Buddha's Birthday Celebration Posponed

The Buddha's Birthday Celebration scheduled this morning at First Unitarian Universalist Nashville has been posponed due to the weather emergency. The surrounding streets and the lower parking lot are flooding and driving conditions are just too dangerous. Please stay home and stay safe. I'll let you know when it's rescheduled.

Releasing Emotional Reactions – Method Three, Direct Awarness

RER6
Notes from a talk by Ken McLeod
Podcast available for downloading here

This method is from the Vajrayana school of Buddhism, known as Dzogchen or Mahamudra. In the Tibetan tradition, this method is shrouded in secrecy. Yet at the same time Ken found that lamas often found a way to slip these instructions into the first meeting with a student, though it may go right over the student’s head. (Ken translated for Kalu Rinpoche at many such meetings.)

In a sense, these instructions are “self-secret,” in that when you hear these instructions they don’t sound like very much, unless you already have some level of experience or understanding of context. Then they can truly open the door to you.

This was vividly illustrated to Ken during his 3-year retreat when the head of the Kagyu order came to visit and gave some teachings. His instructions felt powerful and intense, like being picked up by the back of your neck and thrown against the wall. And say, “Did you get it?” And then he would pick you up and throw you again. Although we were actually just sitting around. Later, I thought, what did he actually SAY? It could be boiled down to,  “Thoughts come, thoughts go.”

This is deep? I mean, of course, thoughts come and thoughts go. But how many of you are wrestling wth thoughts in meditation? Or think that thoughts come but don’t go? And yet, in that simple sentence, there is the key to freedom. A thought comes -- “I’m angry” -- and when that thought arises, frequently we don’t recognize it as a thought. It becomes a fact. So now, WE’RE ANGRY. And a lot of unhelpful things can unfold from that. If it is recognized as a thought, it comes, it goes. Just let it arise and do absolutely nothing. It wanders around and it goes.

So... thoughts come, thoughts go... is one of the doors to freedom IF you live it. It’s not enough to understand it intellectually.

So this method of practice is very much about living the direct experience of mind just as it is. The three traditions of this form of training are the Great Middle Way (Madhyamaka), the Great Seal (Mahamudra), and the Great Perfection (Dzogchen).

If you look in our chant booklets and see the Aspiration for Mahamudra prayer, you see these three approaches are characterized in one sentence each:

Free from mental constructions, it is called the great seal.

Free from extremes, it is called the great middle way.

Because everything is complete here, it is also called the great completion.

May I gain the confidence that, in understanding one, I know them all.

There’s a great deal of confusion rampant about these practices. You can't just do this practice alone. It is still necessary to generate goodness and clear away unwholesome actions. So many people get pointing out instructions and think they can “do Dzogchen” and don’t need any of that stuff.

The fact is, in order to practice with mind directly, you need to be pretty clear, and really have a pretty solid basis in resting attention and other things, such as assimilating death and karma deeply. In other words, you have to clear out a lot of the underbrush.

So I know that for some of you this is your first retreat experience, and I respect your courage and willingness to jump into something like this. But when you work with the techniques I’m going to describe today, you may find yourself a little bit lost in confusion. That’s fine, that happens to everybody.

My hope is that through our work you can get some appreciation for what the whole thing is really about, which now can help inform practice of resting in attention, resting with the breath.

In Buddhism, we have a wonderful array of approaches and practices. These methods are very powerful. Every effective method has its pitfall. And this is why it’s important to understand the method, the intention of the method, and one’s own intention, so these can all be in alignment. The truth is, some people work better with some practice than with others. We have notable examples of this in Tibetan history.

So we shouldn’t be concerned about getting the highest or most secret teaching, but to  seek out and practice a method that answers YOUR spiritual questions. It should be a method you can actually use.

