Noble truths as a path of maturation.

I will reflect here on the Four Noble Truths as a process of maturation. I will touch on how I see them interlinking with the maturation process of the Bramha vihara's, Jhana's and Nana's. I am seeing the path as a revelation, with each revelation being an aspect of the path which the next aspect builds upon.

The first Noble truth often explained "there is suffering".This is usually what draws us to the dhamma, this feeling of suffering, incompleteness, unsatisfactory sense of life. As if we have built a house on dodgy foundations, as we walk around the house we get this insecure feeling of the house moving beneath us.
Many approaches to meditation start out with relating to this experience in a way to calm it. What can happen with this is we end up getting caught up in the technique and overlook the conditions which are creating this wobbly foundation. This is very personal as for some keeping the mind on a technique and managing to ignore the conditions of the body and mind seems like an impossible task.So I will speak from my own understanding from my practice or else I am just making assumptions. Myself I was able to become very focused on the breathing process.My mind would lock in and shut as much of the experience I could out initially, this was not healthy.  In reflection, the only benefit this gave me was some altered states which kept me interested in the practice and gave me some self-value for experiencing some of the sideshow glam which comes with meditation. This was not how I was taught mindfulness of breathing this is how my agenda not to feel heard it. As I grew out of this phase I became aware it took a tremendous amount of energy to maintain this suppression of life. I began to allow more of my experience into my awareness.Now, meeting this unsatisfactory experience, I sit with a gentle intention/attention to my experience. Notice my reactivity to my present state of unsatisfactorily-ness. This reactivity I would say is the hindrances(sense desire/ill will/sloth and torpor/restlessness and doubt). I find I have to soften my attention to allow these reactions to be present. This allows me to see what is arising and the reactivity to it. I have found this begins to develop a holistic view of this being I am. Maturing through this understanding of "there is suffering" I notice that what has matured is the quality of my intention/attitude, the kindness/gentleness and care is beginning to stabilize. Metta has become established, What I have also noticed is the hindrances are weakened through the process of becoming familiar with them, the mind has become stabilized and absorbed in this process. It has become absorbed in the stream of arising and passing. Dare I call this Jhana. Also as I reflect on this I notice that the first four of the  Insight knowledge have also been maturing in this process of slow-cooking with gentleness.(Insight knowledges are the 16 nana's found in the Burmese Vipassana and in the Vissudi Magga). Brahma Vihara's are the 4 boundless states or holding fields these are related to the element of space, Metta is kindness/gentleness and care. Karuna is compassion/permission. Mudita is joy arising from release/ appreciation of creativity. Uppeka is equanimity based upon wisdom/positionless in that it does not belong to a centralizing agent, yet is aware of agents arising dependent on conditions.

As we rest here with gentleness/kindness and care. A strength of stability and absorption with this arising, staying and passing away of experience we begin to sense the groundlessness of this experience.  This is where we begin to notice the cause of this suffering. Our ignorance of this groundless state, our reactivity arises out of this not knowing. As we rest here the ego/self-centeredness begins to experience horror and fears in relation to becoming aware of its own impermanence.  These seem to fall in line with the different evolutionary developments of the brain, we are traveling in time through the evolutionary processes of the brain and learning to stabilize awareness in these different phases. We begin to rest with and understand this primal sense of vulnerability. We begin to notice our sentience and our lack of understanding in regards to it, causes our suffering to arise.In this process, our sense of kindness/gentleness and care matures into a form of compassion, An understanding of as I suffer so do others.Then as we mature more we feel a sense of freedom from these conditioning factors, we experience joy in regards to feeling free, we experience joy and appreciation in regards to this chaotic creative process we call life, we sense beauty and connection which balances the suffering.  In a sense, we are maturing into pure creativity.The strength of our absorption has strengthened as the hindrances are known from a deeper level. In terms of the insight knowledge, we have moved through the next 7. We are resting in a position-less equanimity or drifting in and out of it depending on the supporting conditions. The mind is mature and ripening. I have in talks, and previous blog entry called this the big self.

To have arrived here, we may have taken years of being with our process. Maturing through our kamma. We can not set a time for how long it will take to unfold. We just have to walk into the unknowing.

Nirodha, cessation, whatever we what to call the third truth. This experience of cessation also matures over time so we may not be too clear what actually happened at first. Yet as we mature and we begin to see the conditioning process in more detail. At first, an experience of cessation which gives rise to the perception of not-self can leave us believing not-self and self-are separate yet that is a perception built upon the initial strength of cessation compared to our normal experience of self. As time goes on and the cessation experience becomes familiar these perceptions begin to integrate.So a movement from Nibbana and Samsara being separate to an integrated perception of being selfless/yet functional in the world.

The eightfold path which we probably have been adhering to, to differing degrees become much clearer now. Before cessation it was a map, discovered by someone else which has helped us to monitor our manifestation in the world, helping us to be aware of ourselves and adjust our behavior and develop a deepening sense of self-awareness. What happens now is this path is revealed directly to you as a revelation. This releases attachment to the concept of "path". The perceptions and insights which have arisen walking the conceptual path are now integrated into a holistic view.

