Foundations for a better world

In meditation, we often hear about the 5 hindrances. These are the reactivities to what is arising in our experience. These are traditionally called sensory desire, ill-will, sloth and torpor, restlessness and worry and doubt. These are relational quality's that engage the objects arising in what we like to think of as our awareness. Sensory desire is the desire for particular sensory objects, ill will is an aversion or hatred towards certain sensory experience, sloth and torpor is a lack of engagement with what is happening, restlessness and worry is an over-engagement with what is happening  and doubt is the sense of not knowing how to be with a certain sensory experience. So these probably sound quite familiar as these do not just arise in meditation these are the aspects of our ability to relate that tend to lead towards dysfunction in any relationship be it meditation or family, intimate relationships, friends, etc.
The process of meditation is the getting to know these intimately, understand their triggers. Rather than engaging the hindrances with the hindrances which are often how we go about trying to correct these relational issues we intend to be gentle, caring and give them permission to be. It is the process of being your own therapist in that you gently allow what is arising. Whatever is arising has already arisen, we notice it and then judge its value after it has already arisen. These hindrances are very much tied to how we have been taught to relate to ourselves from our family/cultural and religious environment. We have the ego which is our basic organizational app and then there is the organizational app of our family/cultural and religious environment, the superego. In meditation, we are taking the time to become very familiar with this dynamic of ego/superego. Taking the time to gently digest it, taste its textures. We become aware of the many levels that we have got ourselves tangled up in the views and opinions, how we try to defend our sense of value either by going along with the views or opinions of the environment or rebelling if they are not satisfying or fitting to our values.
What often happens is we notice our faulty expressions but our virtues can often go unnoticed. When we approach meditation from the place of meeting and becoming familiar rather than taking a position before we give ourselves the time and space to actually notice and be nourished by our virtues. We can think of our virtues simply as the opposite of the hindrances. Equanimity, gentleness and care, attentiveness, calm and composure and wisdom. So in this approach as taught by Jason Siff that I have been working with over these past 5years, and I express as my own understanding of this is how it has unfolded for me. The intention to meditate is the meditation, this intention is gentle and caring, the experience has permission to unfold as it wishes, if this becomes too much we are able to ground ourselves with the contact of our hands touching, the contact with the ground the breath etc. We may drift into habitual meditation patterns conditioned from previous practices, that is okay. By not intending to follow the practice we may become aware of the intentions that the practice was built upon. I know for myself my meditation practice had been built upon an aversion to my experience, to my sense of self, I was wanting to be other than this. As we slowly digest our internal relationships to ourselves and the world that we see, we begin to mature into a gentleness, compassion, joy, and equanimity. With this sense of maturing there is a natural understanding of ourselves as a story and our part in a larger story. This freedom of seeing the story, gives us the ability to build a new world built upon virtue, where we through compassion of how the structures of the different stories from the beginning of time when not seen clearly with awareness create conflict and judgment, the stories become positions we take and defend instead of being seen as conditioning blocks based upon ignorance of the conditioning process.
This new world built upon understanding there is suffering, and when suffering is not understood there is dysfunction. We intend to meet experience with gentleness and care, this intention matures as it grows to understand the conditioning process until it matures into equanimity. This gentleness and care becomes the ground for our relationship to ourselves and the environment that we live in, as we meet ourselves and the world with gentleness and care our experience become mindful, when this mindfulness is mature and able to allow experience it matures into a calm and composure with all that arises, this gives rise for the potential to notice when we are self-ing and not self-ing the experience. This can give rise to a deep peace and freedom. When this freedom matures self and not-self are seen as conditions. Position-less living unfolds.
This is a humbling path, as we take a close look at ourselves and accept our imperfections. May all beings mature and find freedom.

Monastic training, a training in living.

