolated and conceptualized) as an object of focus. Eventually, a likely
scenario will have been constructed, <the event that this person is probably
referring to>.
In any given moment we never have more than one
concept/obect/thing/detail clearly in Mind, with only a handful other
concepts/objects/associations circulating more or less vaguely in our
peripheral attention. All other objects/concepts move to the margin to be
absorbed into as a single concept <the background of reality>.
This is more easily noticed with the eyes closed. But, at any one moment, our
experience of a vast and intricate reality is a mental display one thing in clear
detail, its relationships with two or three other concepts currently in the
periphery against the <background of reality>.
For example, when I am thinking of the Oakland A’s baseball team when I was
young, a few names surface: Sal Bando, Joe Rudi, Vida Bllue. But, the list is
not complete or organized. So Logic breaks the team into infield, outfield and
pitchers. Now I can go through the entire field. Only one name (concept) is
in focus at any one time; other associations for that person swirl, semiconscious in the periphery, including other players that played that position
and neighbors on the field. But, only when Attention moves in the direction
of one of those players does the name of that person manifest. By the time I
am at “Gene Tenace” in the position of catcher, the individuals, Phil Roof, Billy
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North and Reggie Jackson have been lumped together as the “outfield” and
are nearing the margin of background. It is only through the deception of
permanence that we think those players are still active as individuals, but to
go back and retrieve/activate a name requires opening up that clump for the
<outfield> or following some other web of associations.
By clumping together details into an object and clumping objects into some
larger group or category, the Mind/Imagination can clump and unclump its
objects/concepts so that it never has more than it can handle.
The number of clumps a person can handle at any one time varies; but, for
most people it is three or four with some people managing up to seven.
Thinking, listening, reading, movies, imagination, dreams and memory can all
seem very real because they are all arrangements of the same “stuff” that we
use to make our initial projected experience of the present moment and its
emotional content. The stuff of “reality”, stories, movies, memories and
dreams is one and the same; it is all artifice of the Imagination in and above
the Pool of Recollection, an arrangement of a handful of our dolls and toys
against a background of reality, instilled with the Mind’s version of life.
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Chapter 19: universal Awareness
Our experience of sensations range from the “gross” (large, unrefined and
more readily noticeable) to the subtle (finer and more difficult to discern).
With experience, we begin to realize that larger, gross sensations are
comprised of smaller more subtle sensations. We also realize that large,
gross sensations have already been processed by Conditioning and carry
interpretation and meaning; and therefore, exist as experience within the
Field of Imagination − such as the ache in my knee, hunger, a patch of skin of
my left forearm, the touch of the collar of my shirt on my neck, a stomach
ache, frustration, etc.
But, experience at the subtler levels of sensation (levels 0, 1 and 2) has yet to
be interpreted by Conditioning. This experience is still within the realm of
the Mind (as the Mind together with its Conditioning have something to do
with initiating and maintaining the Parade of Foundational Sensations) but
this experience has not yet been modified by Conditioning into a “product”
of Imagination. Free of the Imagination, these subtle sensations constitute
a Field of Reality!
Floating or skootching one’s attention about the body while noticing
sensations may not be as exhilarating as a dogsled trip. Or, as memorable as
a family outing to the big-town market. But, it is impossible to overestimate
the value of each moment spent aware of sensation. And the change that
takes place in one hour or ten days in meditation instills faith (which is not a
word I use often or lightly).43
The transition from experience of unadulterated/Imagination-free
Foundational Sensations into something Mind-Made appears to be the same
for all the senses and all levels of experience (sight, sound, taste, delight, an
43
Everyone’s experience will be different. I came to Vipassana after 37 years of
meditation practice and 28 years of yoga practice. A quick, rough estimate would be
about 20,000 hours of experience for each. I share these numbers to provide some
sense of the experience that serves as a yardstick. But, Vipassana is different. Ever
since the first Vipassana retreat, every 10-day sit has engendered change at least the
equivalent of 10 years of yoga practice (and I am erring on the conservative side).
Nothing but awareness on the breath and sensations while working on equanimity
and being kinder to myself.
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idea, meaning, our inner voice, a sense of honor, etc.). They are all created
in the exact same way, by the Mind/Conditioning “projecting” these
experiences on top of the Parade of Foundational Sensations.
Again, the process goes something like this. The experience of an individual
Foundational Sensation at very close range is a short-lived, squiggle of a
flicker. But, there are always lots of them showing up, doing their thing and
disappearing. Backing away from the experience, we lose touch of individual
flickers and experience firms into a vibrational, textural field. The shift in
scale, the firming and the projecting are so closely connected that I can’t tell
if they are one and the same process or if there is a slight delay. But, the
textural field is firm enough for the Mind to overlay/project its experiences,
for example, awareness of my fingernail. At closer range, the experience of
the fingernail still has some vibration in it. As Attention recedes the nail
seems more and more stable and definite, more and more conceptual.
In my limited experience, all Foundational Sensations feel very much alike, a
squiggle of a flicker with a definite beginning, a very short time of
development, and a definite disappearance. They have a location, shape,
length and a direction of development. And I almost want to give them a size,
but there is no other “thing” to use as a reference to measure against. They
are not identical; they each seem to be unique, but they all seem to be very
much the same. I have never noticed two running into each other or
overlapping; they don’t seem to influence one another or interact in any way.
My opening into the Field of Foundational Sensations was through tactile
experience. But within the Field, experience is partially tactile and partially
visual. If it is true that all our sensory experience is birthed on or through this
Field, then it would be logical that a person could open into the Field of
Sensations through any one of the senses. I want to make it clear that I have
no direct experience of a taste; a smell; external vision; or sound (either
inner-voice/hearing or external noise), transitioning in or out of the Field of
Sensations. And, there may be aspects of these senses within the Field that I
have yet to notice.
While Attention was floating between level-0 and higher-level experiences,
there was awareness of the transition from an experience of “skin”, or
“fingernail”, or “pressure” or “movement of attention” to the Parade of
Foundational Sensations. This transition from “regular” experience to the
Parade of Foundational Sensations also occurred with “non-structural” and
“non-tactile” experiences: with the idea/capacity of observation; with a
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sense of “self”; and, while paying attention to the color yellow in a thought
that was taking place, it too, opened into a Parade of these same Sensations.
When Attention was moving in and out of level-0 experience, it was clear that
at least a sense of physical structure, movement of attention, an experience
of color, an idea, the perception of a process, and a sense of self are all
orchestrated in the exact same way, by projecting higher-level experience on
top of the Parade of Foundational Sensations. Are the sensations of sound,
inner-voice/inner-hearing, external vision, taste and smell created in the
same way?
When Focus was fully within in The Parade of Foundational Sensations and
apparent differences among physical form, visual experience and a sense-ofself have vanished to reveal their common genesis, the only thing that was
readily obvious was the arriving and passing of Foundational Sensations. But
after looking for the source of my observation, Attention dwelled
predominantly within the Field (maybe 4 to 7 minutes) deeply (but softly)
curious as to: How was observation taking place?
Maintaining Attention within level-0 is hard work; a person doesn’t simply
guide Focus about to zero in on whatever one wants − strong intention or any
lapse of attention shifts experience back into the realm of Imagination.
Without the curiosity regarding observation, I might have limited experience
within the Field to just the arrival and passing of Foundational Sensations.
But, now it was clear that the arrival, development and passing of every single
Sensation was immediately noted. But, how? From where? By what?
Just noticing the flickering of sensations is slippery and difficult. And, it would
be easy to get caught up in trying to focus on this experience. But, by their
very nature (carrying no intellectual importance or meaning), they are fairly
uninteresting. However, extremely subtle but persistent was Awareness
itself… so soft, an almost imperceptible vibration, always present, right there,
everywhere, no matter what, with the experience of the arrival and passing
of each Foundational Sensation. Even while in contact with this Experience,
it took awhile for an understanding to build − this was Awareness that was
outside of self, uninvolved in meaning, or assessment, or judgment of any
kind.
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Then, as higher-level experiences resurfaced and over the next few minutes
became predominant, an understanding grew…
All awareness is universal Awareness. There is no other. And, all Experience
is in/with this Awareness.
“Consciousness” and “Unconsciousness”
The Mind is constantly projecting Experience/Sensation onto the Parade of
Foundational Sensations. All this Experience is “noted” immediately by
Awareness; this Awareness is Consciousness as well! How? Why? I don’t
know. But, they are synonymous, one and the same. When there is a
transition or jump from Foundational Sensations to projected sensations, this
very same Awareness is responsible for noting the higher level experience as
well! There is never any other awareness/consciousness with any
experience, any sensation, at any level. Awareness and Consciousness is
one. And it is there regardless if there is any sensation or not. Any and all
sensation is immediately noted by Awareness; therefore Big
Awareness/Consciousness is with all sensation and all Experience. without
being noted by this Awareness. The Mind distracts us from this Awareness
by keeping us interested in the commotion created by our experience created
by projected sensations and by strengthening the notion of personal
awareness. But, this softness is the back drop to out expereince created by
But, even when awake, we are normally only “conscious” of a smidgen of this
experience.
The majority of this book has been looking at the structure of the Mind: how
it builds “reality” and imagination, and how it works to keep the illusion of
“reality” separated from our experience of creativity and imagination.
But, the Mind creates a second, equally important, mental “division” in order
to orchestrate our experience and direct our behavior − the boundary that
separates sensation/experience which are “unconscious” and
sensation/experience that surfaces into “consciousness”.