Various Buddhist Approaches:

The observation of ethics leaves your mind clear. If you encounter a situation and you know what the right thing to do is, and it’s going to cost you something to do it, but you do it anyway, how long do you think about it afterwards? What if you don’t do it? This is the fundamental reason why ethics is important. It leaves the mind clear. However, the human tendency is to make a “thing” out of anything, so some people get really uptight about their own interpretation of “pure morality” and fall into a trap right there. We miss the actual point.

Another pitfall is we come up with a way of doing things and it becomes a formulaic approach to practice. It appears through Zen koans, the Tibetan graded path, and so on.

Then we have logic, reasoning, and philosophy. Being able to reason clearly and analyze things is very helpful for cutting through a lot of confusion, where we tend to wrap ourselves up in concept. But people make a “thing” out of it and we end up with horribly abstruse philosophies that are irrelevant to practice.

And then there’s the approach that everything can be solved through ritual. Ritual is a powerful method for training attention, but people make a “thing” out of it.

The same thing with behavior. I’ve run into a number of people who think if they can just behave the right way, everything will turn out the right way. The problem with this is figuring out what the right way to behave is.

Another approach is the use of symbol. They can be extraordinarily powerful by cutting through the operation of the intellect so that something can just happen. But making the symbol into a “thing” -- taking it as an object of worship or fixation -- misses the point.

Another very powerful technique is identification with an ideal. It’s a way of inspiring and evoking, coming from a deeper place. But once again, this can become a “thing” and induce a fixation.

Finally, there are energy transformation techniques, transforming the energies of the body into states of bliss or attention. The purpose of the energy is to drive attention so you can be more present, but people become fixated on blissing out.

These are all legitimate methods, but when they become an object of fixation, it works against what we are trying to do.

The key with the method we are exploring today is no fixation. Jamgon Kongtrul put it very succinctly when he said, “Where there is fixation, there is error.” So the technique we’re going to do today is about no fixation. And there’s only one way to do that... do absolutely nothing. Which is not as easy as it sounds, so I’m going to give you a method.

Ken attended a three-week retreat where the only meditation instruction was, “Go and do nothing.”

This is a five-step process for breaking up a reactive pattern.

1. Identify a reactive behavior and ask, “Why do I do this?”
You’ll have to ask why repeatedly.
“Because I’m angry with him.”
Why are you angry with him?
And you keep going.
“Why” questions are tricky.

Keep asking the question and at some point, you will say, “I don’t know.” You won’t know why you’re doing it. That’s the nature of reactive patterns. There’s no intention in reactive patterns; they’re just a reaction.

At that point, there’s going to be a feeling, right there. You may or may not be able to name it. It doesn’t matter. At first it will be there only fleetingly, and you’ll suppress it in the body or blank out.

But if you do it repeatedly, you’ll start to be able to recognize it.

2. You have this reactive behavior. Just imagine not doing it.
The reactive behavior exists in order to take you away from THAT feeling.
So when you imagine not doing it, that feeling will be there again.
Enter into the feeling completely.
BE the feeling. No separation whatsoever.
When you do this, you’ll find that the feeling is like a multicolored display, with threads and images and all kinds of facets. The first impulse will be to try to sort it out, understand it, explain it. Don’t do any of that. Just experience it.

Be in all the reactions – body, emotional, mental.

As you do this, the feeling will become more distinct and easier to identify because you’re progressively moving into a closer relationship with it.

3. Bring up the feeling deliberately.
Emotions don’t like this. They run and hide. So you evoke the feeling and it goes.
In order for the reactive pattern to work, you’re supposed to be asleep.
But if you’re at attention, it’s like, “NOPE!”
So you have to do it repeatedly.
At first it’s just a little flash.
Then sometime later, evoke it again.

Little by little, you’ll find you can evoke it at will.

Already, your relationship with this feeling has changed, significantly.
“You and me... this town’s not big enough for the two of us.”
It’s been running and hiding, and you tracked it down in the saloon and the brothel,
“We’re going to have this out”

4. Experience the world through the feeling, in awareness.
Don’t get lost in it.
But experience how the feeling presents the world to you.
This is very disturbing.
There may be times when you think, “They’re all out to get me.”
And at the same time, you know it isn’t true.

