ardacigin
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For the past few weeks, I've experienced some cool insights due to my meditation practice so I wanted to share 3 of them and explain how they occurred.
To clarify, these are insight experiences. Insight is any direct experience realization that challenges your existing worldview of self and reality. Insight experiences are moments where you become conscious of these insights to a degree. They can be temporary or permanent.
All these 3 were temporary in my case. But they are realizations I can contact in the present moment as long as my intention is strong. Everyone has insight experiences but being able to realize them and be conscious of them as they are occurring is not an easy task. Repeating them at will is even more challenging.
The more you repeat these consistently, the insights percolate deeper into the psyche and completely transform your existing belief systems and daily experience. Partial transformation has occurred in my case but the capacity of these insights to transform one's life (as far as I'm able to see) is massive and potentially infinite.
1- Life is a form of dream: This insight was realized through hypnagogic states one experiences while waking up or going to sleep. Eventually, mindfulness cracks through the sleep cycle and certain insights become available to the meditator.
One of these was how the internal thought and images was active in the dream state. Basically the same monkey-mind you experience in daily waking life (both internal talk and memory images) are what constitutes your dreams. Your dreams are literally made up of mental talk and mental images you use in daily life.
I've realized this at the end of a dream where the waking life 'monkey mind' and dream life memories have clashed together in a hypnogogic state. The mechanism was realized to be the same due to metacognitive awareness one develops in meditation.
The insight challenges your exisiting worldview because you believe that you are relatively alert and awake in daily life but as long as there are mental commentary, images, thoughts that pertains to non-present moment experience, you are dreaming. You are not fully conscious.
Just as you create a story, body and a self in a dream, the same mechanism continues when you wake up in the morning. True 'waking up' arises out of greater mindfulness, silent mind and un-mediated contact with direct experience. So this insight experience makes you suspicious of what reality is on a deeper level and attunes the psyche to be more mindful automatically.
2- Literally Missing The Richness of Reality Without Mindfulness: This is seemingly a very obvious insight experience for many people. But the ramifications are quite deep. It is deceptively simple.
I was watching a TV show at the time and all of a sudden, I had a thought about a trivial thing. My metacognitive awareness was not that strong at the time so after a few minutes, I've realized that I've completely missed what happened in the tv show as my mind was in a subtle state of following a thought pattern.
The reason why this insight experience was profound is that I've rewound the show and realized I was not even conscious of the subtle movement that guy made as he said this or that line. Or how a particular emotion was conveyed with a body language cue. These profound moments were completely missed due to unconscious movements of attention and thought activity. My metacognitive awareness was there at that moment with the importance of present moment realization.
The realization was that you are LITERALLY missing the richness of reality due to lack of mindfulness. This, again, re-programs the psyche to be more mindful in the following present moment experiences. Because there is no moment other than the present moment.
3- The Importance of Metacognitive Awareness + Joy + Body Awareness in Daily Life
I've already realized this before but as time goes on, you realize how much distortion occurs in consciousness when you start to move around, talk to people, write comments, and do stuff. Without metacognitive awareness, every single moment is tainted with craving and as a result, massive amounts of subliminal suffering arises.
You might bliss out in a meditative or psychedelic state. A lot of profound insights can occur from these experiences. But the tendency to compartmentalize your spiritual practice and 'end' meditation sessions as soon as you need to go to the bathroom is very great.
The key to radical reductions in suffering in daily life lies in the combination of metacognitive awareness + Joy + Body awareness. A quick explanation of these terms are:
Metacognitive Awareness: This awareness is knowing the overall state of the mind, fixation/craving levels, the location of where attention is, what its doing, intentions, body awareness, emotions, thought activity of the mind.
So this is a very inclusive meta-skill of awareness. It is the pillar of mindfulness. And this one skill gets you to adept meditation stages. So the content (like the joy) loses its importance and things like the mind's mental reaction towards the joy/pain become central to your practice.
You monitor these elements in real time. It sounds really hard and a lot of work but it is fairly effortless once you are actually there.
Joy is very alluring to the mind. So it becomes easier to develop metacognitive awareness. That is why many meditators rank jhana practice as a foundational technique in Samatha circles.
In daily life, the demands of activities require metacognitive awareness. Otherwise, joy and body awareness goes away. and you get fixated on the activity. Walking meditation is the key to making this work. Once you get the joy there and maintain it, that is really good progress.
Then you need to do that while talking which is really hard. But it is possible with more practice. So in stage 8, you'll realize that daily life practice is just perfect for the development of metacognitive awareness.
Joy and Happiness: Both the pleasant sensations and being in a state of joy highly reduces suffering and invites equanimity to consciousness. Being able to maintain these qualities in daily life is a key skill in making your life sweet and strengthening metacognitive awareness further.
Body Awareness: To maintain this in daily life, an ability to slow your movements down and get in touch with the body as a whole in a state of comfort and relaxation is key. You already develop this skill in meditation but bringing it into daily life while you are walking etc. is a challenge. The tendency to rush towards activities is huge.
To develop this skill in daily life, walk and move like an old man. Very slowly. Walk slowly.
This enables metacognitive awareness and joy to be maintained. As you get better at it, you can do it with speed as well. But quality matters here. Stop your general tendency to pick up the pan and cook stuff in a state of craving. That entire paradigm needs to go away. Just throw it out.
Commit to never move without mindfulness. The natural result will be slightly slower movement but greater joy, awareness, bodily comfort and mindfulness. Get used to living like this. Don't type out comments with speed. Feel into every click and button slowly and only increase the speed as far as mindfulness can keep up.
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These were my recent insight experiences. Feel free to contact me and ask questions. I wish all of you well being and happiness
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I wish you well in your journey
You seem to be doing really well for your first year in spirituality. I hope your physical and emotional health gets radically better in 2020. Feel free to contact me whenever you want to chat.