We just saw that − through Universal Awareness all Experience is already
Aware/Conscious at its inception. But, the Mind veils all Awareness/
Experience of the sensations that it has projected onto the frame of the body
so that it can mastermind our experience of life by letting differing amounts
of Awareness/Experience/Sensation enter our notice. Neither the Mind, nor
the brain, has awareness of its own; all Experience that the Mind creates is
already noted is just veils it from us; relegate its capacity to our nervous
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system and a sense of self; cover its Softness with experiences of heaviness,
intensity or numbness.
And, over the next couple of days, appreciation grew. Foundational
Sensations are really quite uninteresting. But this Awareness… selfless, nonjudgmental, a Kindness beyond belief. A Softness that is always there,
present with every experience. At any moment, no matter how intense, real
or stupid the experience seemed to be, Attention could soften to not focus
on the experience itself, but reside with what really matters.
As with all things, this too has also passed. But, there is a hint of it almost
always.
This Softness is subtle. But, contacting this Softness might not require the
focus of Attention at level-0 or level-1; the Field of Universal Awareness is
more akin to calm and even level-2 experience.
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People often wonder why the beginning Vipassana course has to be 10-days
long. One of the reasons (that I see; again, all of this is not official anything,
but just my take on things) is that the course has to be long enough to create
enough strength of concentration and sensitivity so that you actually feel a
difference. A shorter course would be like going to the gym for 4 days – you
would be all achy and sore, but there would be no long term effects and no
deep appreciation for the benefits of exercise. A 10-day course is like going
to the gym 6 days a week for a month with a personal trainer. When you
have finished, there is no question − you will be a different person. After the
course, the practice is to meditate for one hour − two times a day, once in the
morning and once in the afternoon or evening. This would be like doing pushups and sit-ups at home to maintain your fitness; our concentration/attention
is like a muscle that needs to be exercised to be maintained and grow.
Eventually, either because your fitness is slacking or you are ready for the
next level, you will get back to the gym for a stint with your trainer. At this
point in your meditation practice you will sign up for another course.
In Vipassana, we are not just developing the strength of our concentration,
we are sharpening our instrument; we are increasing our sensitivity to more
and more subtle sensations. Like building strength, Sensitivity is a process
that develops with time. Be as kind to yourself as if you were trying to learn
to read Braille. At first it would be a challenged to just discern where the
patches of little bumps start and stop for paragraphs. But, with patience and
persistence your nervous system will change and with time you will be able
to detect sentences, words and eventually individual letters.
Any moment that your attention is on your body is a major shift in
consciousness. Follow the instructions as they are given to you during the
course and your sensitivity to subtler levels of experience will develop.
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People often talk about the “path” of enlightenment. But, I often think of it
as a river.44,45,46,47 A path carries a sense that we are personally responsible
for both: knowing in which direction to step in order to make progress; and
that we are responsible for the rate of our progress (if I take bigger, faster
steps, I will progress faster). But neither of these implications is accurate.
The development of consciousness is a process and has its own wisdom; there
is no way to know which direction to move except for directing the attention
inwards. After every 10-day course I feel different, but I am not sure why or
what exactly happened. And, it doesn’t matter. The work is developing
concentration, sensitivity and equanimity with an appreciation of change at
all levels of experience.
The river of consciousness is always there, always flowing. It knows where to
and how fast. Our job is simply to get in the river; the rest takes care of itself.
As soon as any of our attention is within the framework of the body, we are
in the river. The more of our attention that is within the framework of the
body at any one moment, the further out we are in the current. The more
44
Some people might call this the River Dhamma (or Dharma). Dhamma can refer to
many things: the natural laws or intelligence of the universe; the truth or teachings
that carry truth; the way or path of consciousness; the process of increasing
consciousness; or, a practice that opens one to that process.
45
As soon as anything is capitalized or there is the mention of “enlightenment” it is
easy to think “Religion”. But a buddha has no interest in religion. Vipassana is
exercise in calming, training, taming the mind and increasing our sensitivity to
sensations. There is also a strengthening of non-judgment and (something we will go
into in more detail later) an appreciation of the changing nature of all our experience.
For all this to work a person does need to have the desire to be good. This doesn’t
mean that you have to be good, but willing to work to be kinder both to yourself and
others.
46
If a practice is to be universal, it is important that no part of it creates division: No
focus on words, sounds, images or people as any of these can have special meaning
or significance to an individual or group of people. But, everyone has a body and
everyone breathes. By focusing on nothing but the body and the breath - there is no
division. Vipassana practice is universal; it is for everyone.
47
Some people bring special clothes, food or chanting to their practice. It is said that
eventually a vegetarian diet will feel right. Some clothes might be more comfortable,
but this is not necessary. At first I was surprised by the chanting and a few of the
beginning formalities. But, I noticed that voicing a desire to learn the Vipassana
technique did build a level of commitment to the course (and as it turned out, any
help in this department was of great value). During the first course and also in a 9day advanced course, I learned that the chantings are Gautama Buddha’s instructions
for the technique, why the technique works and words of encouragement.
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subtle our sensitivity, the more easily we are swept along. And, the more
time we spend with our awareness on the body, the further along we are
carried. Other than that, we have no control. It is the same river for all of us;
it just depends where in the river we are at and how deeply we are in it. We
might barely have stepped in and the next thing we are in rapids hitting
boulders or going off a cliff. Or, we may be days in deep concentration but in
water that seems to be going nowhere.
“The only gauge for progress is your equanimity.” − S.N. Goenka
Whether we are three days into the practice or three days from
enlightenment, there are only two noteworthy aspects of any experience
during meditation: 1) that all experience comes from change and is itself
changing. And, 2) that all experience is observed, as it is, in equanimity,
without judgment, without reaction.
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PART TWO – Meditation
Chapter 21: Appreciating Change, Noticing Sensations and
Equanimity
The Mind’s veil of “reality” divorces us from the power, beauty, kindness and
connection of Universal Nature. In order to create and maintain the
deception of “reality”:
1) The Mind mitigates CHANGE by creating various levels of stability and
permanence.
2) The Mind invents boundaries and SEPARATION through which it can
define objects, including a sense-of-self, and constructs models and
relationships revolving around the “me”-doll.
3) The Mind brings things to “reality” and tries to furtively orchestrate
all aspects of our apparent lives by getting us to mentally and
physically REACT to SENSATIONS.
4) The Mind, through reaction to sensations, impels JUDGMENT and
INTERPRETATION. Judgments portend truth, certainty and
righteousness. Judgments instill values and importance into objects
and relationships. And, judgments give credence to emotions,
thoughts and actions.
5) No process of the Mind can conjure the GRACE and KINDNESS that
abides in TRUE CONNECTION.
Now that we see what the Mind does, we can see what meditation
techniques must do in order to deter the Mind and open experience to
Reality.




Meditation must develop our ability to notice the entire FIELD OF
SENSATIONS (throughout the entire body) by which the Mind
attempts to control all aspect of our lives.
Meditation must develop Equanimity which is: NON-REACTIVITY/
NON-JUDGMENT (mental and physical calmness and stillness).
Meditation must develop awareness of CHANGE.
And, Meditation must develop KINDNESS and DEEP CONNECTION.
Vipassana Meditation
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Vipassana meditation involves four main techniques. (A little bit confusing,
one of these techniques is called “Vipassana Scanning Technique”.) The four
techniques are: Body-Breath Awareness, Anapana, Vipassana Scanning
Technique and Metta.
The main invitation in the first three techniques is to place our attention on
or in the body.
Although a simple task, placing (and maintaining) the awareness within the
framework of the body is extremely powerful. When our eyes are open, the
big display of reality, our virtual reality, is “out there”. And we can move our
attention about within this vivid display. When we close our eyes, our notion
of reality (now much more crude, but still regarded as reality) is still “out
there”. And when we are thinking about the real world, our attention still
wanders about “out there” among about our crude notions that serve as our
understanding of what is.
Most people give center-stage to the “inner-voice”, rather than other aspects
of Thought and Imagination. Because the “inner-voice” seems to emanate
from somewhere inside the skull, it is easy to assume that all aspects of
Thought take place inside us. But, the visual and even tactile aspects of
Imagination are not in our heads or in the body − they are off the body and
projected somewhere “out in the world”.
In order for any of our thoughts to seem real and/or to run at full force, the
intellect/Imagination must pull our attention off our body − usually
somewhere in front of us, but off of the midline (the midline is used to focus
on the physical world). This “lifting” of the attention off of the body and the
projection of the display of thought somewhere else usually goes unnoticed.
But, when we are recalling an event or listening to another person’s story, we
project partial or full attention in the direction of the place where the event
occurred. If we are thinking about a person, we direct attention to the place
in the world where we last saw the person or where we think they are now.
And, when we are creating a purely imaginary scenario, we create a world
somewhere off of our bodies in which the events can take place.
Although a simple task, placing (and maintaining) the awareness within the
framework of the body is extremely powerful; it weakens the Imagination as
thoughts cannot run at full force, stripping away at what seems real and what
seems important. And, it gives us an opportunity to feel for what takes place
behind the Imaginary Veil of “reality”.
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Noticing Sensations
Again, it is easy to believe that we see the world as it actually is and that our
experience of what is going on inside our bodies is also direct and unfiltered.