You’re actually seeing how the feeling projects a certain world. Relax in the movement of the emotion. (the world that the emotion projects)

When you can hold the feeling and the world it projects, you’re experiencing it but you’re not asleep in it, then:

5. Look at what experiences all of this — the feeling and the world.
Everything will go empty.
Because when you look at that, you see nothing. (STORY of teacher who asked three potential students to go away for a week and report back what color their mind is.)

Then... open to the totality of your experience.

You cut through the pattern of subject/object fixation and experience no separation from experience. So rest right there.

No separation = Emotion, emptiness, and what experiences are not different.

The emotion will continue to arise… continue to hold them all, emotion, experience, and what experiences it.

Ask the question, direct your attention, and rest in that shift. Don’t keep asking the question because that just churns up the mind.

The problem with this kind of instruction is that it all sounds – perhaps challenging – but neat. But when you do it, it’s NOT neat. It’s a mess.

This is a very profound method. It won’t work magically as soon as you try it. Each of these steps is likely to present its own challenge. And that’s what you work with.

At this level of practice, the instructions always sound very simple. Kalu Rinpoche: “Thoughts come, thoughts go. Look as soon as a thought arises, relax. When another thought arises, look, then relax.”

Much of our practice is about clearing stuff out of the way so that the simplicity of mind itself — which is our heritage and present in all of us — can simply express itself. Then things become quite natural.

Progress can be noticed when you see that in situations which formerly were difficult for you, you see directly what to do. As your practice matures, you’re able to do that, and it’s very natural... the obvious thing to do. As you move deeper, things become more and more natural. You don’t even notice it.

Chinese saying: When the shoe fits, you aren’t aware of it.

What you WILL notice is when you don’t know what to do or when your perception wasn’t accurate.

Trungpa: Dharma practice is one insult after another.

When you try this technique or any technique, you will run into bumps.

Each bump will point you to the right effort. For this reason, make very deep effort. But don’t fight experience either. Understanding how to do that is the mystery of practice.

The point is to break up a reactive pattern, which will take weeks or months.
You will know when it breaks up because the situations that triggered that reactive pattern won’t trigger it anymore. You’ll feel open and able to move in a way you couldn’t before.

If at any point everything suddenly opens up and falls away and you’re just there, then just rest right there.

What we do in practice is develop attention and momentum. Once there is some attention, increasingly whatever we encounter fuels the attention.

The key is to open wider and wider gaps between thoughts, between emotions, and between our perceptual framework. At some point these three will all line up and WHAM, we see directly.

Note: This method was also taught by Ken in an article which first appeared in Tricycle Magazine, Spring 2002, available here. 

Releasing Emotional Reactions – Method Two, Taking & Sending

Transcript of a podcast talk by Ken McLeod, RER04, accessible here.
Studied by Luminous Mind Friday night, March 12, 2010.

Mahayana is characterized by two themes: emptiness and compassion.

Theravada—3 Marks: impermanence, suffering, non-self
The experiences that arise through coming to know experience.

1. The arising and falling of phenomena shows transitoriness.
2. In the presence of emotional reactions, all experience is suffering.
3. What we think of as ourselves, there is nothing we can point to and say, “I am that.”

These are all realizations that come from a clear perception of experience.
It challenged the basis of the caste system in India.

Mahayana—3 Gates: no characteristics, no aspiration, emptiness
1. No characteristics is connected with impermanence. When you observe things coming and going, there is nothing you can hold onto which makes it the thing itself. It derives its “thingness” from its relationship with other things (interdependent origination)

2. No aspiration – connected with suffering. It’s just not going to get any better.
Dilgo Khyentse, why do we practice? “To make the best of a bad situation.”
Chogyam Trungpa: “It’s hopeless.” which he repeated with various pauses for the next 20 minutes.
When you stop wanting or trying to gain something, it creates the possibility of being present in what is arising right now.