I lived in a Buddhist monastery for most of my twenties, it was an amazing time. It was my initiation into my humanity. While in the monastery and since leaving I have heard many miss understandings of what the monastic training is.  So I thought I would share my experience and how my own view and perspectives changed as I grew up with the robe and without them.
I had entered the monastery at the same time as giving up drugs and alcohol, I had issues with boundaries( would take other people's stuff).This had lead to me not being very happy with the experience of being me. The monastery was a simple place, not much to stimulate the senses apart from Dhamma talks and books on Dhamma. There were people who were intending to be kind and seemed genuinely interested in me and my experience. Living within the monastery meant living by the 8 precepts. These are to abstain from harming/ killing others, abstain from stealing, abstain from acting out of sexual desire, abstain from lying, abstain from intoxicants, abstain from eating in the afternoon, abstain from entertainment and sleeping too much.
When we reflect and notice that most of the time we tend to be good wholesome humans these precepts are not that threatening. What they helped me do was to begin to align my energies, I began to feel directly my unwholesome tendencies that would be harmful to myself and others, my views and reactions matured into views that were more responsive to myself and my environment. They also helped to highlight the movement of my mind towards distraction due to not understanding my sensory experience. It was like living is a house of mirrors where I was developing the ability to reflect on my intentionality. I then took the ten precepts, then the 227.
The precepts which some, if you read their description in the books, seemed outdated, if I reflected upon the intention of the training rule it made sense. The training was creating a framework to investigate intentionality without being caught up in the complexity of jobs, sexual relationship and whatever else manifests. It was not a denial of the world it was an intimate connection to our relationship to this world. This is my sense of the goal of the training was to allow awareness to mature into the depths of this human being, as wisdom grows into the conditionality of the body/mind, freedom naturally arises. The training is like a picture frame that highlights the picture of life.
As human beings, we have agenda's these are conditioned by the needs/desires that arise due to the body/mind. So these agenda's taint how we see things. This is the same with the monastic training, some people will feel the need to rebel, some will do their best to be the good child to get praise from their projected mother/father figures. Our psychologies are complex, making our views and opinions complicated. They need to be questioned. It does not mean you do not question the training. In this day and age, it is time to have equality between men and women in the monasteries. This I feel comes down to an attachment to tradition, and the complexity of male/female relationships. From what I witnessed I feel a lot of monastic men lack the understanding and wisdom around sexuality and the conditioning process which is natural and needs to be understood not hidden from, shamed etc. Those senior monks that have opened to and understand this are the only true men I have met. This is a complicated area for men in or out of monastic life.
For me, the monastic training was a framework that reflected back to me my goodness, and highlighted my unwholesome areas, helping me to contain and develop awareness around these behaviors. This leads to the condition of trusting oneself, when we trust our self there is kindness, compassion present. This becomes the ground for a mature mindfulness to arise, which leads to letting go, this leads to joy, enjoyment of living and a natural unforced samadhi.
For me, I came to a point as I grew, that areas of my life that I had not explored due to my own psychological issues, which had lead to drugs and alcohol abuse. My low self-esteem, self-hatred had lessened to a point that I was feeling the need to explore my human life. The monastic life had given my life back to me. Since leaving the robes which were almost 15years ago I still feel the powerful conditions the training had established. A foundation in an awareness that senses a flexible organic ethic in each context I am in, which comes from a trust, a compassion that arises from learning to rest upon the groundless ground of life, watching the conditioned self-grasp for control. Becoming familiar with the reactivity that arises when we touch the groundless ground, being gentle and caring towards this reactivity until the reactivity is known and there is a settling down.
My training now is being a dad and a husband. As with the monastic training, the kids reflect back to me my intentions. They show me that as a human being I have needs and desires. I respond to these with kindness and care, giving them permission to be here. This means I have moments of grumpiness as I catch up with the reactivity to my not being able to be selfish. What this does is help me to actually share my life and live life rather than have my own precious special experience.  This I noticed a quality in the senior monks that I respected, their ability to create a space for another human to be present. Being a parent is a very flexible experience compare to the relative protection of the monastery, If you can be aware of intention in either context and let life live you, then freedom will naturally arise.

Mature effort

The mature effort we find after the mature speech, mature action, and mature livelihood in the classical description of the eightfold path. This to me makes sense as I like to perceive the path as one of maturation each aspect growing out of the previous aspects. The path begins with the corrected view that there is suffering we step upon the path, where we set up a corrected intention. This being gentleness and care towards our experience, this intention as it continues to be corrected and matures leads on to compassion, joy, and equanimity. This intention feeds into the quality of our speech, action, and choice of livelihood. It is a kind of sensitizing to ourselves and our environments.  We become aware of our own vulnerability and our desire not to feel pain, and wanting pleasure.

So not wanting to feel pain and desiring pleasure is the ground for Mature effort to arise. It is in this process of being aware of our vulnerability, the push and pull of pleasure and pain and in its extreme version fight and flight mode. This maturing, being with and understanding our vulnerability, becoming aware of our stories which have grown out of the unstable ground of the human sensory world. We begin to stabilize into a mature effort, it is a sense of becoming stable and not being pushed around by the polarities of life. This is the ground for mature mindfulness to arise, a sense of being with the whole of the experience. It is the ground for equanimity to grow and mature.

