Last night at the weekly meeting of our local sangha, to mark the new year, we took the refuges and the precepts. Then, we tied red strings around each other's wrists. Rodney, our guiding teacher, said to reflect upon our deepest intention as our string was tied.
Over the past ten years I've frequently struggled to formulate what my deepest intention is. Initially, it was "to suffer less". That was why I was meditating. I tried to think of a more noble intention, but if I was honest with myself, that was my intention. As the years passed and my daily suffering decreased (yes, it did), this intention faded, but another did not arise. I experimented with "to become a more compassionate person". To me, to be compassionate is to resonate with other beings and to feel less separate from them. I love it when I can be compassionate; it is one of the best experiences in life, if not the best.
A couple of times over the last year I have reflected on the goals I had when I was a child. "To know God" was always among them. It was perhaps my highest goal, yet I didn't know how to pursue it. Eventually I abandoned it as I came to the conclusion that there was no evidence for the existence of God.
Yet the urge to merge with the divine has persisted. I have longed to lose what I think of as my self, to drop the burden of personhood, to push aside the veil that separates me from the rest of the universe. I can articulate this urge without reference to God, yet "to merge with the divine" did not seem like a worthy highest intention. It seemed selfish and dangerous.
Last night we were only given a minute or two to formulate our deepest intention. I stepped out into thin air and decided upon -- "to know God".
Wednesday, January 4, 2012
Tuesday, January 3, 2012
Sleepiness
I wish someone would write a book about the role of sleepiness in a meditation practice. Sleepiness is usually explained as an extreme manifestation of the hindrance, "sloth and torpor". Commonly recommended strategies for dealing with sleepiness include "raising one's energy" (how the heck does one do that?), exercising before meditating, opening the eyes slightly for a while, standing for a while, redoubling efforts to observe the meditation object, abandoning the desire to sleep, and investigating the experience of sleepiness. Sometimes a nap is recommended, but usually the advice is that if one has had enough nighttime sleep, a nap is not called for.
I have tried all these strategies to little avail. Standing does help make it easier to stay awake, but it's usually pretty unpleasant and the meditation done in this state doesn't seem to be of good quality (though I could well be wrong about this). I use standing as a strategy for toughing out the remainder of the sitting period when I am meditating in a group. I have taken lots of naps, guiltily, because I usually have had enough nighttime sleep. I've found that a 20-30 minute nap will usually allow me to stay awake for another few hours, but waking myself up after that short a period can be painful. If I let myself nap as long as I wish, the nap will commonly last for 1.5 to 3.5 hours, and I've done that as well on many an occasion.
After my retreat at Forest Refuge, a fellow retreatant shared that the first time he entered the very deep first jhana taught by Pa Auk Sayadaw, it was during the transition from sleep to wakefulness. He posited (and I hope I'm recalling this correctly) that it was the relaxation of this state that allowed jhana.
Indeed, this reminded me of some experiences I'd had on that same retreat, when I chose not to fight sleepiness in the meditation hall, but just to allow myself to slip in and out of sleep while sitting. I found that sometimes, when I did this, I seemed to rotate among three mental states: sleep, jhana, and access concentration. In my case, what I called "jhana" was not the full absorption taught by the Sayadaw, but some lesser state of absorption.
Over the two months since I emerged from this retreat, my ability to use sleepiness, rather than fight it, has developed. I'm not sure whether this is a result of a conscious change of attitude, or whether it's some other change that's happened on its own. But over the past few weeks, sleepiness just has not been a problem for me in meditation. First, I have not gotten sleepy during my early morning meditations at all since I emerged from retreat, whereas during the last half of the retreat, I'd usually get sleepy if I did the 4:30 a.m. sitting. Second, when I do get sleepy during meditation, usually in the afternoon or evening, I actually welcome it, because somehow I don't feel the need to struggle with it anymore, and it does allow my analytic mind to settle down easily. I am then more able to observe the ever-changing nature of things, presumably because my conscious mind isn't constantly grasping at them.