3. Emptiness (relates to non-self)
While the original formulation was that there is no thing that corresponds to the pronoun “I”, it’s not a long step to say that you can’t say what a cup or bell or light is. What it is is always in relation to something else. Everything is empty of independent existence. Which is simultaneously liberating and terrifying.

Yesterday we worked with ways to use the breath to come into the union of knowing and experience.

We’re still going to use the breath, but the approach we’ll use today works much more with our emotional reactions to experience.

The basis for this is found in the four immeasurables (Four Brahmaviharas): where a noble person hangs out.

Lovingkindness, compassion, joy, equanimity

Unlike ordinary reactive emotions  jealousy, etc – organized around a sense of self,
the four immeasurables are not organized around a sense of self. Not defensive emotional reactions.

Shakespeare: “The quality of mercy is not strained. It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven Upon the place beneath: it is twice blest; It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.”

This is different from the emotional reactions.
When you feel anger, it HURTS you and the other person. When you move into compassion, you are present with the other person’s pain, but there is no reaction taking place in you. The consequence is a quality of presence. It “opens a field.” And in that field, the person who is in pain is more able to be with their pain.

Similary dyanmics happen with equanimity, lovingkindness, and joy.

What prevents us from being present in our lives? There are many different patterns of emotional reaction and behaviors that arise. At the core of all of them is an identity, an image of ourselves which stands apart from experience. That self-image we tend to think of as consistent – in fact, it is not. Different self images arise in different situations.... But it always stands apart from experience.

So in certain situations, we may hold onto the image of being the authority. In other situations, we may hold onto the image of being the helpless one. Some people get attached to the role of scapegoat, or the person who doesn’t need any help from anybody.

And most of the time we don’t even know which we’re operating.

But the identity profoundly influences the way we interpret experience, and the way we interpret experience is always in such a way as to reinforce that particular self-image.
So this way of relating to the world which reinforces our sense of who we are, we call “self cherishing.”
Everything that confirms that self image, we like and are attracted to.
Anything that threatens it, we try to push away.

Example: How many are uncomfortable with compliments? It doesn’t fit the self-image.

One of the more profound methods of undermining that tendency to interpret experience to reinforce the sense of self, is to turn the thing around. So we take IN exactly what we’re trying to avoid, and give away what we’re trying to hold onto.

Most of us at some level are pretty selfish. Taking care of me first. This practice reverses that.

One of the main practices of Mahayana is exchanging oneself for others. You imagine taking in the pain and suffering that others experience, then breathing out and giving all the happiness, joy, and wellbeing that you experience so that they can have that themselves.

5-Step Technique

All of this is about working with emotional reactions.
Emotional reactions arise when we encounter something we don’t want to experience.

1. Take in the pain. (your own or someone else’s)

2. Open to your own reactions to the pain.
This in essence is a practice of compassion. By being open and willing to experience our own reactions to pain, we discover the ability to be present with pain. We don’t have to shrink or hide or change the world. When you do this, you may feel a little sad. So in the midst of that...

3. Touch your own happiness and send it out to others.
This is the practice of lovingkindness: wanting others to be happy. What do I give? Anything that makes you feel good. An intellectual: give away your intelligence. What happiness? If you have enough to eat, shelter, able to walk, healthy, that’s enough. Or you can use the word wellbeing.

4. Take joy in the process of this exchange. 
Why would I take joy in this? A student of Kalu Rinpoche said, “Why would I commit emotional suicide?” Kalu Rinpoche: “If you could actually take away all the pain of the world in a single breath, would you hesitate?”

It is our attachment to our idea of who we are which separates us from experience. And we’re so conditioned to protecting that, that the idea of opening and having this actual exchange threatens that sense of self. But that’s exactly why we’re here.