A mature effort is not so much a doing as learning to be with experience and become intimate with our reactivity. As we mature in relation to becoming familiar with the reactivity. This steadiness of being with leads on to a mature skillful mindfulness arising, which leads on to a mature samadhi, one that is not efforted and based on an object, which arises from wisdom in relation to our reactivity and our freedom from reactivity, which gives rise to joy.

*By corrected I mean through being with our experience our views begin to attune to our direct experience, as our view becomes corrected the other aspects of the path begin to mature from an ignorant position towards one of wisdom.

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.

The hindrance called Jhana

Jhana and insight, hand-in-hand

There's no jhana for one with no discernment, no discernment for one with no jhana. But one with both jhana & discernment: he's on the verge of Unbinding.

— Dhp 372

Jhana seems to be a buzz word again in the Theravada western lay circles with a few new books in the past few years on the topic. Jhana is mentioned often in the suttas. They are spoken of as the sense pleasure for the monks, the monks go to a secluded place and abide in these states. There has been much discussion on the need for jhana for liberating insight and this seems to be an ongoing theme for discussion. In this blog post which is based on a talk a gave in for New Haven Insight I am intending to highlight the process/ conditionality that leads to these calm states called Jhana.

There are many different meditation approaches, these tend to be different ways of working with the hindrances. You could think of them as different ways people have found to either subdue the hindrances or become familiar with the activity of the hindrances. My sense is Jhana arises with letting go, we let go of the identification with the activity of the hindrances as they are arising in our present conditioned experience. They do not necessarily arise from a particular practice but how skilfully the practice is held, the integrity and wisdom of the individual doing the practice.

Jhana arises as the five hindrances fall way and the Jhana factors arise. The hindrances are described as sensual desire(which the desire for jhana is a form off, ill will, sloth and torpor, restlessness and remorse and doubt. As these are understood/ dealt with/let go off depending on the chosen technique, the conditions come around for the jhana factors to arise. The mind takes up the object, the object becomes stabilized in awareness, with this stabilization, joy( physical pleasure in body and mind arises), happiness/equanimity( a sense of contentment and resting independent of sensory objects) and equanimity arise as the pleasure is let go off.

A base for calm/insight is ethics, some of us may use precepts to help hold our experience to highlight our sensory inclinations.I feel that most of us who come to practice our good human beings, and that by developing a mindfulness practice we become aware of how ethical we actually are, we develop the ability, to be honest about our experience as we begin to see ourselves as a conditioned process rather than an independent ongoing, somebody.There is always ground to tidy up our act if we are sensitive to ourselves in the process of being aware then being ethical can become quite natural rather than need to be enforced externally. I large part of knowing and finding freedom from the hindrances is a trust in oneself.Trust in one's own goodness, leads to calm as there is a lack of remorse about how we live our life arising to disturb the mind.
There are different ways of approaching the calming and understanding of the hindrances. Some approaches focus on the calming, taking an object such as the breath, getting to know the breath and how the different aspects of the breath effect our experience. We then use this information to calm the body, which in turn highlights the processes of the mind, then the relationship to the breath is used to calm and know the mind. As we calm and smooth out the breath, the breath becomes ease-full, flows undisturbed, the body is felt as pleasant, the breath is felt as a pleasant abiding, the mind stays in relation to the breath with ease, not much effort is needed as it is pleasant it draws the mind to it, as we become familiar and we let go of controlling the experience the breath seems to breathe us, we may become absorbed in the sign of the breath( this can be a light, colored shapes feeling tones, images etc.) At first, this letting go can happen by fluke, but as we become aware of the conditions this becomes something that happens within our awareness and becomes more of a choice, this is when meditation has become a developed skill and we know how to respond to different conditions arising to bring about the desired effect. So with this training in regards to the breath we begin to feel a withdrawal from the external senses, the internal thoughts begin to settle as the attractiveness/pleasure of the breath grasps the mind and mind become composed as a pleasant abiding, when the mind is settled and restlessness settles and doubt in regards to this practice drops away we become absorbed and absorption feeds faith back into the practice .How long for depends on how skilled and how well we know the hindrances/conditions arising.
Other practices such as mantra work similarly, it very much comes down to personal understanding in regards to the results we will get. Myself I was very forceful at first and would suppress the hindrances with my will. This took a lot of effort and did not make me a very sensitive human being, over sensitive in terms of being disturbed by the sensory experience. So I was using the hindrances to suppress the hindrances. It is very much about object relationship, how to develop a friendship with the meditation object, to hold it in a wholesome way.
Some practices seem to involve keeping the mind busy as if staying ahead of the hindrances. I have found some body- sweeping approaches have done that for me. Letting go is the key, but letting go is not that easy, we have to become familiar with our inability to let go, be gentle and get to know ourselves and the conditions of this particular self-story, and letting go will happen.