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4 hours ago, Jordan94 said:Thanks, I've been procrastinating implementing some Cudalasa lectures/podcasts/whatever (except the Q&As that I watch sometime) and your post is coming right on time, I'm gonna do at least a few minutes of Cudalasa video before meditation from now
@ardacigin Would you recomend to start with this series or the other one that you mentionned in another post first ? (I forgot the name exactly, like a 10part series, maybe from some retreat talks)
This one is about meditative joy and he really sets the tone for what emotional landscape to cultivate in meditation. I highly recommend starting with this one. It is foundational.
Meditate while listening to this. It is perfectly fine. Make sure to follow the breath without too much strain and allow some joy to arise. If agitation and negative sensations starts to arise, relax, smile and go back to the breath in a gentle way. Do this while listening to the recording.
After this is over, you can get started on other lectures that interest you.
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For anyone who wants to bring more happiness and joy to their lives, start the emotional mastery process and significantly develop mindfulness as a natural result of it, I highly recommend listening to Culadasa's 12 part series on meditative joy. Here is the 1st part on youtube. You can find the rest by searching '..part 2' etc.
The audio quality is not that great after coming from Leo's videos but the content quality is very high. Try to meditate and listen to this at the same time.
Much love,
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Stream entry is called stream entry because before you hit it, following the path requires continued work and diligence; after stream entry, it's like you got in a boat and it's carrying you downstream: you don't have to be constantly diligent to make progress. It's still worth being diligent—you're less likely to get tangled up in the weeds. But at stream entry, three things drop:
1- The self as a real thing: Before, when your idea of "me" was threatened, this would tend to create a story which would be self-perpetuating. After stream entry, most of the time things that would have had this effect are just noticed and dropped immediately. Some stuff still sticks, but it's a lot easier to see that it's happening, and, once seen, to release it. It may stay or go once released, but it's no longer "happening to me," so it's not a problem either way.
2- Doubt in the path. The experience of stream entry is such that afterwards, it's pretty clear that there is a path to some kind of freedom, and that the path works. You start to see clear patterns in dharma teachings, and see what the patterns point to. It can be more or less vivid depending on the person experiencing it, but the idea that might is all just be a waste of time and that nobody can get results is lost.
3- Magical thinking. You stop believing that you can get results without establishing the causes, and that you can avoid results for which you have created the causes. This is often explained as the loss of the belief in rites and rituals; the point there is not that you no longer believe that any rite or ritual could produce a result, but you no longer think that the result is magic: there is a reason why it works, and as a practitioner you are responsible for doing the work to bring about the result.
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15 hours ago, Pell said:@ardacigin Thank you! I've never realized the distinctions between Leigh's and Culadasa's presentations of the jhanas. You made it clear about how TMI has skill development as the crux of the practice in order to cultivate a holistic samatha.
Perhaps another question: what are your thoughts on shikantaza/zazen as a means to samatha/insight? From my view, shikantaza has the samatha component because it leads one to stillness/silence. The technique has the vipassana component because it leaves awareness bare. This also reminds me of the question regarding how much collectedness one needs to bare fruit(awakening). Would you stage 6 in TMI terms is the bare minimum?
@Pell I don't think 'just sit' sort of techniques are effective if you don't know how to stabilize attention and develop awareness. If you are trying to get to effortlessness, it can be helpful to relax. An advanced meditator can do shikantaza effectively.
But a beginner meditator shouldn't do it in my opinion. I know that it seems easy to 'just sit' or 'stop moving' but you are not actually developing the skills you need to develop in this stage of the practice. Physical pliancy, effortlessness and mental pliancy SDS and shikantaza develop are advanced practices you should do in stage 7-8 as bare minimum.
When there are no practice instructions, a beginner will dip into sustained dullness and stay there. Just sitting and strong determination sits are good. But its effective implementation is only after you master the technique. These are supplements, not the main dish.
It induces tranquility but it is not guaranteed. One can feel agitated still because attention is not tamed and awareness is insufficient.
Due to lack of development in these areas, vipassana also can't be done effectively. You might as well do dry insight without these skills. But I always recommend a balanced samatha-vipassana approach. You master samatha until stage 8 and start the insight practices from there.
Stage 6 mastery is said to be good enough for awakening IF you've developed awareness sufficiently. Awakening can basically happen at any stage.
The goal of this practice, at that stage, must be 'At what stage can I reduce craving with consistency, produce joy and do advanced insight practices effectively?'
The answer is stage 7 effortlessness -- stage 8 joy development - stage 9 - Joy and Contentment
So around stage 8-9, you will be equipped with so many amazing skills that you'll confused as what to develop first. Insight penetration is possible. Emotional mastery is possible. Compassion work is possible. Social skill improvement is possible. Jhana mastery is possible. Craving reduction is possible. No-mind is possible. Open awareness is possible. Long SDS sits are possible....
So, if you are stage 6, just work on stage 7. Then try to master stage 7. Then move on to stage 8.
The process works for a reason. Do Leigh's jhanas on the side to reduce aversion and produce more joy. In my case, I've gained all my jhanic factors from TMI but I was very frustrated with the practice and constantly cultivated negative emotions without realizing it.
I don't recommend that sort of wiring in the nervous system so looking for the joy is a requirement for all meditators in the way I look at the practice. Leigh's book is good for that. But the actual fruits will come from TMI.
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11 hours ago, Pell said:I have TMI, but I'm unfamiliar with actually living through the jhanas in daily life. I'm only just poking into stage 7 though. Could you unpack daily life jhanas more?
@Pell Of course
TMI doesn't explicitly call them jhanas but the arising of meditative joy in stage 8 is a jhanic factor. Meditative joy is a pleasant sensation, causes happiness and joy. And this is partially effortless and relatively stable. (In stages 8-9)
Now a typical jhana meditator tends to lack metacognitive awareness of joy and happiness. He also hasn't quite worked with attention and awareness so much that he can access effortlessness in stage 7. Due to these reasons, a typical jhana meditator tends to lose the jhana factors like happiness and joy in daily life. Their baseline happiness is not increased radically. (At least initially)
What I mean by jhanas in daily life is to be able to access this meditative joy, happiness and pleasentness; meditate on it (like the breath) and play with the attention/awareness dynamic just like in a formal sit. You can do this on demand.