So... what has your sense of self done for you lately?
When we grasp onto it, maybe it’s not such a useful thing.

If you open to another person’s pain and suffering and wish them well, something begins to change. There is a sense of connection. One is no longer separate and apart from the world. Something good is happening. When that takes place, there is a natural joy that arises. Stepping out of our cocoon of self-focus and being part of the world, in whatever way that takes us, there is joy in that.

5. Rest in no separation.
As you rest in the joy — joy is the emotion which is connected with the exercise of power — so in this process, you will feel simultaneously more present and less separated from experience, so experience no separation. And in doing that, continue to take in the suffering of the world and give your own happiness, because now you are no longer separate... there is just a flow of energy back and forth.
In a certain sense, restoring balance in the scheme of things.

In your meditation, it is recommended to go through the steps relatively slowly, 2-3 minutes on each one, so you can feel them. Once you’ve done that, you can move to the practice of taking and sending...

Take in the suffering in the form of thick black smoke coming in through your right nostril  to your heart so you experience it...

and your own happiness and wellbeing — everything you appreciate about your own life — taking the form of white moonlight going out from your heart through your left nostril, to everyone in the world.

With each breath you do both. With the in-breath you take in the suffering, with the outbreath you send out your own happiness.

In this practice, you are practicing every one of the four immeasurables.

Sending out your own happiness = lovingkindness
Taking in the suffering of others - compassion
Feeling joyful about the exchange - joy
Doing this without any prejudice or limitation - equanimity

While doing this, at some point you may notice that you are just present in experience.
So continue taking and sending but really rest in that sense of no separation, just presence.

This is what all the meditation techniques are designed to lead you to: to dissolve that boundary between the false duality of self and other.

For some, you may find there are elements of your own experience that you are alienated from. Maybe certain reactive emotions or patterns or physical things.
You can do taking and sending with those too, to dissolve the sense of I and other.

For seemingly positive emotions that you cling to...
Work with the painful part of the emotion.

Work as deeply as you can without losing your attention. If the emotions are so powerful that you lose your attention, use one of the methods from last week: experience a fraction, proximity. Work the edge. If you only work within your comfort zone, you will just reinforce your patterns. If you work beyond your capacity, you will recondition your defensive mechanism. Neither of these is helpful. It’s important to go to the edge and be willing to... bring the appropriate energy and effort to the practice.

You can get more from 30 minutes of sitting with a powerful emotion than 5 years of resting in equanimity.

If it doesn’t manifest in how we actually interact with others, what good is it?

Work with objects that are easy first. Then people who are more neutral or easily elicit lovingkindness (the sick or poor). Then people who are more difficult.

There is no point in working any situation in which you cannot maintain your attention.
If you don’t push the edge of the envelope, your practice never progresses.

There you are face to face with a reactive emotion. And you find that you can actually be there. What do you experience? Joy. You’ve exercised power. You went straight through.

The underlying theme: Can I experience this?


Eight Thoughts of Great Individuals
Composed by Karma Rangjung Kunchab (Kalu Rinpoche), translated by Ken McLeod

By the power of the truth of compassion of all the supreme refuges, these seeds of virtue and this pure noble motivation

May all the suffering of sentient beings who are as extensive as space be cleared away through my own efforts.

By excellent virtue, both ordinary and transcendent, may the hopes and wants of beings be fulfilled.

May the flesh, blood, skin, and other parts of my body be useful to any sentient being who has need of them.

May the suffering of all beings, my grandmothers, be absorbed by me. May they all receive my virtue and happiness.

As long as I dwell in the world, may not a single thought of harming others arise in my mind.

May I strive energetically for the welfare of beings, not faltering even for a moment from discouragement or fatigue.

For all beings who are poor, hungry, or thirsty, may I be able to give them whatever they want effortlessly.

All the great burdens of intolerable suffering such as the hell realms may I take on myself. May those beings be free of them.