In recent years I have been working with the Recollective awareness approach as taught by Jason Siff. Ethics in this practice arise in relation to the individual's personal choices rather than imposed, Our personal choices and effects of them are the grounds for our knowing ourselves. Our sensory experience arises and we make choices in relation to this. This process becomes familiar and we can directly feel the benefits or harm off chosen actions.
With this approach, my sense is that we get to know the hindrances intimately. We open to how they are arising, being with them in a gentle interested way and giving permission for them to be present. As we become familiar with them they do not seem to have the same hold on us. As we drift with the conditions arising, these conditions become the object, as the mind gently travels with this, the mind becomes held by the experience, as it is held there the gentleness can transform into a pleasant holding, the body and mind feel settled and joy arises. I find this can lead on depending on the familiarity and wisdom present in regards to the object arising in the mind. It is as if a stranger walks into your house, your response/ or reaction to them is quite different to a friend entering your home, you have a sense of knowing them, feel at ease. As we get to know the hindrances they become our friends, it as if we enter a conversation with them, we ask questions, we listen and this leads to us becoming familiar. This lead to a non-stick experience. The object tends to transform so the ability to travel with the change develops. If the mind is attracted to a particular object that has arisen the process leads to being with and becoming familiar with that object until it is known enough to be put aside let go off or another condition comes into the foreground. Within the practice, there is permission to stay with an object to hold it in awareness longer if we wish.We begin to become absorbed/stabilized in the process of change.  What I have found is that absorption arises in a more integrated way as it is a gentle drifting with conditions/conditioning of the experience rather than taking a position in regards to the experience. The intention to sit in the meditation and through the knowledge of knowing the intention in regards to our practice story does calm arise.
I have found with this approach that the doorways to calm have become many. Sometimes the calm arises in more of a Samatha style with a sign and an absorption into the sign, or it can arise through the absorption into the three characteristics of experience, impermanence, suffering our not-self. The images and signs that arise in the mind can be varied, calm can arise through drifting into a lucid dream-like state and then absorbing into images arising within them. How this arises is not such a big deal, but I find the important part of this approach is the jhana/calm states are part of the process and are naturally investigated. The desire to regain an experience of calm can become the object of meditation. We get to know what we are projecting upon this state of mind, hopes, values etc. As this becomes an ongoing part of practice, what is here now is investigated. Jhana arising when the conditions are right, we get to know the hindrances as they arise now, without trying to get past them as this tends to be a hindrance. We become aware of the desire for jhana arising as a desire for sensory pleasure, from ill will in relation to our experience, in relation to wanting to disassociate in regards to our present experience, desire to be getting practice right and not knowing if we are. We know the desire and idea of jhana to be a hindrance to experiencing jhana. Becoming familiar with the process of letting go, we know Jhana as an effect of letting go, it is more about what is not present than what is. It is a natural part of letting go.

When we first get a taste of jhana we are unlikely to know which jhana this is. Our first glimpse may be very short and feel quite intense, even amazing as it is a calm that is not familiar to us. I have found that jhana feels nicer than drug experiences I had when I was younger. As we develop in skill and wisdom, we may find that we stay absorbed for longer periods. I have found that this is an aid to my delusion. I may be absorbed longer, the condition of being there longer makes me feel I have gone deeper. Yet I am still entering the same depth just the perception being created is stronger due to the experience lasting longer. It is hard not to imagine I have gone deeper, yet with time and becoming familiar with the conditions of that state, by traveling into it again and again over time I become aware of the conditioning process.These states I have noticed for myself has become more accessible since practicing Recollective awareness, I feel this is due to having become clearer about what my meditation story is.Why I meditate, taking time to be with my experience as it arises, becoming friends with the hindrances, views, and opinions I have, rather than taking a position against my experience and trying to calm it. I have found that learning to understand the conditions that I call comfort and discomfort, my self-hatred and my self-love I am beginning to unfold in a more holistic way as I become more aware that they are a process and not fixed positions.