Initially, this appears challenging but effortlessness of stage 7 allows it to happen without much struggle. The same principle of effortless attention that applies for the breath also applies for meditative joy. Instead of developing awareness while attention is on the breath, you do the same awareness development process while the attention is on the meditative joy. This is what one could call experiencing jhanas with mindfulness.
TMI version of meditative joy arises out of mind unification. It doesn't require any previous joy cultivation because it arises out of the unification of conflicted sub-minds. This makes these emotions and positive mental states extremely stable, durable and effortless.
In Leigh's version of jhanas, concentration is developed by focusing on pleasant sensations. But there is not enough awareness development. In fact, one needs to have a certain degree of access concentration to even experience any pleasant sensations. You need body awareness, introspective, extrospective awareness and effortlessly stable attention to be able to sustain the jhanic factors in daily life. Just producing the happiness in the mind is not enough to maintain it in daily life. That is why mindfulness TMI teaches is essential.
In a jhana, happiness and joy becomes stable and dominates consciousness. You are only bringing this wonderful state into daily life with TMI. Its origination comes from mind unification rather than concentration. That is why it is different from Leigh's jhanas.
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3 minutes ago, Esoteric said:@ardacigin Ok interesting stuff, thanks for sharing. I started reading Brasington's book today actually. Looks like you're doing good progress
Leigh's book is great. Just remember that TMI version of jhanas after stage 7 gives more depth and manual dynamic to jhanas due to awareness and attention development.
So the first 4 jhanas Leigh talks about in that book is accessed in daily life interacting with people. It stops being a formal sit occurrence you can access for 20 mins. It starts to become a full time gig in TMI. A part of your overall life and meditation practice.
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31 minutes ago, Esoteric said:@ardacigin Thanks, very informative post. When you enter the jhanas are you still working consciously with the attention and awareness dynamic?
Edit: Saw you more or less answered that question as I wrote that post
@Esoteric Yes. You need to still play with the attention and awareness dynamic in jhanic factors like happiness, joy, tranquility and equanimity. I'd say that is the essential difference between Culadasa's TMI with Leigh Brasington's jhana book.
But this is not too easy. Attention can sometimes result in an awareness collapse and joy-happiness can decrease. Or you can emphasize too much with awareness that attention not stabilized and is fuzzy.
This results in subtle dullness, moving attention, wandering mind in a state of jhana. It helps you to have enough energy for dealing with people, thinking about stuff in a state of joy and pleasure. So it is pretty good for daily life but in a formal session, subtle dullness must be addressed. Attention must be localized a little more to the breath while increasing meditative joy. That dynamic interplay is more challenging but from that state (if you can get into in stage 8 which is hard but doable), you can do some pretty nice insight investigation.
3rd jhana practice in movement is my go-to daily practice. You must apply some hardcore body awareness on a momentary basis with happiness and joy AND add that contentment component since this is 3rd jhana. So it is challenging enough for me but not too hard as well. The perfect flow state.
4rth jhana, on the other hand, is something that requires a lot of equanimity. It is said to be the best jhana for insight practice but one needs to be TMI stage 10 to truly go deep and stabilize a 4rth jhana. That is beyond my current skill level. I also suspect that stage 10 mastery of that level will correspond to stream-entry. So awakening is pretty close from that point.
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5 hours ago, Esoteric said:And an insight practice would mean to completely remove the stable attention part and just keep peripheral awareness on max. Is that fair to write?
That depends. Not all insight practices require the removal of stable attention. But most of them emphasize awareness to a high degree.
For instance in 'close following' in Stage 7 TMI, you have to MAX all of your stable attention skills to deconstruct the breath. It is very challenging and you need attention for that.
Also for noting, you need 'momentary attention' where the movements of attention occur but is directed by awareness so it is clear and stable.
In very deep states, the attention is absent from experience in panaromic awareness but we are talking about late stage 9, stage 10 and deep 4rth jhana at this point. So ditching attention is not something that is easy. Most insight practices still include some level of attentional stability or attentional investigation. But it is fair to say that awareness development is more important.
After effortless attention, the rest of the work generally boils down to awareness dynamic and energetic investigation of direct experience.
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4 hours ago, Esoteric said:Hey@ardacigin , very helpful and interesting stuff as always.
To simplify things and to ge the terms clear, basically a good samatha practice would be to have stable attention while maintaining peripheral awareness? And playing with the dynamics between the two. And an insight practice would mean to completely remove the stable attention part and just keep peripheral awareness on max. Is that fair to write?
In your opinion, for a beginner to build continous stable attention would the best tactic be to just get back to the meditation object over and over again when the mind wanders, or work with stable attention/peripheral awareness from the get go?
A good samatha practice is to have 'effortlessly' stable attention with strong introspective, metacognitive and extrospective awareness. So minimum stage 8 territory and this is the point where serious insight practices starts anyways in TMI. Although close following in stage 7 is very intense as well.
See, effortless attentional stability and metacognitive awareness are the key terms. Before the attention-awareness dynamic with effortlessness, whole body awareness, jhanic factors like happiness, tranquility, equanimity and metacognitive awareness is developed sufficiently, you are not entirely ready for insight practices.
After developing these skills, the exact point where you'll start insight practices will be intuitive. You'll rest in a deep state of jhanic happiness, concentration and samatha but you'll want to go further and experience subtle layers of craving and suffering due to feeling like a self, impermance etc.
At that point, you'll say: 'Well, all of this joy and happiness are great but it is not entirely solid. Craving is not entirely eliminated. Impermanence and no-self is not REALLY seen on a deep level. I need to really do these insight practices to further reduce suffering.'
That is the natural and intuitive point in one's spiritual development where you'll start insight practices. It generally corresponds to stage 8-9 in TMI. Both jhana and insight practices are all used to glean some amount of insight into different facets of awakening.