One of my fellow retreatants used to spend most of the day in an easy chair in the library. She appeard to be dozing. I pitied her, figuring that she was not able to get anything out of the retreat and was just trying to pass the time. I considered writing a note to our teachers alerting them to her plight and urging them to talk to her about whether she might be better off going home. But I figured that possibly her home life was even worse and that she was staying on retreat to escape. Better not to interfere, I thought. One day during the last week I gave her a chocolate bar to help her feel less alone.
To my surprise, at retreat's end I learned that this woman was actually meditating very effectively in that easy chair, and that she had apparently made steady progress under Sayadaw's direction!
So much for the importance of sitting in an alert posture. Perhaps an alert posture is important for beginners, but perhaps once one has developed a certain level of concentration, it can be fine, or even better, to adopt a relaxed posture, and perhaps to allow in some sleepiness.
I have tried all these strategies to little avail. Standing does help make it easier to stay awake, but it's usually pretty unpleasant and the meditation done in this state doesn't seem to be of good quality (though I could well be wrong about this). I use standing as a strategy for toughing out the remainder of the sitting period when I am meditating in a group. I have taken lots of naps, guiltily, because I usually have had enough nighttime sleep. I've found that a 20-30 minute nap will usually allow me to stay awake for another few hours, but waking myself up after that short a period can be painful. If I let myself nap as long as I wish, the nap will commonly last for 1.5 to 3.5 hours, and I've done that as well on many an occasion.
After my retreat at Forest Refuge, a fellow retreatant shared that the first time he entered the very deep first jhana taught by Pa Auk Sayadaw, it was during the transition from sleep to wakefulness. He posited (and I hope I'm recalling this correctly) that it was the relaxation of this state that allowed jhana.
Indeed, this reminded me of some experiences I'd had on that same retreat, when I chose not to fight sleepiness in the meditation hall, but just to allow myself to slip in and out of sleep while sitting. I found that sometimes, when I did this, I seemed to rotate among three mental states: sleep, jhana, and access concentration. In my case, what I called "jhana" was not the full absorption taught by the Sayadaw, but some lesser state of absorption.
Over the two months since I emerged from this retreat, my ability to use sleepiness, rather than fight it, has developed. I'm not sure whether this is a result of a conscious change of attitude, or whether it's some other change that's happened on its own. But over the past few weeks, sleepiness just has not been a problem for me in meditation. First, I have not gotten sleepy during my early morning meditations at all since I emerged from retreat, whereas during the last half of the retreat, I'd usually get sleepy if I did the 4:30 a.m. sitting. Second, when I do get sleepy during meditation, usually in the afternoon or evening, I actually welcome it, because somehow I don't feel the need to struggle with it anymore, and it does allow my analytic mind to settle down easily. I am then more able to observe the ever-changing nature of things, presumably because my conscious mind isn't constantly grasping at them.
One of my fellow retreatants used to spend most of the day in an easy chair in the library. She appeard to be dozing. I pitied her, figuring that she was not able to get anything out of the retreat and was just trying to pass the time. I considered writing a note to our teachers alerting them to her plight and urging them to talk to her about whether she might be better off going home. But I figured that possibly her home life was even worse and that she was staying on retreat to escape. Better not to interfere, I thought. One day during the last week I gave her a chocolate bar to help her feel less alone.
To my surprise, at retreat's end I learned that this woman was actually meditating very effectively in that easy chair, and that she had apparently made steady progress under Sayadaw's direction!
So much for the importance of sitting in an alert posture. Perhaps an alert posture is important for beginners, but perhaps once one has developed a certain level of concentration, it can be fine, or even better, to adopt a relaxed posture, and perhaps to allow in some sleepiness.
Anatta!
Last night I slept lightly, and shortly before 4:00, in a state between sleep and wakefulness, I observed my left arm reach to my face to rub or scratch an itch ... and it didn't feel like "I" was doing it! I don't recall having an experience quite like this before. It was surreal and a little freaky, but I also recognized it immediately as something very positive, and tried to embrace it rather than panic. I then sat up and meditated for 2 hours, a kind of dreamy, wandering observation of my experience. Usually "dreaminess" and "wandering" is discouraged in meditation, but in this case it seemed like the right way to go; this approach seemed to help quiet my analytic mind (though there certainly was a lot of chatter nevertheless). The not-self experience didn't repeat, but for a lot of the session I perceived sensations to be very fluid and changing, at times very beautiful.