But, except for subtle sensation, Perception edits and orchestrates all of our
experience. A huge part of Perception’s editing keeps us from noticing the
sensations in and on the body through which the Mind tries to orchestrate all
our feelings, thoughts, “memories”, words, actions and inaction.
If we are unaware of these sensations, we are but puppets on strings. But,
like the blinking of our eyes, with concentrated attention and focus these
sensations can be noticed.
After an introduction and some formalities, participants begin practicing
Body-Breath Awareness. This is a good place to start because the movement
of the body during the breath-cycle creates sensations that most of us are
able to notice. The invitation is to just watch the natural breath “as it is”. This
is a bit of a trick request because the very act of noticing the breath probably
changes how you are breathing. But, the idea is to notice the sensations of
your now conscious breathing. This is just a starting point as awareness at
this large a level does not induce deep change. Noticing sensations at the
level of deep change requires the sensitivity that comes with concentration
and focus. And courses will go immediately to work using the techniques of
Anapana to hone awareness.
Concentration
There are two aspects in developing Concentration. One is lengthening the
duration that the attention stays on task before being lured away to
something else. The other aspect is shortening the time it takes before
realizing that attention has strayed and has been lost in thought.
Focus
Anapana develops Focus by decreasing the area of attention. This is done in
the first few days by noticing sensations of the breath at smaller and smaller
regions around the nose and upper lip − working towards an area about the
size of a fingertip.
With concentration and focus, our breath naturally slows and the body
naturally stills. For example, if there is a faint noise in the distance, we can
increase our sensitivity by concentrating as much of our attention as possible
to our hearing in that direction. If this is really important to us, our breathing
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will become slight and we might even stop breathing altogether; at this level
of focus, even the noise of our breathing and the movement of our bodies
are a distraction.
When there is deep interest in the sensations of our experience, this same
slowing of the breath and stilling of the body occurs while meditating – and
we are able to notice finer, more subtle sensations.
The natural slowing of the breath in combination with the instruction that
“whenever there are two or more sensations, notice the most subtle”,
ensures that the practice effortlessly moves towards greater subtlety.
In Anapana, participants feel for sensations of the breath at the upper lip and
nostrils. As concentration and focus develop, participants are invited to
continue to feel for the “touch of the breath” even when we are not
breathing, for example, during the slight pauses between inhales and exhales.
What the participant might notice is that there are sensations at the skin
whether we are breathing or not. What seemed to be movement of air is
actually subtle vibrations that Goenka says are a “bio-chemical dynamic that
takes place in all living tissue.” This is outside my experience, but I can tell
that it is a level of awareness that changes the nature of my perception; how
I perceived ache, pain and physical discomfort.
It is also a level of
concentration that creates distance from the tumult of the emotions.
Honing the attention through Anapana is just preparation for the real work
of meditation, which is guiding one’s developed attention over the entirety
of the body. I put this in bold because it is important to understand this next
step.
Many people define, understand or limit “meditation” as concentration, focus
and stillness. Developing these attributes calm the Mind, clear the sensory
physiology and give the emotional physiology a rest. This has benefits and
often, when attention leaves the object of focus, (an image, a mantra or a
chant), there is a moment of crystalline awareness and when attention
returns to taking in the surroundings, for a few moments the world feels
different, both softer and more vibrant.
With very deep concentration, but still in the realm of Imagination, people
can have all kinds of powerful experiences. But, as told by S.N. Goenka, these
were the techniques and experiences Gautama Buddha left behind; they
were missing something; they weren’t making him a better person; they
weren’t clearing out his Conditioning and purifying his Mind at the root level;
these techniques didn’t engender wisdom and understanding of the deepest
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nature of Existence; they didn’t take one to final liberation. When he
understood the limited nature of the meditation techniques he had been
practicing, The Buddha began a search for different tools – eventually reinventing/rediscovering Vipassana.
The sensations, through which we are controlled, are everywhere in the body
− from the top of the head to the tips of the toes − from skin to bones. Once
attention has been sharpened, participants learn Vipassana Scanning
Technique – how to guide their awareness over the entire surface of the
body, simply noticing any sensation that is available at that moment as it is
and moving on.
A person will probably soon notice that there are places that seem to be blank
or devoid of sensations and that the attention does not easily move onto or
through these areas. This is fine. It is important to remember that no
sensation at all is just as valuable as any particular sensation. It is an
opportunity to practice observing what is without judgment.
The flow of sensations is always there, everywhere throughout the body, 24
hours a day – 7 days a week, orchestrating our reasoning, righteousness and
drama when awake and our unconscious and semi-conscious dream-worlds.
Like noticing the blinking of the eyes, in order to bring some sensations to our
awareness, all we need to do is focus on them. However, there are other
sensations for which our attention lacks the concentration and refinement
needed to be able to notice them. But with experience, sensitivity will
develop and awareness will begin to soften into and/or penetrate these areas
as well, to reveal plenty of sensations.
The stream of sensations is always there, everywhere, orchestrating our lives.
If Concentration and Focus still lack the development to notice certain
sensations, these sensations could have more control over us. This is why
developing equanimity is so important; whether we can notice the sensations
or not, if we are not reacting, we are free from Conditioning’s control.
There are several variations of Vipassana “scanning” depending on the size of
focus and the speed in which the attention is moved around the body. These
variations are introduced throughout the course. One variation is not better
than another. What is important is simply noticing, without judgment, any
sensation (or lack thereof) in that area then moving on.
There is an important “station” in the development of one’s practice when
one is able to notice some kind of sensation everywhere on the surface of the
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body. So, one must take care to scan every part of the body on each scan −
taking time to explore the blank or thick areas as well.
Feeling the entire body, I shall breathe in; thus he trains himself.
Feeling the entire body, I shall breathe out; thus he trains himself.
− Gautama Buddha
In this last quote, it is important to appreciate that the meditator is not
training himself to choose or control when to breathe; the work is to observe
the breath as it is. Once we have developed sensitivity to “the entire body”,
the Buddha is instructing us to notice the space before the breath has begun.
One possible experience is noticing the building of the sensations of the
impulse to breathe. Here, we have no intention of stopping the breath from
happening, but we are training ourselves to notice the space between an
impulse and an impulsive reaction!
Earlier, we looked at how focus naturally slows and stills the breath and the
body and increases sensitivity. As most patterns of breathing have natural
pauses during the transitions in the breath cycle, the stillness and opportunity
for sensitivity are already provided. As awareness floats in the stillness when
there is no breath and as of yet there are no sensations building to create the
impulse to breathe, it is possible that awareness opens into greater subtlety,
calm, quietness and timeless spaciousness.
Some schools of meditation invite participants to actively lengthen the
pauses between breaths, probably with the intention of facilitating these
types of experiences. But, Vipassana is firm that the work is: Do not to look
for or try to induce any particular experience. Accept things as they are. If
there is more than one sensation, focus on the most subtle. AXXXnd, be kind
to yourself when you have been lured into a moment of disappointment or
lack of patience. This is the work that leads to the final goal.
Some styles of meditation focus on specific areas of the body and are looking
for certain sensations/experiences. A drawback of this advice is that a person
will develop a search image and a preference for some sensations over
others. But, no particular sensation is better or more important than others.
There is nothing special about a sensation at the chest (“heart”) or forehead.
And, as most vision will have already lifted awareness off the framework of
the body, unless you are feeling the tactile nature of vision within the body,
all visual experience, colors and images, should be promptly ignored.
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Following visual experience might seem harmless, but Goenka strongly states
that, “it is imperative that the attention stays within the framework of the
body.” And, I assure you that at greater levels of energy and deeper levels of
concentration, to indulge an impulse to go with a visual display can be
detrimental.48 Again, the purification of the Mind is through awareness of
the sensations of Conditioning, which are tactile. And we come in touch with
Universal Awareness.
Appreciating Change
Change is the Mind’s nemesis. The very first act of Perception is to diminish
change and create experiences that engender stability and permanence.
Neither of which is a quality of experience within the Field of Sensation. By
appreciating change at all levels of experience, we weaken the very
foundation of the Mind-imagination, whether it is movement in “the physical
world”, the flux of words and sounds of the inner-voice, or the transitory
nature of sensations. It is by noticing Change that experience opens up to
Fields of Reality.
48
It would be remiss to not mention “kundalini” energy. It is a process of lesser or
greater insistence that rearranges a person’s systems to handle greater amounts of
energy and different sensitivities. (Read, Living with Kundalini, by Gopi Krishna.) This
can be a gentle process, but for many it is traumatic. It can show up as nervous ticks,
emotional outbursts, energetic firings and strong compulsions. It is also a strong
creative force and probably the source of the tortured artist. A search on the Web
shows that many people who have had a kundalini experience work to quell, stop or
prevent the process. In my experience, Vipassana techniques are the tools to abide
with kundalini development. Developing concentration that keeps awareness within
the body and developing the “felt sense” (the ability to notice tactile experience in
as much of the body as possible) allows the process to continue without the trauma
or drama. If you are struggling with kundalini, after a couple years of Vipassana
practice, look into a Kundalini Yoga practice. Its activities, if done with a little less
vigor than usually taught, facilitate the process so that “the energy” needs to be less
insistent.
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Chapter 22: Equanimity
Equanimity is defined as composure and calm. It can also be understood as
non-reactivity. Everything that takes place in the Imagination is a reaction to
sensations, both large and small. We don’t have to react, but how do we
practice and develop non-reactivity?