By becoming familiar with our experience, this familiarity reveals the uncertainty we feel in regards to impermanence, this calms the hindrances. The mind stabilizes with the experience this feels like a pleasant abiding. The power of the calm and insight at this stage can lead to us noticing  how the witness is also impermanent. The uncertainty this process brings around gives rise to stress. As we become familiar with this process, as wisdom in regards to the conditioning of the stress arises a deeper sense of stabilizing occurs. This brings about the conditions for equanimity to arise. Insight and calm go hand in hand when we give the mind space to unfold rather than making a battleground of practice.

Take care.

Shamelessly Alive

As we sit to meditate we become acutely aware of this experience of sensing. How we relate to this present experience of sensing is the arena for creating new wholesome action by body/speech and mind or how we recreate from our past experience. What tends to happen is that we may get a little space around the arising experience and get a sense or belief that we know it yet it is still influencing how and who we are. This is not an experience to feel ashamed about, it is an ongoing process of becoming familiar with our arising experience and allowing the needed resources to come to to the foreground to aid in the process of not interfering.

Having this body, the self-story that has been created other the years of relating to and as the body, are old kamma. This is a stimulation system so it is in constant contact through the senses, depending on our context and the health and state of this body/mind we will find different effects arising.

So here we are sitting, what do we do?

Do we follow an instruction?

As I have grown in my practice other the years I find it helpful to just take the intention to me.ditate as my meditation. Having done so, I sit gently with interest in my experience, giving permission for whatever is arising to arise, whatever is staying to stay and for whatever is passing to pass. This I find is like opening Pandora's box by allowing my thoughts, letting them unfold, becoming aware of how I interact with them. I begin to become familiar with my thought world, this leads me to become familiar with the emotional current running through these thought patterns. The familiarity that arises in relation to the emotional current brings me to become familiar with my bodily experience. This I find eventually becomes a 3D experience leading to understanding Dhamma. Insight into impermanence, stress and no self.

Here I would like to suggest that there are similar features between becoming familiar and Samadhi (composure of body/mind). As awareness develops in relation to experience as it arises instead of turning the mind towards a chosen technique we begin to know the hindrances to the arising of a composed mind more intimately. Becoming familiar with them instead of resisting and pushing away. I find it is possible to become familiar with sensual desire, ill will, sloth and torpor restlessness and remorse and doubt. To know them, allow them to reveal themselves like making a good friend. In doing so I have found I become wiser in relation to them and they do not have the same hold on me and my experience. This gives rise to the potential for composure and absorption to arise in gentle integrated ways. As we are not intending to seek the experience it comes to the foreground when the conditions are right, and the process of investigating/ becoming familiar means that if the desire to chase the experience down to get it again, can be  understood and so the addiction to absorption becomes weakened leaving the mind to focus on being with the past/present/future as they arise conditionally in this moment.

There is something very relaxing to understanding that this present moment addiction that I had developed is an addiction to one aspect of the chain of time, it is not freedom. The past is arising now, meeting the present, the present moment in itself is just a moment in time. Yet it can reveal how we are relating to our past experience and generating our sense of the future. Giving space to feel the past helps to reveal how we have become this, the thoughts about the future reveal what I am wanting, needing and reacting to the pain, neutral and pleasure of the past and present. They can help to understand what we may need in our lives to feel more nourished, whole and alive.

I notice that with this sense of familiarity that has developed by being with my experiences as it arises, that when the mind does drift to the breath it does so with ease and drifts into a deeper sense of calm in a shorter period of time rather than intentionally returning to the breath. This I sense is due to the knowledge of the so-called hindrances.

This is all very interesting and I have found that as I release from the bounds of identifying with this experience the more human I become. As shame dies away, conditioned by the social interactions this body/mind has encountered in its journey. There is a sense of raw aliveness, an awareness of the levels of frustration that we buried in this body/mind again through identification with its desires/urges and needs and the repression that happened unintentionally and intentionally in relation to our contexts/ plus the reality that we can not fulfill every sensory stimulated desire.How these lead to noncongruent behavior so that we can get what we want/need. This awareness is entering the stream of being human not doing human. We become more fully human the more awake we become to this conditioned process, and find are self-being real about who we are.