Anatta is a Pali word which means something like "not-self", or the notion that the self is insubstantial, that there is no material thing or mental formation which could be said to be "mine". Don't quote me, I'm a total beginner on this stuff.
Anatta is a Pali word which means something like "not-self", or the notion that the self is insubstantial, that there is no material thing or mental formation which could be said to be "mine". Don't quote me, I'm a total beginner on this stuff.
Wednesday, December 28, 2011
Buddhists die harder
At the weekly gathering of the Seattle sangha last night, guiding teacher Rodney Smith made a disturbing observation. He used to be a hospice worker, and he said, "The people who had the hardest time dying were the ones who thought of themselves as most spiritual. And Buddhists -- they were the worst of the lot! They'd be thinking that they should be balanced and equanimous when everything was terrible and what they really needed to do was SCREAM!"
Maybe Buddhist training, at least in America, isn't really accomplishing what we think it's accomplishing.
Maybe Buddhist training, at least in America, isn't really accomplishing what we think it's accomplishing.
Why I feel more dedicated to practice than before retreat
I am trying to figure out why, after a very difficult and at times very unpleasant two months, I am inspired to be more dedicated to practice. Is it simply, as Eric quipped, something like the Stockholm Syndrome, where I developed an affinity for the thing that caused me discomfort?
I don't think so. But some of my motivation may be unwholesome, and I should face that squarely.
Contained within the unpleasant overall retreat experience were some very pleasant episodes, experiences of bliss and rapture. Now, after retreat, I have not felt what I'd call bliss or rapture, but I have found ordinary life to be unusually pleasant. Sometimes, just looking at a cloud, or the moon, or a tree, adds pleasure to the act of breathing. Meditation now routinely brings pleasant physical sensations whereas before it did not. So one draw is pleasure. This is not necessarily an unwholesome motivation, but it's worth being aware of.
I sometimes see people's facial expressions in greater detail than before retreat, and they seem more human and kind to me.
I can be entertained by watching my morning oatmeal cook.
I can let emotions pass through me quickly and easily in a way that previously was totally unfamiliar to me.
It made me very happy on retreat to be able to see certain thought processes very clearly, to see how they caused me suffering, and to be able to interrupt them. I like to see the truth of things. I don't see those processes in that detail anymore, but it's quite possible that I've created new habits of interrupting them and that these new habits are contributing to a happier life now.
So ... it's quite possible that all of the above effects are temporary, part of what I call retreat afterglow. I've never seen afterglow last longer than 6 weeks, and I've never experienced such intense effects, but then I've never before done a retreat longer than 2 weeks. What if these effects go away? Will I continue to be motivated to practice intensively, and, if so, what will motivate me?
I've been a seeker of truth ever since I can remember, since I was a young child. I first sought truth in Catholicism, with which I'd been raised. I so wanted to see truth there, and I kept looking and asking questions, but by age 18 I was completely disillusioned. It seems, though, that there is some truth to be found by following the Buddhist path, and I saw evidence of that on my retreat. Or ... I think I did. Hmmm. More pondering to be done here.
I don't think so. But some of my motivation may be unwholesome, and I should face that squarely.
Contained within the unpleasant overall retreat experience were some very pleasant episodes, experiences of bliss and rapture. Now, after retreat, I have not felt what I'd call bliss or rapture, but I have found ordinary life to be unusually pleasant. Sometimes, just looking at a cloud, or the moon, or a tree, adds pleasure to the act of breathing. Meditation now routinely brings pleasant physical sensations whereas before it did not. So one draw is pleasure. This is not necessarily an unwholesome motivation, but it's worth being aware of.
I sometimes see people's facial expressions in greater detail than before retreat, and they seem more human and kind to me.
I can be entertained by watching my morning oatmeal cook.
I can let emotions pass through me quickly and easily in a way that previously was totally unfamiliar to me.
It made me very happy on retreat to be able to see certain thought processes very clearly, to see how they caused me suffering, and to be able to interrupt them. I like to see the truth of things. I don't see those processes in that detail anymore, but it's quite possible that I've created new habits of interrupting them and that these new habits are contributing to a happier life now.