At the deepest level, every experience in the Imagination stems from a
judgment, interpretation or assessment − a mental response/reaction that
overlays meaning and purpose onto the meaningless and purposeless level-0
sensations.
Every judgment is a transition from blatant change,
impermanence, unity and kindness into the stability needed to create the
form of our physical “structure” and mental activity. Every judgment/
interpretation is mental commotion and a departure from Equanimity.
Reaction as Thought
Non-reactivity is relaxed stillness, but we cannot simply decide to stop
thinking or still the Mind; the Mind has its own momentum and a reserve of
fuel which must be allowed to burn out before the Mind will come to
complete stillness. The Mind is like a snow-globe that has already been
shaken. There is nothing we can do to speed up the descent of the flakes
around the figurines; any effort or reaction only brings more commotion to
the world. All we can do is observe, as calmly and passively as possible, our
inner dimension.
Therefore, mental non-reactivity is passive observation, without judgment or
desire for anything to be different. Thoughts and Judgments will be there;
we are not trying to stop or avoid them; we simply let them be. When we
notice that our attention has been pulled back into the world of thought and
judgment, we simply refocus attention back onto the body, and as breath and
body slow, thoughts and judgments (although still running) lose power.
Minimizing the need for thoughts, interactions and choices
A large part of the success of a Vipassana retreat has to do with the schedule
and the setup of the center. Everything possible is done to make sure that
participants’ basic needs are adequately, if not wonderfully, met.
Participants help out in some cleaning of common areas, but the only choice
a participant really has to make is to decide whether to start brushing her
teeth with the top or bottom row.
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With everything provided for ten days, there is no need to plan, worry, or
wrestle with decisions. The people who serve a course (who cook and clean)
are gifting participants ten days of zero responsibility.
The recent past and upcoming future are our most active models. Ten days
of retreat is long enough for most people drop into the present surroundings
and let go of some of <what happened before the retreat> and <what we fear
and hope will happen when the retreat is over>. Thoughts of impending
future might rev up again on day 9 or 10, but a lot can happen in ten days and
we might not expect the world to still be the same as it was when we left it.
For the first nine days, participants do not talk or communicate with each
other. This includes no eye contact. We are extremely social beings. By
avoiding all social interaction, we avoid the commotion of interacting as well
as the ensuing playback, rehashing, fantasizing and rehearsing of possible
next encounters. Silence and social isolation are essential in quieting the
Mind and developing equanimity.
The more we appreciate that all thought, even thoughts of “reality”, are
products of Imagination, thoughts become less interesting and it becomes
somewhat easier for attention to stay with sensations. We begin to catch the
moment when we are about to make a judgment or attach an emotion to a
situation; “But, why that emotion?” We become aware that any emotion is
subjective; I could just as easily say, “I was excited”, as say, “I was nervous.”
If the situation is framed one way, <I am frustrated>. If framed in another
way, <I am grateful>.
Zero Entertainment
The facilities at Centers are devoid of any easy form of entertainment. There
are no books, no writing materials, no pictures, no altars, no sculptures, no
figurative art. The Mind will gravitate towards, if not pounce on, anyone of
these objects and begin to weave an array of thoughts, emotions and
projects.
Centers distance participants from the environments, the people, the objects
and the substances that have become associated with our normal habitual
patterns (or for some of us, our compulsive, addictive behaviors). The
mechanism, the group of sensations that forms the impulse by which the
Mind tries to control us, is time dependent. By its very nature, all sensation
is fleeting. Therefore, if we don’t react almost immediately to an impulse that
is trying to incite us to react, the impulse quickly dissipates. The frequency
and duration for deeper, more ingrained, patterns of behavior are greater,
but still time sensitive. Distance and separation from objects and
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environments of habit make it difficult to fulfill impulses and every unfulfilled
impulse weakens the pattern and calms the Mind.
Reaction as Physical Movement
All non-mental forms of habit and compulsion require physical movement to
fulfill the impulse − I have to move to get my third bowl of ice cream or light
my cigarette. Large movement is a distraction that makes it difficult to delve
into the Field of Sensations and notice subtler sensations. This can be
engaging in a task, exercise or stretching. Fidgeting is smaller movement in
an attempt to shrug off physical/psychological discomfort49 and to keep
attention distracted from subtlety.
Physical stillness stills the Mind. Retreats move towards stillness by at times
keeping movement within the Center boundaries, at times within the
meditation hall, and starting on day four, occasionally practicing keeping the
body as still as possible, without being rigid, for one hour.
During the retreat we are not working on any particular ailment, behavior or
psychological attribute. By practicing being as attentive and non-reactive as
possible, we are weakening all habitual behaviors/attributes that would
normally be activated during a ten-day period of our lives.
Learning to sit still and doing nothing are essential in developing
Equanimity.
49
Psychological and physical discomfort is one and the same thing; the mind and
body are inextricably linked; our afferent physical structure is a mental structure that
embodies and promotes our Conditioning.
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Chapter 23: Posture
The instructions for Posture are simple: Sit in a comfortable position with
back straight and unsupported, and slightly lower the chin. If at all possible,
sit on the floor using cushions as needed, otherwise sit in a chair.
The teacher Goenka offers that, “at some point Posture will become
important.” Otherwise, just as when you notice that the Mind has wandered
to calmly bring it back onto the body, when you notice that the body has
slumped, you can gently bring it back into alignment.
Some styles of meditation are very firm about maintaining a straight spine
and “good” posture, but Goenka’s courses do everything they can to not let
us get distracted from the primary work of accepting things as they are and
developing sensitivity. To be overly concerned with posture can be avoidance
of dropping into deeper work.
When you have noticed that posture has strayed, there are two options. One
is to not do anything except notice the sensations that come with this position
and continue accepting things as they are. For those of us who fidget, this
can be a strong practice.
But, if we opt to bring the body back into alignment, there are three ways to
go about it. One is to abruptly rearrange oneself. Another is to calmly
rearrange oneself. And the third is to guide the attention towards the
dynamics of Natural Breath and Natural Posture. Depending on the level of
attention and our general awareness of these dynamics, the extra vitality that
comes with focus is enough to revitalize the dynamics that engender healthy
alignment.
Posture will become important on its own when practice develops past
“noticing some kind of sensation everywhere on the surface of the body,” and
the instructions are now to sometimes scan for internal structures as well.
The final two Vipassana scanning techniques are a movement of attention
near the spine. Whether done subtly or “piercingly and penetratingly” this
work fosters alignment. And at times, some people experience a free flow of
energy that all but insists on healthy alignment.
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PART THREE – Choice, Control and Addiction
Chapter 24: Choice
Choice seems so simple. We think a bit − reformatting some of our “past
experience” to create several Models of the future − and make a decision
according to what is deemed to be <best> or <most important>, for example,
<the most economical> or <the most fun>. We then take actions to honor
that choice.
I go to the market and see before me: collard greens and kale. I had kale last
week, so I choose collard greens. But, when I reach out, I don’t move towards
the greens, I grab the kale. This might seem absurd or surprising, but why?
Is every choice followed by actions that honor that choice? Am I the only
person to have had the experience of choosing to do one thing and
immediately doing the opposite?
We all do things that we wish we did not do. And, we all don’t do things that
we wish we would. So, what governs our choices? And, what governs our
actions? If both our choices and our actions are governed by the same
understanding, why is there ever a discrepancy between what we want to do
and our actual behavior?
Choice has two components: selection and action towards fulfillment. Most
of the time, after an item or activity has been selected, a course of action
leads to the chosen outcome. I choose kale over collard greens so I reach out
and pick up a bunch of kale. Choice usually works. But, why does it ever fail?
Choice sometimes fails because the course of action needed to honor the
choice is unclear, difficult or requires persistent effort. For example, if I
decided to compete in the Olympics or write a play. But, choice often fails
when the actions required to honor the selection are clear and simple, like
uttering a sentence, picking something up, putting something down, putting
something in one’s mouth, or not putting something in one’s mouth.
When the course of action is obvious and simple, choice only seems to fail
when we have chosen a healthy activity! If I am choosing between ice cream
and an apple and decide to eat a bowl of ice cream, no problem, I get up and
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go get it. However, if I decide to eat an apple, sometimes I get up and come
back with a bowl (or two) of ice cream.
A healthy activity is one that: heightens sensitivities; sharpens attentiveness;
moves towards a calm, productive energy; or, increases vitality. Unhealthy
activity: moves towards lethargy or hyperactivity; dulls, numbs or poisons
the body; or, creates regret, remorse, anger or heaviness.
It would be understandable if there were a mechanism that resisted or
prevented unhealthy choice and actions. It would be understandable if there
were a mechanism that pressured us towards or insisted upon healthful
activity. But instead, the opposite seems to be true: choice only seems to
fail when one has chosen a healthy activity. Not only is the healthy activity
denied, but often, against reason, good intentions and willpower, we are
compelled towards unhealthy actions. Why? What is the Mind thinking?
Why can it be so difficult to initiate healthy activity, even when we know that
we will feel better afterwards? What compels a person, even against one’s
will, to engage in detrimental or even life-threatening activity?
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Chapter 25: Control
Working through the point-of-view of the “me”-doll, the Mind creates a sense
of choice and control. But, what actions and behaviors are actually under
complete conscious control?
Here is a list of some of the things for which we have partial control:
muscular/skeletal movement, posture, the content of our thoughts,
attention, breath, inner-voice, grammar, what we eat (or drink), how we eat,
when we eat, staying awake.