I feel there are two aspects of each path link. It is immature and mature. So we start the path with an immature view or little wisdom. As we start out with an awareness of life being unsatisfactory, by keeping this in mind it keeps our practice on the task of understanding suffering. This keeps us on track about what we are doing especially as we begin to mature and feel a degree of ease we may become complacent as the suffering has toned down.

The intention, this to me is basically the basis for the Brahma vihara's, We start out with intending care/kindness and gentleness and these mature as our direct experience matures. Maturing into compassion/ permission this leads on to joy as a condition of release, and an appreciation of the beauty of chaos. this then matures into a positionless equanimity.

Developing mature speech/action and livelihood then grow out of the Bramha vihara's, maturing in relation to the evolution of the Bramha viharas. In this way the different aspects of the path are seen to be maturing out of the previous aspect, this also creates a feedback loop in which each aspect is helping the other to mature and integrate. This maturing in wholesomeness means that we become less affected by the worldly winds. Gain/loss, praise/blame,fame /disrepute and pleasure and pain. We are able to rest with our experience with ease.

This sense of ease with our experience, this sense of stabilization is a mature mindfulness, it is built upon equanimity/wisdom this is Samma Sati. This is built upon the previous aspect of the path maturing. Mature mindfulness is built upon many factors it is something that evolves. It is like developing your veggie patch, you have to work on developing a decent soil, then the vegetables, fruits etc will mature into wholesome life supporting food.

This then leads on to a natural deepening of composure, our energies gather and settle. The absence of the hindrances. We rest is the pure creativity/chaos as order. This feeds back round into mature view/vision.

The way in which we can change the world is by the maturing of the path, each of us that walks forward are the butterfly wings creating the storm of wholesome change.

Take care be well flutter those wings of wholesomeness.

An Okay new moment(or happy new year)

Here we are in another year.

For Me, as I reflect upon my practice, I can judge myself, imagine strategies to work on the areas of myself that I judge as not being good enough. So firstly I meet these thoughts with care and attention, sensing the content of them. Becoming familiar with these ideas of being a particular self. Rather than making rash judgments about the process called me, I notice how I am with these conditions arising.
How am I meeting my experience?I have found as I find my practice begins to mature my sense of being mindful is less rigid and now flows more naturally with my experience. Less taking a position against my experience, as there are fewer view's about how I should be, who I think I am, what is practice.So for Me, each moment I meet my experience which is arising is the establishment of my resolution. Those who have heard me talk will know my instructions. The intention to be mindful/meditate is the meditation. Being gentle in regards to what is arising/hanging around and passing on in our experience.As this gentleness/care stabilizes we are able to meet the resistances that arise in relation to what is arising.This process I would call Metta.
This sense of caring embrace of the experience leads on as it matures in the moment to a sense of permission, we begin to stabilize with the experience arising and begin to notice our sense of self-arising and the resistances that arise in relation to this sense of self. I call this the allowing of the self-ing process, With this awareness, we begin to see the conditioning factors to our reactivity we find ourselves becoming less judgemental of ourselves and others(Karuna).
 With the stabilisation of this quality of care and permission the experience begins to unfold, the resistances are falling away, A sense of joy and freedom begins to arise conditioned by the release of attachment to our self-constructs as we become  familiar with our thoughts, feeling and the combination of our experiences that unfolds as our self-story.I would say that this freedom and joy is Mudita. We are able to now enjoy life as it is and feel the freedom of loosening up our self-positioning in regards to life.
As this fluidity of the self of rises to the foreground, equanimity becomes the predominant quality of mind., The mature stabilisation of awareness comes through wisdom, through the process of digesting the experience at a rate that we become familiar with the conditioning factors of the experience and will pass away as new conditions arise to be known.. This process becomes more noticeable as we mature.Notice how there is an aliveness to equanimity which is different to a mind subdued through concentration.
This leads me on to this topic of an integrated practice. I know that to me this idea, of integrating my practice from monastic into lay life etc. I have found as time goes on this question no longer arises. To myself, integrity/honesty built upon gentleness and care towards my experience removes this separation that the idea of integration creates for me.To own my experience without judgment leads to a sense of no one special, not in a negative sense, it is the lack of estimating my experience, trying to decide a value for it. That functional living needs the condition of non-self-positioning so that all forms of self can be allowed. I know I am not there. I notice my familiarity with dysfunction gives rise to functional experiences. My integrity and honesty with myself and others help's support the ground for potential function. Gentleness and care in relation to our experience give's rise to the conditions for a secure attachment to develop, a sense of self-worth that we can step out into the world with the integrity, honesty and a fearlessness.

When I use the word resistances I am talking about sensual desire, ill-will, sloth and torpor, restlessness/anxiety, doubt

May you all be well, may this planetary existence become one of wise coexistence.