So ... it's quite possible that all of the above effects are temporary, part of what I call retreat afterglow. I've never seen afterglow last longer than 6 weeks, and I've never experienced such intense effects, but then I've never before done a retreat longer than 2 weeks. What if these effects go away? Will I continue to be motivated to practice intensively, and, if so, what will motivate me?
I've been a seeker of truth ever since I can remember, since I was a young child. I first sought truth in Catholicism, with which I'd been raised. I so wanted to see truth there, and I kept looking and asking questions, but by age 18 I was completely disillusioned. It seems, though, that there is some truth to be found by following the Buddhist path, and I saw evidence of that on my retreat. Or ... I think I did. Hmmm. More pondering to be done here.
Saturday, December 24, 2011
Becoming sensitive
Terry: "Since my retreat, I've felt like my head is in some kind of magnetic field or vortex that draws it forward and down. It takes constant muscular effort to keep it upright."
Eric: "The center of your head is in front of your neck, so it takes effort to keep it upright. You just weren't mindful enough to notice the effort before."
Minutes after this exchange, I broke into laughter. What I had been interpreting as a mysterious, mystical force field has had a name for hundreds of years: gravity.
I've been reading a lot of Buddhist literature lately. Catching up. Two or three writers have mentioned that, as a meditation practice develops, one's sensitivity increases. I realized today that this explains a few things for me. Besides the weird head phenomenon, I also am newly aware that I clench my jaw (on the right side only). I'm also aware of a whole set of sensations and reactions on the right side of my body that seem to be ready to respond to a blow from the upper right. And I notice myself responding with fright and anger whenever anybody enters the house, or when Eric enters our bed.
I think these are good things.
Eric: "The center of your head is in front of your neck, so it takes effort to keep it upright. You just weren't mindful enough to notice the effort before."
Minutes after this exchange, I broke into laughter. What I had been interpreting as a mysterious, mystical force field has had a name for hundreds of years: gravity.
I've been reading a lot of Buddhist literature lately. Catching up. Two or three writers have mentioned that, as a meditation practice develops, one's sensitivity increases. I realized today that this explains a few things for me. Besides the weird head phenomenon, I also am newly aware that I clench my jaw (on the right side only). I'm also aware of a whole set of sensations and reactions on the right side of my body that seem to be ready to respond to a blow from the upper right. And I notice myself responding with fright and anger whenever anybody enters the house, or when Eric enters our bed.
I think these are good things.
Wednesday, December 21, 2011
Continuing to learn to feel
On my retreat, my experience of sensation in my body, especially the right side of my body from head down to abdomen, became more vivid. This has continued to increase and develop since retreat. Last weekend I frequently had periods of an hour or more during which these sensations were not only vivid, but very dynamic, and closely associated with my experience of emotion. I noticed that every few seconds I'd experience an emotion primarily in terms of these sensations, and that with a small mental gesture I could let go of each one as it occurred, making way for the next one. What a gift. For the past 25 years I'd very strongly suspected that my experience of life, and especially of my emotions, was somehow frozen or blocked. I have had several openings over that time, but this one seems especially important and enjoyable.
Today I am having this vivid bodily experience of emotion while doing my work as a computer programmer. Work is usually a part of my life during which I'm especially shut down emotionally. It just has not seemed possible -- until now -- to do my work and experience emotion at the same time. It's remarkable that this beautiful, vivid experience of being alive while working comes immediately after a day, yesterday, when work was particularly frustrating and I felt at the end of the day that probably a lot of intense emotions had come up that I had just habitually suppressed.
I wish I could think and write more on this ... but it's time to get back to work :-)
Today I am having this vivid bodily experience of emotion while doing my work as a computer programmer. Work is usually a part of my life during which I'm especially shut down emotionally. It just has not seemed possible -- until now -- to do my work and experience emotion at the same time. It's remarkable that this beautiful, vivid experience of being alive while working comes immediately after a day, yesterday, when work was particularly frustrating and I felt at the end of the day that probably a lot of intense emotions had come up that I had just habitually suppressed.
I wish I could think and write more on this ... but it's time to get back to work :-)
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