For example, jhanas are normally seen as non-insight producing practices. But a mature stage 8-9 meditator will stabilize the jhana in daily life and get an insight into how craving works in the psyche. Inıtıally, you use jhanas to get to a nice place and stay there as much as you can. After a while you still do that but now you heavily emphasize the insight into suffering and craving in a state of jhana. That starts to change the experience quite a bit.
Other practices like body awareness etc. will also be done in a way to show impermanence, no-self etc. depending on your intentions. Lot of these insights perspectives will be easier to see and experience with relative consistency since equanimity also develops with all of these practices.
4 hours ago, Esoteric said:In your opinion, for a beginner to build continous stable attention would the best tactic be to just get back to the meditation object over and over again when the mind wanders, or work with stable attention/peripheral awareness from the get go?
At the very beginning, you can't work with the awareness and attention dynamic so you must bring the attention back and try to do your best to expand awareness at the same time both extrospectively and introspectively. Awareness needs the stability of attention to be on a certain threshold.
But As soon as you are able to, you should play around with the attention and awareness dynamic. That is how you do TMI properly but it is way more challenging than just bringing attention back to the breath and trying to exclusively stay there. The lack of awareness development is why people never quite go past stage 6-7.
Starting from stage 4, awareness development with attentional stability is what will make insight practice possible. The actual reason why we develop stable attention is to get attention out of the way, restrict its unconscious movement and develop awareness.
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I wanted to talk about the dynamic balance of concentration and insight practices.
In stage 8-10 in TMI, the practice turns from Samatha into insight and vipassana after developing stable attention and introspective awareness properly in stages 1-6. This approach is called samatha-vipassana as both aspects of the practice is combined as one technique. The advantages of this style is enourmous in my experience. And I'll explain why in a second.
Peter Ralston, Daniel Ingram, Ramana Maharshi are teachers mostly on the camp of 'dry insight' where the stabilization of attention and awareness development is secondary to the insight practices. You tend to go straight into noting and self enquiry to get an insight into no-self, impermanence, emptiness and suffering.
After doing insight practices like self-enquiry, Three Characteristics etc. I can personally confirm that these practices are de-stabilizing by their very nature.
Your entire self-paradigm is seen through as an illusion. Everything that you've valued and thought of as the source of happiness and comfort is an illusion. Everything that you wanted to stabilize and solidify is seen through as an illusion due to impermanence. Sensory experience being true and being separate from your mind is seen through as an illusion. All separateness is an illusion. All aversion and craving is an illusion.
These insights (when they become experimental) become traumatic. As a samatha meditator who experiences blissful happiness and joy consistently, it is de-stabilizing to see the happiness as a mere sensation, impermanent, occuring in no-self and entity, and its craving leading to suffering. You spend your entire life chasing happiness but in the end the sensation itself is impermanent and is dissatisfactory.
Now, that doesn't mean a stage 8 TMI meditator spirals down into depression in the face of these insights. You only feel the joy and happiness calm down. Equanimity slightly going down. Feeling a little fatigued and shocked. But that's it. Then you balance this reaction with more jhanic factors like happiness and equanimity and go back to insight penetration. It is a healthy cycle a samatha-vipassana meditator can do. But the same thing can't be done by dry insight meditators. Their only option is to push through and get to awakening in a state of anguish.
And that is the advantage of starting insight practices post stage 7 in TMI. After the effortless stability of attention.
There are 2 reasons for this:
1- First of all, insight meditation is challenging even as a samatha meditator. For a normal person, when he sits down to meditate on impermanence or self enquiry, nothing happens for a reason. You can't even do the technique properly without having enough stability of attention and awareness development. These are not beginner practices. Even if you are successful, there is the issue of how the mind will react to such radical truths.
2- Insight practices can produce A LOT of de-stabilization emotionally and cognitively. A lot of negative emotional sensations will start to pervade your entire life until awakening is realized if you are not a skilled jhana and samatha meditator.
I can meditate into relaxation, joy and happiness after a traumatic insight experience but that is because I've spent years developing the skills necessary to live in a jhanic state all day. This is a post stage 8 attainment in TMI. And it saves you from feeling prolonged states of sadness and lack of motivation in the face of insight. That is why we develop samatha in the first place.
Another advantage is that insight becomes effortless in advanced samatha. Your access to these insights are enhanced SIGNIFICANTLY. Samatha and insight literally fuses together.
Finally, here are some commentary from Daniel Ingram on the samatha path. Realize that not even insight-oriented meditation teachers (like Daniel Ingram) can dispute and deny the value and importance of Samatha skills:
'Insight practices are designed to penetrate the Three Illusions of permanence, satisfactoriness and separate self so as to attain freedom. Insight practices (various types of vipassana, dzogchen, zazen, etc.) lead to the progressive stages of the progress of insight. Insight practices tend to be difficult and somewhat disconcerting, as they are designed to deconstruct our deluded and much cherished views of the world and ourselves, though they can sometimes be outrageously blissful for frustratingly short periods.
Concentration states are basically always some permutation of great fun, extremely fascinating, seductive, spacious, blissful, peaceful, spectacular, etc. There is basically no limit to how interesting concentration practices can be. Insight practice stages and revelations can also be very interesting, but are not potentially addictive the way concentration states and side effects can be. Insight practices tend to be hard work most of the time even if that work is just surrendering to things as they are.So long as one is very clear about what is concentration practice and what is insight practice, which may not be as easy an understanding to come by as some might think, concentration practice beyond the first jhana can be helpful to the insight practitioner. All of the concentration states stabilize the mind, obviously, and this has four primary benefits. First, just as a movie camera that is shaking wildly will not be likely to produce a clear or intelligible movie, so a mind that won’t stay settled on an object will not clearly perceive the ultimate truth of it. Second, as concentration states cultivate deep clarity and stability on content, they are very useful for promoting deep and healing psychological insights. Put another way, if you want to bring up your stuff, do concentration practices.