These actions, which can be consciously controlled, return to autonomous
functioning when attention fades or compulsion takes over.
We have seen that attention is the key to becoming more conscious − more
aware of the sensations that are both the precursors of emotions and the
impulses that attempt to control every aspect of our lives. So, what governs
attention?
Back in Chapter 3, we looked at how Perception works: Before we notice
anything, the processing part of the brain takes in the signals from the senses
and compares them with past experience to look for object recognition. It is
also using past experience to add color, shape and distances to the scene and
to create new objects. Meanwhile, it is building sensations and flooding our
physiology with chemicals to prepare us for mental and physical activity
according to what has been deemed important. 4/10ths of a second later, the
processing part of the brain shows the awareness part of the brain the display
of our surroundings. And if all goes well (according to the Mind and its
Conditioning), we react exactly as the Mind wanted us to.
In order to get us to react the way it wants us to, the Mind must make sure
that we direct our attention to the object (or activity) that has been deemed
of greatest importance.
While walking through the market, I am scanning my Mind’s display of the
tables and booths of the vendors. Again, my perception of the surroundings
is always half a second behind. Nothing grabs my interest.
When the Mind wants me to notice something, it intensifies that object by
making its colors more vibrant, as well making the object appear both larger
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and closer than the surrounding objects. This may sound crazy, but this is
how it works. There is even a form of conscious communication and therapy,
called Neuro-Linguistic Programming, which makes use of how the Mind
creates displays. In their Mind’s eye, the participants practice making objects
larger or smaller, changing their brightness, or moving the entire frame of a
display closer or further away.
Before the processing brain has shown me the target object, it has started
the physiology of desire: sensations of interest, yearning, lust, want. There
is warmth building in my belly, chest and/or groin as well as pressure and
expansion, twists, pangs and flushes in different locations. Now, to make sure
my desire is directed to the right object, as the Mind shows me the display of
the intensified object, it also creates a swath or surge of sensations through
the body that directs the attention towards that thing or person within our
display of the external world. If I am unaware of these sensations, I will react
accordingly and either stay with the developing thoughts about that object
or start moving towards it.
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Humpty Dumpty [an egg or a canon] sat on a wall,
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
All the king's horses and all the king's men
Couldn't put Humpty together again.
− English nursery rhyme before 1870
Chapter 26: Addiction
Addiction has four parts: the craving; the struggle and surrender; fulfillment;
and the aftermath. Each part has its addictive qualities.
It is easy to believe that the chemical compounds within a substance and how
they affect our brain chemistry are the cause of the addiction. But, the
deepest level of addiction has nothing to do with the substance itself! This is
evident in substance-less addictions, like gambling. The addiction is to the
sensations that underlie each part of the process. The substance or activity
is unimportant; the Mind only cares that we gravitate back to the “same”
substance or activity because: the Mind feels safe in repetition and habit;
and, it helps sustain the belief that it is the object or substance that is causing
the addictive behavior.
The object of desire makes little difference because it the desire/craving that
is the drug. Because it is less complicated and less fearful, passion can be
sublimated through food and a piece of cake becomes as important as sex.
This next bit is very helpful in understanding the human condition… As we
saw earlier while walking through the market, in order to control us the Mind
has to be able to pull us out of our inertia and into mental or physical activity;
through sensations, the Mind uses its extra juice to create a sense of
importance that is so powerful that it will actually get us up and moving
towards some, usually non-essential, object or action.
What this means is: the impulse or craving for an object or activity is almost
always more intense, alluring and pleasurable than the actual act of
fulfillment! Fulfillment rarely (if never) lives up to expectations.
It doesn’t matter that it is just a piece of cake, the surge of sensations that
constitute a sense of importance (whether it be desire, craving, fear or
aversion) is the most potent force the Mind/Imagination can create!
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The world created by the Imagination is vapid and lifeless; the Mind cannot
create experience that “is deep, difficult to see, difficult to understand,
tranquil, excellent, beyond the reach of mere logic, subtle, and to be realized
only by the wise.” All the Mind can do is take a universe that is resplendent
in union, calm intelligence and quiet love, freeze-dry the life out of it and push
it off a wall to shatter into a billion pieces. What we experience as life is the
continual flood of emotional precursors as the myriad separate objects the
Mind has created are continually pieced and re-pieced together. No thought
(no arrangement of the pieces within the Mind/Imagination) will ever be truly
satisfying; there is no, “finely figuring it out” that opens the Mind up to true
connection and divine beauty ; all the king’s horses and all the king’s men can
never put true happiness, true peace, true harmony together again.
Lust; desire; craving; fury; concern; care; delight; defeat; a modicum of joy,
happiness or affiliation; anxiety; panic and victory are as close as the Mind
can get to an experience of universal importance.50
Sometimes these surges of self-expression are all encompassing, but mostly
the impulses are tiny to moderate and the Mind does not expect us to fully
notice them or actually fulfill them.51 These nearly constant little hits
(sensitive people report that they run at near 70 hits per second.) are like
putting a cocktail of lust, apprehension, care, concern and hostility is a
patient’s intravenous drip-bag; and, moment to moment there is something
coursing through my mundane, cardboard life that seems to be <truly, deeply
important>.
The eradication of craving triumphs over all suffering. – Gautama Buddha
But, where is the misery and suffering if we just enjoy sex or a piece of cake
now and then? The suffering comes in because we never leave well enough
alone. The Mind is trapped in a paradox: it is dependent upon stability and
permanence, which do not exist except in the Imagination, at the same time,
50
Yes, kindness, charity and service do exist and developing these qualities while we
are developing sensitivity is an important part of the practice. There is no ownership
in grace and right doing; grace and right doing is never our doing.
51
For example, with lust… I know that this yearning is not going to be fulfilled by all
the wonderful strangers that I encounter crossing the street or by past loves. But
there can still be a nearly constant firing of passion. Whether it is in creating a new
doll or by reactivating an old doll, the Mind will find a way to plug in sensations for
biology’s most powerful inclination. (A buddha in her last lifetime still has sensations
of yearning for acts of procreation.)
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it is terrified of stillness. Afraid of doing nothing, the Mind constantly spurs
us to either crave and cling to pleasurable experience or live in apprehension
that a past negative experience might reoccur
All experience is fleeting. We suffer because we cling to pleasurable
experience and don’t want it to end. Rather than just dissolve into the joy of
the new present moment, the Mind invites (or cattle-prods) us to start
yearning to re-experience this <past pleasure>. We get another hit of craving
and another moment of something being <deeply valuable>, but then comes
more misery: disappointment, concern, sadness, frustration or anger that
this is not what is happening here and now.
We also suffer when we are concerned that a negative experience will
happen again.52 The present moment is fine, safe, tranquil, and there is no
indication of a possible reoccurrence in the present surroundings. But, the
undercurrent of sensations has us in a state of alert. This state of alert or
alarm can be triggered by (or more accurately, plugged into) certain
situations or it can be so prevalent and persistent (our drip-bag so swollen
with apprehension) that it creates a background of anxiety − a nearly constant
triggering of fight, flight or freeze that is written off as part of life. The subtext
of aversion and avoidance can be, “frustration or anger that I have to be on
guard,” exhaustion, despondency, defeat, victimhood, apathy, hostility or
hate.
Struggle and Surrender
The second part of addiction is struggle and surrender. This facet of addiction
varies depending on how the addiction is being used by the Mind.
If the person is happy to actuate the desire, then there is little sensation here
except the pleasure of accepting. But, very often the Mind creates a
battlefield by creating an oppositional desire − not wanting to give into the
craving, <oh, I shouldn’t>. Now, between these polarities the Mind can plug
52
Please know that some people are addicted to difficulty and unpleasant
experiences so they can run their stories that <people are idiots> or <things never go
right>. Two of my perennial favorites that keep me in a broken world and out of the
perfection of the moment (for example, the plate of food before me is lovely) are
<something could be better> or <something should be different>.
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in all its <truths>, emotions and stories of self-worth. For example, <if I were
a stronger person…> or <I really deserve this (treat)>.
Often, the main purpose of an addiction is creating a place for the sensations
of emotional struggle and beating oneself up! After all, it is just a piece of
cake; it isn’t going to kill me.
It doesn’t matter if I eat the cake or not; more important than actually
fulfilling the desire is that the Mind has me completely caught up in its drama
and reacting strongly to its thoughts and it emotional precursors – giving birth
and legitimacy to hope, anxiety, control, victory, exasperation, etc.
In a nutshell… it doesn’t matter if I eat the cake or not; more important than
actually fulfilling the desire is our emotional reactions that validate the life
the Mind is creating for us; for the Mind, OUR REACTIONS to its sensations IS
LIFE ITSELF! Our emotional reactions are what the Mind substitutes for true
connection and joy.
Throughout the battle the Mind is running full throttle, reifying the deeper
personal <truths> and stories that are at the core of our sense-of-self and
“who we are”. Addictive behaviors and certain thought patterns are so
recurrent because the Mind can only fill in or suspend the dynamics that
constitute the self for so long before needing another hit of certain
feelings/emotions/sensations.
If we don’t have at hand the substance that we regularly use, the Mind will
find some other way in which to run our deepest <truths> and <stories>. As
can be seen in “dry drunks”, sometimes the Mind will forego the pretense of
a trigger and exert enormous pressure for us to give in to bouts of
belligerence without having had anything to drink. In such instances it is
easier to see that it is succumbing to the sensations of anger or a loss of
control that is important, not the substance.
A person, who engages in a diet, is creating a stronger battlefield. And each
person he tells about the diet, the deeper he is entrenched – intensifying the
internal dialogue that comes with each dietary success or failure.
Fulfillment
Because the sensations of craving and desire have to powerful enough to
actually motivate a person to action, the craving for an object or activity is
almost always more alluring and pleasurable than the actual act of
fulfillment. Fulfillment rarely lives up to expectations.
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Hence, “buyer’s regret” − you get home and you don’t feel as good as you did
when you saw the advertisement or thought about it. There are mechanisms
that help mitigate the disappointment of having fulfillment fall short of one’s
expectations. But usually, it involves desire for more of the same because it
is that desire (the craving) that feels so good − not the consuming of the
product. Or, the Mind starts a search image (craving) for something <better>.
We are addicted to craving itself!
That is why halfway through a piece of cake that I am not really enjoying, I
can already be thinking about a second helping. Even when I am noticing that
without the help of some beverage, I am having trouble swallowing, that the
icing is greasy on the tongue and the roof of my mouth and that there is a
burning sensation in the throat, the surge of attraction to the second piece
feels great. (We will take a look soon at why some of us actually like the
unpleasant feelings connected to eating store-bought cake.)
Going back to surrender… if we have allowed a battlefield to be created, we
have filled our physiology with tension. Now, if the Mind allows us to muster
the willpower to not indulge, we can run sensations of self- congratulations.
But here’s the kicker − Succumbing to craving often has some of the most
pleasant sensations possible! “Giving in” brings a flood of relief and
warmth.53 And, giving over to something that is bigger and beyond triggers a
deep sense of wellbeing, even when succumbing to self-destructive
behavior!54 This can have the surge, sweetness, heat, loss of control, being
swept away, climax and a losing of oneself akin to rapture, passion and sexual
release. This surrender to something that is beyond me feels good, but it is
almost always accompanied by a loss of consciousness, a whiting out, a
detachment from responsibility.
Sexual or energetic release, or choosing to use psychotropic substances in
which the attention leaves the framework of the body is a dissipation of
53
(Or Guilt, if that is the addiction of choice.)
It was astonishing to finally understand the sensations behind some of my most
dangerous and compulsive behaviors. In the twisted logic of the Mind, I was trying
to punish or torture my parents by making them watch me sabotage my life (even
though they were both dead). Revenge, all acts based in Righteousness and
“teaching someone a lesson” are so dangerous because they come with sensations
that feel good.
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54
energy, a “checking out”, a vacation in unconsciousness, not a “checking in”
and an opening of greater consciousness.
The Aftermath
When the actual experience is done and gone, the Mind now has at its
disposal the means to revitalize any <truth> or <story> that it wants to by
simply activating the “memory” of that event. If I need a pat on the back, I
can think of the time I won 200 dollars. (Even though I just lost 500.) The
purpose of overeating at night might be to cover the feelings of sadness and
anger about going to bed alone. And then in the morning, with thoughts of
overeating the night before, I can wake up to <sadness> and <low selfesteem>.
But something is still missing. Why are we like this?
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PART FOUR: Biological Importance,
Stasis and Change,
and Love: Fear and Fury
Chapter 27: Biological Importance
Our Conditioning, the seed of our existence, orchestrates a life within the
world of Imagination that promulgates our deepest values, needs, purposes,
<truths>, (and, if this is a “spiritual journey” maybe life lessons).55
Remember that when Conditioning comes to the world in human form it must
honor our biological roots; our insanity makes a little more sense from the
perspective of mammalian evolution and the evolutionary forces of stasis and
change.
As the earth, moon and sun tumble together through space, they will never
again be in the same place in the same arrangement. But for billions of years,
the earth’s seasons have come round to a configuration that is again similar
to last year’s arrangement. Within these cosmological cycles of similarity
biological patterns of existence reside.56
Survival of a specific species is not part of biological or universal importance;
species come and go.
Biological importance at the level of an organism is an understanding that
orchestrates behavior that completes a lifecycle: a pattern of maintenance
(metabolism); interaction with the environment; interaction with other
species; the generation of other organisms with similar life cycles (usually
through budding or offspring, but as long as an organism helps other
members propagate the species, individual procreation is not essential); and
55
It is interesting that it is often when people are contending with their out-of-control
nature that they begin to look for “spiritual” practice.
56
Human efforts to know how or why patterns of energy ever organized into
biological understanding can stymie one towards humility and beatitude or rile one
to righteousness and/or genocide.
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death. A lifecycle might also involve maturation and interaction with
organisms of the same species.
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Chapter 28: Stasis and Change
Every life balances the enormous creative forces of stasis (maintaining
previous patterns of existence) and change (trying new patterns of
existence); you and every other organism presently alive are the newest
participants in an evolutionary dance of fury, fear, nurture, reproduction and
death that has been unfolding for at least the last 4 billion years. Unwittingly
or not, everything you do contributes to the dance of creation and eternally
influences everything that will be. Fortunately, continued participation in
creation (survival) does not require perfection.57 As the world unfolds to
cycles of similarity, a trait that was once precisely honed to the state of the
world might a generation later have the species on the edge of survival. The
operative word in the billowing of evolution is “adequate”. If an organism
does not have adequate actions to participate in the unfolding of the world,
it dies. If a species does not have adequate actions to participate in the
unfolding of the world, it goes extinct. The pressures of evolution are severe
but do not involve bad or good. A trait is neither bad nor good. An individual
or action is neither bad nor good. Evolution is trial.58
Some species, like bacteria, thrive on change. But for mammals, drastic
change in the world’s cycles is rare.59 Parents’ patterns are divine in the wash
of evolution; they adequately negotiated the most recent cycles of existence
to come round to reproductive success. To let go of parental patterns is
57
Any sense that something is less than perfect is a distortion of the immediate by
the human intellect. In biological evolution, adequate is perfectly adequate.
58
Many people read, “trial and error.” But “error” was thoughtfully omitted; where
is the error in evolution or creation?
59
Mammalian and human history has taken place in a relatively short period of
geologic and climatic calm; the Earth’s history is more dramatic and drastic than most
people realize. A show on human evolution said, that up to now, deep
rearrangement of human understanding has only occurred about every 10,000 years.
One of their examples was the fashioning of string and a fishing hook which opened
up travel by sea and deeply shifted the way humans could, exchange, explore, control
and conquer the world.
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tantamount to death. A baby mosquito is probably not going to fare well if it
tried to live life like a giraffe.
Although, the pressures to hold on to previous patterns of existence are
enormous, eventually the world will change in a way that no longer supports
those patterns. For biological life to continue, change must prevail.
Continued biological existence depends upon constant trial of new patterns
to provide pressure at the edges of survival, so that when those edges move,
biological life can move with it. This means that a part of the population must
be constantly pushed to the edges and beyond, to either be sacrifice or the
genesis of a new way of life.
How adamantly are you holding onto the patterns that worked for your
parents? If necessary, are you willing to risk everything to try a different way
of life?60 However daunting the task may seem, no matter how you see
yourself and your contribution to evolution, don’t worry, you are well
equipped. You and every other organism now alive are descended from a line
of organisms in which each generation (without a single failure in over 4
billion years!) negotiated the physical and social environments of their
generation to come round to produce at least one offspring whose patterns
of behavior, learning and growth also enabled them to complete another life
cycle.
You (and every organism currently on the planet) are the latest in an
unbroken string of successes in which each parent was strong enough, smart
enough, brash enough, mean enough, cowardly enough, sexy enough and
lucky enough to adequately deal with everything life brought his or her (or
its) way.
Deep within the dynamics/patterns of one’s ancestry is an
understanding of life that balances enough stability to participate in Earth’s
cycles of similarity while providing enough flexibility to adequately change
when change in the world requires. Somewhere in your inheritance, in your
deepest nature, is an understanding of the crucial balance of the creative
forces of stasis and change.
60
Please take a deep moment to appreciate the enormity of the situation: In the
human psyche/condition (in you right now) are forces, or pressures, so powerful that
you will kill or fight to the death to hang on to these patterns (or in essence, to be
your parents). Where are these forces? Can you feel them? How do they work? At
the same time there must be an even greater force (near by? constantly lurking?
always at the ready?) to shatter those patterns so that when needed, change can
prevail. Are these forces obvious in you right now? What is suicide?
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Chapter 29: Love: Fear and Fury
When a lioness, with all her being, stalks, pursues and kills a gazelle to feed
her cubs, is that not an act of love?
When a gazelle, with all her being, flees from an attacking lioness, escapes
and returns to suckle her young, is that not an act of love?
Fear and fury are enormous powers in creation’s unfolding – with life in the
balance, which animal will survive to pass its understanding to future
generations?
Whether through genetic inheritance or learning, somehow the next
generation must understand what to pursue, what to avoid, what to run away
from, what to kill, and what to die for. These fears, furies, hurts and desires
form the emotional landscape61 that channels an organism towards or away
from certain behaviors.
There are developmental stages in the life of a human that help hide from us
these pressures to act like our parents. Until the age of five or six, it is easy
to see children emulating the behaviors of their parents and other adult role
models; except for not meeting their every need, parents can do no wrong.