Third, concentration states can be a welcome and valid vacation from stress, providing periods of very deep relaxation and peace that can be an extremely important part of a sane, compassionate and healthy lifestyle. The Buddha highly praised those who had mastery of the concentration states, and this should serve as a reminder to those who underestimate their great value or erroneously feel that not enjoying one’s life is somehow “spiritual.” Fourth, concentration practices can help the insight practitioner stay somewhat more mentally stable and balanced as their old concepts of their existence are rent asunder by insight practice. However, if these states end up blocking this process by solidifying a sense of self as being anything or creating aversion to clearly experiencing suffering then they become a hindrance.
This is a very tricky balance. If a student clings to stability or fluidity they will surely not make progress in insight. However, if they plunge into the fast and harsh vibratory experiences of insight practice without the soothing effects of concentration practice to help them stay somewhat grounded, the student can be a bit like someone who has taken a small dose (or a big dose in the worst cases) of LSD or drunk way too much coffee. I spent the first five years of my practice giving only a moderate amount of attention to the samatha jhanas and I now realize that this was probably an error.
Sometimes spiritual openings can be extreme and dramatic, and being able to slow things down and calm down can sometimes be very useful and skillful if we have to deal with the world and deal with these openings at the same time. In short, if you want to gunk up your insight practice because you simply need to slow down so as to be able to get on with your life or not completely flip out, such as to study for medical school boards, etc., one way to do this is to indulge in concentration states. Coupling this with formal resolutions to not make progress in insight can be very effective'Here is how to balance insight and samatha practices in 4 steps:
1- Whenever the psyche is too de-stabilized and your spiral down into negative states of mind, it is time to do more jhana and samatha practices. Look for the joy. You can't find it? Re-create it. Focus on it. You must have a lot of skill in experiencing meditative joy prior to insight practices.
2- Whenever you feel stable, concentrated, motivated and happy enough to try insight practices, get started on noting, self enquiry, meditation on mental states, mahamudra etc. to see into the three characteristics of sensate reality.
3- If a breakthrough occurs, great! Keep it up. Keep going deeper.
4- If overwhelming negative emotions, states and thoughts starts to arise, stop insight practices temporarily.Go back to step 1.
Repeat this cycle. Eventually, both your samatha and insight skills will be very advanced as months and years go by.
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Rather than the phrasing, try to understand how the consciousness is supposed to change with this sort of question.
This is a challenging practice even for adept meditators. If it makes no change in your consciousness, come back to it later and develop other skills for now.
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5 hours ago, Consilience said:if you were to explain this to a teacher such as Mooji and he asked you at the end, who is the one that is aware of this absence of knower, how would you respond?
@ConsilienceI didn't want to give the sense that there is something that is aware of the absence of knower. The probable cessation experience prior to awakening doesn't constitute any subject or object. There is zero thing-ness.
So from a subjective point of view, this is how you see the absence of knower. By actually reducing the overwhelming sense of being a self who is in control and is separate from the object. This is the aim of this insight practice.
I'd respond as there is no fixated self that is aware of a knower at the moment of realization. But until then, one will continue to feel like a self. That is the delusion we are trying to overcome.
There is no distinction between true self and no self. So what Mooji calls as true self arises when the 'self' as a thing that exists in time and space disappears.
So when you realize the no-self sufficiently with the other insights like emptiness, impermanence, suffering, causal dependency, oneness etc. you also realize true-self.
True self basically means you are infinite and everything. But that also means you are no longer a personal self because you can't be located in time and space.
Actually, the true 'self' in that phrase is inaccurate. Self is so expanded that there actually is no self in the normal sense of the word.
Both are god realization.
So there is no contradiction.
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In this post, I'll share a powerful insight practice that is similar to self-inquiry. It is the vipassana version of self-inquiry because it leads to the same insight: no-self
And before you ask, this is not the gone technique Shinzen teaches. He gives that as a self-inquiry alternative in vipassana. Even though that is a powerful impermanence related insight practice, it doesn't quite correspond to self-inquiry intentions which is to realize there is no experiencer, self and knower.
I've realized this while I was meditating and reading books. It came off as an elegant systematic practice I could do every day both in daily life and formal sits. With this version, you can actually maintain it in daily life with Samatha rather than constantly asking the question 'Who am I?' It is also compatible with TMI.
As always, this is not a beginner-friendly technique. Stage 6 in TMI mastery as a bare minimum is recommended. So subtle distractions and dullness must be overcome to a moderate degree so that the mind is sharp, focused, aware and is energized. Whole-body awareness must be strong for the technique to be effective. So if you have problems feeling the whole body with awareness, this will probably not work.
The most common issue is negative emotional sensations. That is the whole point of jhanic factors like happiness and equanimity. So get started on these as soon as possible. They are not only enabling the application of these sorts of insight practices but they are intrinsically rewarding themselves because you are reducing craving with jhana factors.
I call the technique: The Known, Knowing and Knower
There is a 3 step process to it.
1- The Known: A person, a self is made up of sequences of mental and physical sensations that arise and pass away moment by moment. In your direct experience, there are only changing conscious experiences. In the first phase, you notice and bring awareness to each of these conscious experiences.
You realize that there are 2 discernable components in each experience. The object of consciousness and conscious awareness that knows that object.
Each sensation first appears in awareness before attention goes there. Attention is creating mentally constructed scopes called 'objects' and awareness knows the arising and passing away of these objects and guides attention with intentions.
Spend some time in whole body awareness, investigating the momentarily changing experience. Get to a jhana state. Watch the joy and happiness momentarily arising constantly. Realize that there are always very subtle changes in conscious experience regardless of how stable something might feel. Try to just tune in to that changing-ness while still maintaining joy and happiness.
2- The Knowing: This is awareness. You drop the attentional investigation of sensory experience and just realize that what you think of as a self is just the conscious awareness of knowing the object.
There actually is no knower. There is only the awareness of knowing an object.
In this phase, the attention turns into the fact of knowing the objects.