Then comes puberty and the child distances herself from her parents and
often parents can do no right. She starts to build a world around the objects
and activities of her cohorts (other children of the same age). The child
deeply believes that she is now her own person, a free agent, and nothing like
her parents. On the surface, a child’s interests and life can look very different,
but the deeper family patterns are already deeply embedded in the psyche
and are controlling every thought and behavior. This self-deception often
continues until the child grows up, has struggled in partner relationship, and
has children of her own. If and when she starts deep work and begins to free
61
Emotional: some physiological signal or feeling that either spurs on or thwarts
action − somehow conveying, “Yes, this is good.” or, “Don’t go there.” or, “DON’T
GO THERE!” or, “FREEZE!” or “Sneak away.” or, “RUN FOR YOUR LIFE!“ When
building a nest does a bird feel a click when he has placed a branch appropriately?
Does he feel an ugh when he is about to place a branch inappropriately?
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herself from her Conditioning, the dynamics of the Conditioning are already
deeply embedded in the next generation. Some XXXNative American cultures
say it takes seven generations to engender deep change.
Fear/Passivity and Fury/Aggression are extremely powerful forces of
creation/survival. Some species specialize in one or the other. Two of the
longest living species currently on the planet are good examples: the
crocodile getting things done through aggression, and the turtle thriving
through passivity.
No person is all one or the other, but in the human species less than 15
percent of us tend towards aggression, risk taking and novelty. The rest of us
do our best to hang out in the security of the middle of the flock.
Our apparently crazy behaviors (whether of neurosis, addiction, nastiness or
low self-esteem) rarely prevent us from procreating. And, they make perfect
sense as dynamics of passivity and aggression and forces for stasis and
change. For example, in my Mind the uncomfortable sensations of longing
and regret seem like they would be a force for change; clearly I want things
to be different, so these feelings should get me up and out into the world to
make something different happen. But, longing and regret are deeply based
in stasis − keeping me safe in my little uncomfortable world to which I am
accustomed. My Mind can be very active with strong emotions, but time and
time again, I let opportunity pass me by so that I can plug in more longing and
regret; I find a low level of discomfort to be comforting and the background
of anxiety to be normal. And, this is why I can be attracted to store-bought
cake! (Or, the <ugly> sensations that are easily plugged into the stress that
Fast-Foods place on the body.)
Seen from the perspective of mammalian evolution, some of our less-thangracious nature begins to make sense. Now we can see my father’s
belittlement as an act of love; he was doing his duty (as his father did his) to
instill in me our turtle nature, to not stick our necks out, to wisely stay safe in
the mud of our puddle.
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PART FIVE – The Heart of the Message
Chapter 30: The Heart of the Message
When people share the Buddha’s teachings, they often talk about “The Four
Noble Truths” and “The Eight-Fold Path”: right understanding, right speech,
right thought, right livelihood, right effort, right action, right attention and
right concentration.
Let’s use what we have explored in The Buddha’s Toolbox to take a quick look
at The Noble Truths.
The first two truths are: Everyone is born to a life of misery; and, misery
has a cause.
The Mind does not allow us to experience the world directly, as it is. Instead,
it hides, filters and distorts Reality from us and shows us a virtual world of its
own making! This is always hard to fathom, but we now have a better idea
of what this means.
The Mind doesn’t just control what we see; it controls all aspects of our lives:
what we see, feel, think, say and do.
We each live confined within a world of our own making, within our own
Imagination. The foundation of this world and our actions includes the primal
forces of what to kill and what to die for. When we pull back the curtain
through which the intellect filters the actual world (Reality) we experience a
Calm connection with all, Joy in the ephemeral and ever-changing nature of
all things, Love and Kindness, and Compassion for those still struggling within
the human condition.
The Mind creates permanence, separation, expectations and non-essential
desires and fears. We then suffer when things change, don’t go as planned
or we are obsessed with trying to satisfy an insatiable yearning.
A very important piece of the Buddha’s discovery is: The Mind
controls/orchestrates all our experience and all our behavior through
sensations within the framework of the body. It even controls our sense of
choice and freewill. Through these sensations we are unknowingly puppeted
through a life of craving and clinging, of aversion, animosity and hostility.
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This is life as we know it. We are unique in the animal kingdom in the strength
of our Imagination. Within the displays of Imagination (feeling as if we are
mostly in charge) we live our lives, we play with possibilities, solve problems
and make decisions.
But there are two drawbacks. The Mind is first and foremost a Problem
Generator! Its very existence, which includes our sense of self, requires that
something is deemed wrong, inadequate, or needs fixing; we are conditioned
to always be in struggle, to always be in turmoil, to always be in stress. There
is always work to be done.62 There is always an emptiness that needs filling.
If we are always looking at the world though the filter of Perception and our
Conditioning, we (and the world) will never be at peace!
Things might be different if we could pick up the intellect and imagination as
tools when we needed them and then put them back down again to resume
a life of connection and joy. But the Mind (again, which includes our sense of
self) is terrified of relaxed attentiveness, of being brightly aware while doing
nothing; the Mind equates stillness of thought and doing nothing with death.
Boredom is the restlessness and discomfort that the Mind uses to ensure its
own existence, to urge us out of inactivity.
The second difficulty is that the underlying forces of our imagination, that
drive our imagined reality, are the same that govern the rest of the animal
kingdom: the primal forces of flight or fight or freeze and what to kill and die
for. Yes, charity and kindness are within the panoply of human emotions, but
they are too often overrun by our less than gracious nature. We are stuck
inside a mechanism that is bent on over-reacting − with no real need, we tend
to plug in destructive forces rather than act in kindness.
Hence the human condition − we are never going to be comfortable in our
own skins. We live in an imaginary world based on separation. The Mind
uses primal forces to orchestrate a life of desire (what to pursue and hold on
to) and shunning (what to ignore, avoid, flee from, eradicate or kill). Nothing,
no experience that the Mind can create within its world, is truly, deeply
satisfying!
We are guided, propelled, compelled to a life full of agitation, anxiety, racing
and repeated thoughts, depression, anger, appetite, sadness, over-activity,
empty entertainment, hope, strained cheerfulness, resignation and
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Or, the mind has orchestrated a life of Complacency, Entertainment or SelfMedication.
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loneliness. And when attention is turned outward, we generate greed,
nastiness, blind devotion, group association, disregard and violence. And
there is deep angst, if not terror, to do otherwise – to still or stop this
mechanism feels like dying, feels like death. (If you have ever experienced
phobia or a full on panic attack, then you know what the Mind is capable of.)
To cope we give into thoughts and behaviors that stir up or hide our feelings.
We take refuge in our righteous battles, achievements (small and large), our
own and other’s dramas. And/or we build adequately comfortable lives
within complacency, resignation, denial, entertainments and self-medication.
“Be kind to everyone you meet, for each is fighting a great battle.” − Philo of
Alexandria
And, the most important part of the Buddha’s discovery (the third noble
truth) is that there is a solution! There is no problem. Yes, humans are born
into misery. But the very same Imagination that generates problems, misery
and hate, allows us to be self-aware and to feel that something can and
should be different. Human beings are born with an invaluable opportunity
to turn our attention inwards and begin a process of calming the Mind and
becoming sensitive to (becoming conscious of) the sensations by which our
lives are controlled. This frees us from that control and begins a process that
clears the Conditioning of the “defilements” that generate all human
nastiness and the ugliness that we throw upon ourselves, our loved ones and
the world.
I invite you to consider that humans were not once these clear and pristine
beings that somehow lost paradise and now must struggle and pay penance
to regain the qualities of calm and unconditional love. Instead, we are in our
rightful place in the unfolding of a universe based in care and kindness. And
it is through the development of the Imagination and self-awareness that we
are in the enviable position to make a great leap in the evolution of
consciousness − to break from the brutishness of animal nature and dwell in
the finer, higher qualities that, if we cannot yet feel, we at least hope are the
essence of life.
The fourth noble truth is the eight-fold path. Working on the attributes of
the eight-fold path “leads one from darkness to light, from servitude to
freedom.”63 (Ramiro Calle) Just as we are usually unaware of the blinking of
the eyes, we usually go through life unaware of the sensations by which the
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And, finally to “an enlightened one, an Arahat, a saint, a purveyor of Truth.”
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Mind controls the Imagination and keeps us wrapped up, if not locked into, a
world of its own design (a life of darkness and servitude). But, with a little
work, we can develop our concentration and sensitivity and begin to observe
these sensations. When sensations are observed without reaction, without
judgment, the mechanism falters − we break free of Imagination and
Conditioning’s control, and begin a process towards freedom!
This is the jewel! “Observing any sensation with equanimity is reality,
is purity, is freedom.”
–S. N. Goenka
One can wonder or worry about how long it will take to clear out the source
of unrest at the base of the Mind, but why? The question of value is: In this
moment am I noticing sensations in equanimity? What I did yesterday, two
seconds ago, or what I will do tomorrow is just the Mind mastering its strings
and pulling me back into its worlds.
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PART SIX – Metta
You can search throughout the entire universe for someone who is more
deserving of your love and affection than you are yourself, and that person
is not to be found anywhere. You yourself, as much as anybody in the
entire universe, deserve your love and affection.
− Gautama Buddha
Chapter 31: Metta
Metta is often translated as, Loving-kindness or Unconditional love. It is the
last of the Vipassana meditation techniques and is taught on the tenth day of
retreat, just before people are free to start talking with one another again.
The main invitation in the previous three techniques, Body-Breath
Awareness, Anapana, and the various Vipassana Scanning techniques, was to
keep attention within the framework of the body. Metta lets go of that
restriction, as Metta is opportunity to open up your new sensitivity to the
qualities of Reality − all of which have no boundaries.