This is the crux of the technique. So, if you can't contact this part of the instruction in direct experience, the technique won't work.
Again, just observe at this stage that there are 2 main components to this changing experience.
- The objects of consciousness - The Known
( In TMI terms: Momentary attentional investigation similar to noting with awareness / Whole Body Breathing)
- The knowing of those objects - The Knowing
(In TMI terms: The fusing of attention and awareness with an emphasis on metacognitive awareness)
- But there is no knower, experiencer, sef and agent.
3- The Absence of Knower: This is the final phase where you really contrast the last insight realized in the prior stage.
- The objects of consciousness - The Known
- The knowing of those objects - The Knowing
- But there is no knower, experiencer, sef and agent.
You focus on how there is no knower.
You realize that you have been confusing the knowing of objects as the knower and experiencer.
By constantly examining the object and knowing dynamic, you have an insight into how the self is a mind-made add on to conscious experience for the ease of survival purposes. It is a pervasive illusion that also creates the feeling of being a seperate self.
The objects and the consciousness of those objects can never be separated
Yes, we infer the continued existence of certain objects when we are no longer conscious of them, but when you think deeply about it, ultimately that’s nothing but an unverifiable assumption. For all we really know, the object ceases to exist between the time we stop being conscious of it and the next time we become conscious of it again.
And as for consciousness existing apart from one of the two kinds of objects – sensations or mental objects – this is also totally absent from experience. Put more simply, there is no consciousness other than “consciousness of…”
Furthermore, not only is there no possible separation of the object from the mental process of knowing it, neither is there any separate “knower” that can be identified. The knower, the knowing, and the known all arise in total dependence upon one another, but only the knowing and the known are experienced directly.
The knower is totally absent from experience, it is something added by the mind itself, and is a mere idea.
In other words, there are only sensations and mental objects, and a mental process of knowing these objects, and apart from these objects and the knowing of them, there is no separate person.
In the final phase, you re-observe this experiential understanding over and over again until the insight into no-self arises.
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And as always, practice in a state of relaxation, joy and diligence.
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@SirVladimir Let's take a look at a deeper issue implicit in your post.
Every single momentary present moment experience is heavily tainted and colored by craving and self-clinging. This results in suffering on a momentary basis regardless of heroin levels of pleasure that might exist in the nervous system.
Now, with that intensity of pleasure, the suffering can be temporarily reduced so radically that it can give the illusion that it is entirely gone but we all experience craving and therefore suffering to a varying degree.
One possible spiritual investigation that will solidify this insight is a meditation on mental states. You need a lot of skill to do this reliably but the technique is simple:
'Be aware of mental states, reactions, craving levels and emotions on a momentary basis with metacognitive awareness 24/7 especially as you are moving around and doing stuff.'
You'll realize that without monitoring craving levels to such a microscopic extent, the insight into suffering will be immature. You think you are spiritually talented because there are no perceptible trauma and negative emotional sensations, but that is only gross suffering. There are subtler layers of suffering that is intimately linked to self-clinging and craving. The more you reduce craving and increase equanimity, the more you realize you need to reduce craving even more.
Every action you have done up to this moment has been motivated by craving, suffering and self-clinging. You are currently reading this text in a state of craving and suffering.
You've never had a single moment of absolute satisfaction and took an action afterward. Craving is so omnipresent in our intention, movements, thoughts, emotions and actions that you think you are happy and relatively neurosis-free, but every time you walk to the bathroom or speak to someone, you are momentarily experiencing craving, discomfort and suffering.
Meditation on mental states is a powerful adept practice that strengthens metacognitive awareness, directly reduces craving, suffering and increases joy and satisfaction on a momentary basis.
Other people are experiencing dark night experiences because they are struggling to integrate insights into no-self, impermanence and emptiness with neurotic psyches. They have encountered these insights too quickly without doing the necessary purification work and now trying to do the purification work as most of their baggage is arising in consciousness while traumatic insights into no-self are creating feelings of meaninglessness and dissatisfaction.
Also, this is a rare pathological problem. Dark night is not something everyone has. If a lot of people in a room is claiming to have a legit dark night, they misunderstand the intensity and depth of such an experience. Some amount of meaninglessness and suffering as a mental reaction to spiritual truths are normal and are expected on the path of insight.
Another great tip is to ask yourself and investigate sensory experience with this question:
'Where are the craving and suffering right at this moment? Where is the discomfort? Where do I feel discontentment?'
This question will strengthen metacognitive awareness if you have the skills to do the proper investigation afterwards.
I wish you well in your spiritual journey
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3 hours ago, ADD said:@ardacigin Valid points. What do you think about reminding yourself to be present at everyday life? I try to bring awareness to my daily activities as often as i can.
@ADDReminding in terms of thinking 'Oh, I need to be mindful let me focus on the present moment experience' or being mindful metacognitively with awareness without falling down to unconsciousness.
If it is the former, it is not bad on theory. But in practice, it has the potential to facilitate monkey mind. But it can also have the effect of labelling sort of noting practice. 'I'm now drinking tea.' - I'm looking at a bird etc.
So conceptual reference about the present moment is helpful as long as you can shut off that internal commentary and just metacognitively notice the present moment.
If it is the latter, that is great. But make sure the metacognitive awareness is as unbroken as possible. This is usually done either through introspective or extrospective awareness. So either you have stellar awareness on external sights, sounds and touch or stellar awareness on mind states, emotions, craving levels, emotions, movements of attention and awareness on cognitive processes.
Or you can get mindfulness to the next level and combine both introspective and extrosptective awareness in an optimal level and maintain that, however we are talking about late stage 9 and stage 10 TMI practice at this point.
This requires a lot of mental energy and is basically a light form of non-dual consciousness. The body sensations are starting to be seen as a mental construction. You barely feel the body sensations. The mind has little to no mental activity. Physical and mental pliancy goes through the roof in a state of open spacious awareness in effortlessness with joy, happiness, contentment and equanimity. Joy and happiness can disappear depending on how much of the body sensations are gone.
This is quite challenging even for me as a stage 8 meditator. I understand what a stage 10 meditator does with this but this amount of integration of all these skills at the same time is beyond my current skill level. I've gotten close to this integration in formal sits but it requires more physical pliancy on my part. And more equanimity obviously.
In other words, this means a stage 10 TMI meditator can easily do a 4 hour SDS sit. With ease. We are talking about some serious mastery here. I certainly can do 1.5 and 2 hour SDS sits but 3-4 hours SDS requires a deeper level of mindfulness. Like the one I'm describing above.
But at that level of mastery, your metacognitive awareness will be so strong that you will stay mindful all day more deeply. That is where you ultimately want to go to. But conceptual reminders are very important in the beginning.
Just shut the commentary after being aware and try to revert to a nonverbal perception as much as you can in daily life.
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15 minutes ago, Raptorsin7 said:@ardacigin Which book should i read first? Leigh's book or TMI?
Leigh's book is shorter. Read that quickly but get started on TMI as well.
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Just to clarify how important TMI is, I've heard that Leigh Brasington views the sort of radical baseline in happiness I'm talking about here to be very advanced even as a jhana meditator.
That is because jhana meditation Leigh teaches is different from Culadasa's TMI technique. Samatha factors as a whole are very powerful. In jhana meditation, unification of mind and samatha factors are not that well developed. You don't have to get to effortlessness of TMI stage 7. But due to this, the practice is not as powerful. So do jhana practice everyday with TMI. Both are really important if you want the sort of persistent happiness I'm talking about in these posts
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1 minute ago, Raptorsin7 said:@ardacigin Can you link some of the happiness jhana practice from Leigh Brasington
Of course. First, watch Leigh's lecture here in its entirety. This is an amazing lecture. Just skip the first few mins of introduction.
He describes the 4 jhanas here somewhere in the middle. 4 jhanas corresponds to more or less stage 7-8-9-10 in TMI. But they are more powerful forms of jhana and can pervade your entire life due to unification of mind. So keep that in mind. TMI matters a lot if you want to bring this to daily life.
After watching it, read Leigh's book 'The Right Concentration'. Then if you have issues understanding certain things, feel free to ask me your questions
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33 minutes ago, Raptorsin7 said:@Buba If you are using meditation as a way to cure your unhappiness then listen to this guy's post. I am like you. I used meditation to seek happiness and joy because I was unsatisfied with life. I am at a point where i'm seeking enlightenment but I don't even get joy and happiness from meditation. I would have been much wiser to do something like this from the star, but I didn't know you could systematically create happiness like this from meditation.
@ardacigin Should i do a long 3 or 4 hour single sit first and see if my state changes significantly before i buy The Mind Illuminated. and try to do the happiness practices there?
I'm slightly conflicted about this. In my personal experience, I've never EVER tried any jhanic practices. Joy and happiness were almost entirely absent in my practice. One day, I've decided to do 4 hour hardcore TMI sessions and happiness started to pervade my entire life. ı was around stage 6-7 at that time. Only after the fact have I realized how important joy and happiness are on the spiritual path. So if I were to advise myself 5 years ago before starting the path, I'd say: 'Smile every time you meditate and learn relaxation more deeply'
But I didn't do that so all of my current gains are from TMI. Happiness and jhana practices Leigh Brasington teach also requires moderate levels of stable attention to access as well. So it is not easy to do jhana on the level I'm talking about. But once you get to stage 6-7 on TMI, that is the perfect time to do a lot of hardcore jhana practice.
Until then, I don't see any benefit in experiencing sadness, frustration and suffering in meditation. So starting from stage 1, all TMI meditators must bring more joy, happiness. You need to find what does bring that. For me, smile is huge. I've used to hate smiling pre-stage 8. Even when I was accessing effortless concentration in stage 7, I was like 'Where the hell are happiness and joy Culadasa talks about!!!'
But right in that transition point in that 4 hour session, things have shifted.
I recommend doing a 4 hour session as I've described in my earlier posts. 3 posture rotation technique. Just remember that this was my own personal record for uninterrupted session and I was CRAZY motivated before starting. So you might need to watch a lot of solitary confinement and meditation videos before attempting this
It was painful but I've been living in a drug state ever since. I don't want to fetishize these stuff but this is legit awesome and my life satisfaction is increased by 100 times. I can't downplay something that reduces craving so radically.
Technique wise, I suggest doing TMI as your main practice. On the side doing, Leigh Brasington's jhanas. Always smile in meditation regardless of what meditation you are doing. In fact, forget about formal sessions. Get used to smiling slightly in daily life. This is the basis of jhana mastery. Teaching the nervous system to create positive emotional sensations and maintain them. That actually builds crazy levels of stable attention and awareness due to positive feedback loop.
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Doing vipassana is great but dry insight approach can create a lot of negative emotions and issues even after legit awakenings. Look at Daniel Ingram and his emphasis on dark night of the soul.
I also know people that experience a lot issues integrating the insights into emptiness and no-self in the dry insight approach. That doesn't mean samatha vipassana styles like TMI doesn't lead to integration issues with these insights. Awakening has a price of admission either way. But samatha masters go through the progression of insight in a more pleasurable and gentler way.
From personal experience, my emotional health is close to awakening levels as Samatha factors are getting more ingrained in the nervous system. Effortless access to jhana basically means activating anti-depressant levels of pleasure in the mind at will and maintaining that with contentment on top of that from waking up to going to bed.
Initially that sort of a thing can be effortless, but then a lot of hardcore mindfulness is needed to maintain that as months go by.
I don't want to say that this is advanced stuff but this sort of emotional mastery is not too common at the initial stages of awakening (stream entry etc.) Samatha mastery is not to be downplayed. Craving can reduce very radically.
A stage 10 TMI master can actually be regarded as awake on a skill-based level. Not actual insight wise but in terms of the skills you need for awakening, it just gives you incredible levels of consciousness on demand consistently. But you are not completely free of suffering until there is no self so that is why vipassana is essential. Samatha skills by themselves only go so far. You need to investigate and go deeper with those skills as a foundation.