Let’s go back to what has happened in the previous nine days. Body Breath
Awareness brought attention within the framework of the body. Anapana
strengthened our concentration and sharpened our focus so that we can
begin to notice and stay with subtler sensations. The various Vipassana
Scanning techniques built awareness of sensations throughout the body
while learning to develop equanimity/non-reactivity and an appreciation of
change.
During the various Vipassana Scanning techniques, “you are performing a
very deep operation of the Mind − like draining pus from a wound”. It is very
important to complete the entire 10 days of the retreat as leaving early would
be like getting up off the operating table before the surgeon has closed the
incision. The techniques of Metta serve as a salve that helps sooth and heal
the wound.
The work in Vipassana scanning has cleared out, at a very deep level, some of
the Conditioning, thereby liberating/healing some of the emotional
physiology, the nervous system (and energetic systems?). Whether it is
obvious to us or not, at the end of the retreat our sensitivity is different than
it was 10 days ago.
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Most of us do not experience the world as a sea of interconnectivity and
change. We tend to limit the size of objects and their ability to interact and
influence one another at our visual and tactile boundaries. But, when we play
with two magnets their sphere of influence does not correspond with our
visual and tactile boundaries. Rather than readjust our entire view of the
world, we tend to treat magnets as a special case. But, all physical objects
work like magnets: everything (the entire universe) at every distance is at
least gravitationally and electro-magnetically connected and constantly both
pushing and pulling on everything else with different strengths according to
their distances. When we are playing with any two objects other than
magnets, we lack the sensitivity to feel the interactions between them until
our afferent visual and tactile boundaries also seem to be touching. People
are more like magnets than typical perception suggests − our “size” and our
sphere of influence are much greater than is generally assumed.
During the retreat we have dropped through the Imagination and worked at
various levels of attention moving towards subtlety. Instead of being
divorced from Reality, it is now through subtlety that we are more or less
divorced from the Imagination; and that we now give and receive differently.
Because this is not business as usual, you are only supposed to participate in
Metta if you meet two conditions: you can find a comfortable posture
without any strong discomfort or pain, and at the moment you are not
contending with any dark or heavy thoughts.
At the end of my first retreat, at the time of Metta, I was experiencing the
physical and mental effects of a heavy dose of humility; so rather than
actively participate in Metta, I kept my awareness inwards in soft global
scanning. Still, what came through the proceedings was astonishment,
appreciation and respect for those around me now and anyone who had ever
done such difficult and important work. And then it finally came home, and
there opened in me an appreciation and respect for the work I too had done.
Twenty minutes later and you could look people in the eyes again. A few
people carried themselves with a sense of uncertainty. And, a young man
that I knew from primitive skills gatherings had a tender beauty, as if he had
just had a good cry. But mostly, faces were noticeably more relaxed than on
the first day of the course with a brightness in their eyes, smiles and
countenances that must be experienced directly to truly understand.
The practice of Metta will make greater or less sense depending on your deep
assumptions and beliefs about yourself, life and the universe.
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The Buddha shares that when you can see the Biggest Picture, it will be
obvious that everything is “empty”. This could be that Awareness,
unconfined by the Imagination, has no size and can delve both into the void
of the infinitesimal as well as expand into the emptiness of the infinite. But,
“empty” can also be that Reality is devoid of intellectual meaning and intrinsic
value, as it is only the Conditioning’s judgments that rigidify life and embalm
it with apparent value.
At the deepest level, the universe is “empty”. But otherwise, there is talk of
the “four divine states” that a person dissolves or opens into. When I first
read the list, I remember first being caught off guard and then being
embarrassed. I realized that I was looking to find what I would gain from this
work. In my mind there was still a strong distinction between me and my
inner world and an outer “rest of the world” (ah, a yet clean heart). “[For
such people] will not fallback to feeding the idea of a self, a personality, a
being or a separate individual.” In Reality there is no self; there is no “inner”
and “outer”; there is no distinction; there is no separation. There is
Tranquility and Calm. There is Metta (unconditional love and loving
kindness). And there is sympathetic Joy and Compassion.
Until we open to Reality, we will have to practice and work on loving and
kindness. For some of us, we are kinder to others than we are to ourselves.
Good, be kind and loving wherever and whenever possible. But, until we
reside in Union, we are going to be projecting our inner world onto the outer
world and the greatest gift we can give the world is to learn to love
ourselves… “You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve
your love and affection.”
Why “sympathetic Joy” and not just “Joy” on its own? It appears that a
buddha functions at a level that is calmer and more refined than Joy, but
he/she/it is still sensitive to (is open to) the Joy of those around her.
It is not uncommon for people during their retreat to start thinking how good
meditating would be for people they know. This is a good sign; if I am thinking
how others would benefit from meditating, somewhere in the past nine days,
I must have directly experience the value and importance of the work for
myself. And, wishing others well is a sign of Metta.
Again, the practice of Metta will make more or less sense depending on the
deepest messages, ideas and beliefs concerning oneself, life and the universe.
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Here are a few common ones: <You reap what you sow>, <What goes around,
comes around>, <Life is unfair>, <Life is what you make of it>, <Things just
never quite seem to work out>, <If the foundation of the universe were
goodness, there wouldn’t be so much evil and misery>, <The world is perfect
in every moment>, <You are a saint, a deeply beautiful person, whose
greatest work is to further purify your life. And, your greatest contribution to
the world will be as an example that inspires and permits others to risk doing
the same>, <I complain because I want things to be different>, <By
complaining, I make a difference>, <I get angry because I want things to be
different>, <By getting angry, I make a difference>, <If the problem is fixable,
why get upset? >, <If the problem is not fixable, why get upset?>, <One of the
greatest pleasures in life is to be of service>.
A buddha says that there are universal laws that become evident when one
can see The Biggest Picture. One of them is − The Law of Cause and Effect:
Everything is part of the chain of cause and effect; nothing comes from
nothing, but is the result from what went before and conditions that which
will follow.
We expect to see ripples when we throw a pebble in a pond. But, universal
cause and effect is a little more intense. It is… if you throw a rock at a dog,
you can be assured that at some point, life will throw a rock at you. I can play
with the ideas that <our lives are confined to displays of the Imagination> and
that <our Conditioning fabricates all our experience>. But this says that,
there is nothing in our lives that we haven’t brought upon ourselves!
But, it also says that our future is open; everything we do now shapes how
the world will come to us. This shaping of our world stems not just from
actions, but from every thought and utterance. There is usually a time lag.
But, once we start developing sensitivity and equanimity and we start to cut
short our little tantrums, judgments and unkind thoughts, our personal world
will begin to shape itself differently!
If this is true, it reveals the vastness of universal intelligence. At every
moment, while we are each sowing the seeds for our own future, all our lives
are interconnected in a way that allows each of us to receive exactly what we
need to learn from our past deeds and thoughts. This means you, me, the fly
I want to swat and the baby just born with HIV.
I have no experience that would validate the truth of reincarnation. I still find
the topic a little uncomfortable as the major religions in my native culture
promote the idea that we only get this one life to get it right. They have
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stories of people coming back from the dead but make no mention of
reincarnation.
I am so grateful for the practice of Vipassana. Firstly, for the effects it has had
on me and my life. And secondly, for its scientific nature; nowhere are we
ask to believe in something, or take something on blind faith. The importance
of the technique is for each person to directly observe for him or herself. If
we can’t detect something for ourselves, just put it aside. I can see no reason
that one of the most honest persons in human history would lie about
reincarnation. I do find that when I play with the idea of reincarnation, I relax
more easily into <the world is perfect in every moment>, and that <everyone
(you, me and the child with HIV) is receiving what they have created and what
they and those around them need in order to learn deeper truths and to be
better people>.
If one day reincarnation is obvious, so be it. Until then, the idea sits in the
realm of Uncertainty.
Here is a quote from Gautama Buddha revealing just how clueless we are:
The mark of your ignorance (cluelessness) is the depth of your belief in
injustice and tragedy.
– Gautama Buddha
So, what does all this have to do with Metta? Certain ideas and attitudes
make it more difficult to feel life at the level of Metta. So, on the ninth day
of retreat, while we are in our subtlety and somewhat divorced from the
smallness of the Mind and its ideas − we take a few moments to hold in our
thoughts those who we feel would benefit from a practice of meditation and
to appreciate all those who have ever practiced and shared this work.
Another practice of Metta involves taking a few moments to give pardon to
all those who might have harmed us in thought, speech and action. And then
taking a few more moments to seek pardon from all those whom we might
have harmed in thought, speech and action. As…
It is in the nature of things that joy arises in a person free from remorse.
– Gautama Buddha
With equanimity and an appreciation of change we have developed our
sensitivity to subtle sensation. This work has cleared some of our
Conditioning and we begin to move free from Imagination. Now, it is through
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subtle sensation that the practices of Metta help us give and receive at a level
of infinite union. For most of us this will not be entering a state of
enlightenment. But care, kindness, gratitude, self-love and wishing others
well are all symptoms of realizing a deeper truth.
You are a deeply beautiful person, whose greatest work is to further purify
your life. And, your greatest contribution to the world will be as a quiet
example that inspires and permits others to risk doing the same.
Meditate. Live purely. Be quiet. Do your work with mastery. Like the moon,
come out from behind the clouds! Shine.
− Gautama Buddha
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