Now, how will a samatha master react to the truth of no-self when it arises as an insight? Depression and meaningless? Initially, yes. This is a traumatic experience that undermines all of your egoic agendas. The entirety of your life dissolves into meaningless. But you integrate the no-self deeper and get to bliss faster if you are Samatha master already.
What happens as a dry insight meditators, noting sensations without stable attention and sufficient awareness? You still get to the insight into no self, but you get stuck in the meaningless and negative emotional sensations. Then you need to deal with dark night sort of issues for a while until awareness gets to sufficient levels. Then you get to bliss. But at that point you master samatha.
So the question is, will you do the work now and master samatha or do it after the traumatic insight into no-self, suffering , impermanence and emptiness,?
The safest and the most pleasurable path is to do the samatha mastery first. It is harder and requires more discipline initially but it is worth it. I understand dry insight meditators doing noting practices and self enquiry all the time but I'm seeing a lot of people experiencing issues integrating insight into daily life. So I recommend samatha mastery strongly to everyone. And to add the vipassana component, I think TMI is a great manual.
It integrates all this and does so in a scientific but non-materialistic way.
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42 minutes ago, Buba said:Thank you Arda very much. But how is it possible? I have deep rooted beliefs which make me suffer. That is why I was doing vipassana to uproot them. Even on cocaine I could see those beliefs torturing me, despite the euphoria induced by the drug. How can janas make me happy then?
And dont too much concentration practices hinder insight practices?
@BubaOkay. One of the key insights you'll have is that pleasure without contentment + equanimity doesn't lead to anything. You don't feel truly happy. That dopamine high is not delivering that satisfaction you want. That is why the pleasure of a drug doesn't fulfill you. There is a lot of craving and suffering in the psyche.
You want true fulfillment? Get to a nice jhana state. Really stabilize that joy and happiness in the mind. Now bring a lot of mindfulness, metacognitive awareness, contentment and equanimity. Add that whole body awareness as well. Stabilize those samatha factors.
Then you'll experience more satisfaction comparing to your heroin experience full of craving. The pleasure is less, but enjoyment is 10 times higher due to the RADICAL reduction in craving.
By the way, the happiness of meditative joy and jhanas are on drug levels, but they are not as intense as heroin. Both are increased opioid production in the brain but heroin binds receptors in a different way than naturally induced endorphins.
This insight sounds simple. Shinzen turned into an equation. It seems easy. But this is profound stuff once you experience this all the time. There is pleasure in the mind body. And I have 2 options.
1- I can crave and suffer.
2- I can relax into the experience, crank up the metacognitive awareness, body awareness, contentment and equanimity and decrease craving. As a result suffering is decreased. Satisfaction is increased.
Concentration practices are done with the intention of developing the samatha factors I've described above. It aids insight practices. It hinders only if you get into dull states of minds with concentration and not develop any awareness with it.
Awareness is the name of the game in the higher stages. Stable attention is how you systematically train awareness.
Hope this was useful. Again, read TMI to get a deeper understanding of this material.
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The reality of the situation is that meditation requires discipline, consistency and proper technique according to the student. And a lot of time is needed.
If you are taking a 3-month retreat meditating 10 + hours a day and REALLY applying the techniques properly, experiencing the growth systematically and still think you got more consciousness from a few psychedelic trips, you are doing it wrong. The techniques are not working. I'm talking about the baseline increase in consciousness. Not the peak experience of insight.
Also, if you think 1 hour a day is anything serious, you need to realize that people do retreats for a reason. Crank up the intensity. You need tangible skills to do get anywhere and from what I'm observing with people, they do practices without diligence. Doing self enquiry for a 15 mins changing it to breath meditation for 10 mins and doing some labeling and ending it with do-noting.
You miss the point. The momentum of all these practices are interrupted by the next technique. That is what we call dabbling. Stable attention and concentration development is the name of the game in the beginning stages. The multi-perspectival approach which is great is turning into a way to just spice up the boredom and restlessness of stable attention as a dabbler.
The hard work is maintaining that stable attention. Then you add the awareness. Then you learn how to maintain them together. Distracting thoughts start to fall away. Sleepiness starts to go away. The mind is energized. Then you get to effortlessness. Then joy and happiness arises. Then contentment arises. Then equanimity and insights starts to arise.
Try to get more serious about meditation. Using psychedelics must be done responsibly.
Also yoga and meditation are not distinct practices. One is not more powerful than the other just because yoga introduces body movements and postures. They are both extremely powerful. In a yoga posture, you are not thinking about stuff. If you are, then you are not ready to maintain attention in yogıc posture and body movements. Again, learn to stabilize attention first. Then do the yoga postures.
You can do kriya yoga like that for 10 years and just like meditation, not get anywhere. Kriya yoga is not a magic pill. It requires as much diligence as mindfulness meditation. If kriya yoga is 100 times easier to practice than sitting meditation, then you are doing kriya yoga without mindfulness like a physical exercise. And that won't get you anywhere.
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@moon777light Mindfulness in daily life is admittedly radically easier once you are experiencing a lot of joy but that is not required. What is required is the metacognitive awareness. So using joy to develop this faculty in daily life is a powerful practice. But you should be able to just MAX metacognitive awareness with as little emotional content as possible. Similar to 4rth jhana work. I've realized that the former is emotional purification and the latter is insight practice. And they are both crucial.
After you get that foundation, neither pleasure nor pain increases craving too much. But you also need to address emotional impurities like frustration, impatience etc. while you are developing this equanimity. Once you have an experiential understanding of how this awareness feels like, the process becomes clearer and easier.
Just practice the skill of slowing your movements down, getting into the body holistically, knowing the general emotional tone of the mind and knowing what attention is doing in daily life with movement. Do all this very slowly. This is basically a taste of metacognitive awareness. The more you can hold these in consciousness at the same time, the more developed mindfulness will get.