Releasing Emotional Reactions – Method One, Bare Attention (Part 2)

Transcript of a podcast talk by Ken McLeod, RER03, accessible here.
Studied at Luminous Mind Friday night, March 5


We all start off with gaining ideas. But as our practice matures, we see it’s not so much about getting something from the practice, but that the more we are in the experience of what is, the less suffering arises for ourselves and other people.

Our tendency is to postpone experiencing unpleasant things. We would prefer to postpone them forever. (“Does never work for you?”)

It’s that attitude that creates imbalance in the world of our experience. The effect of that imbalance, especially if it persists over time, is the creation of patterns of behavior that create suffering for ourselves and others.

This is a technique which allows you to move into a more full experience of what is arising.

This morning I spoke of two metaphors of working with this:
1. Experience a fraction of the feeling.
2. Use distance as a way of experiencing the feeling.

A third way to think of this is:
3. Your breath is a rope. It gives you something to hold onto as you lower yourself into the feeling. If you can’t go further, stop there and experience it.

As your capacity to experience that increases, you can move deeper and not lose attention. When we join with the feeling, the feeling completes its reason for being and releases, and we find ourselves just present in a way we may not have experienced before.

The irony is, if you approach this practice with the intention to work through or dispel the feeling, you won’t get anywhere, because you have brought expectation into the experience.

Story of Milarepa

Milarepa saw 5 demons in his cave going through his stuff. He thought, “Well, I’ll have to get rid of these. They are probably manifestations of the local spirits. I haven’t been paying enough attention to them." So he sang them a song of praise. They ignored him completely.

"Hmmm. These are tougher demons than I thought. Well, demons are manifestations of disturbed states of mind, so I should meditate on compassion." And he sang another song to them, this time about compassion. They looked up from their activities and glowered at him.

"Okay, these are really tough demons." So he invoked a wrathful yidam to cut through things. The demons looked at him and laughed.

"Hmmm. Something’s not working here. Oh! My teacher said that whatever arises is simply a manifestation of my own mind. So I can engage them. Fully. Okay, guys, let’s get it on!" So he rushed into the mouth of the first demon. And it disappeared.

That’s how it is with our feelings. As long as we’re trying to get rid of them, they’re going to be there. So you say, Okay, this is what I’m experiencing. Let me experience it.
Then they let go because they’ve fulfilled their function.

But there’s an extraordinary human tendency to avoid feeling anything. So bring the feeling close enough that you begin to feel the disturbance of the feeling in you. That’s where you rest.

Q&A

What you’re looking for is the edge. If you go beyond the edge, you fall into chaos. If you don’t go to the edge, nothing changes.

You go the edge and rest your attention right there, with whatever is arising. As you develop more and more capacity, you can move deeper into the feeling without getting lost. But you have to find where your edge is for you.

If it all goes away, then rest right there. If it arises again, work with it again. Work with whatever arises.

We’re working with these difficult feelings so we can rest, present and open.

Key: Don’t try to make it into anything else.

The question isn’t, “Can I let go of this.” It’s “Can I experience this?” It’s a disturbance in your life because you keep pushing it away.

Think of your feelings as really hurt children.

Two qualities are needed:
Courage: to endure what arises in experience
Faith: the willingness to open to whatever arises.

Faith is also described as faith in our fundamental nature, which is no thing at all.
We can trust whatever arises in experience because there is nothing to defend.

It is a practice of learning to be in the uncontrollability of experience.

We’re developing the capacity to know or experience completely -- because this is all we can ever know.

Repeat, Part Deux

Things keeps getting curiouser and curiouser!

Another week, and we didn't get to Part 3 of Releasing Emotional Reactions. That's because this Friday night we had seven new folks show up for study group. Some were brand new to these ideas, so the rest of us regulars decided we should drop back and punt. In other words, we listened again to Ken McLeod's instructions on Releasing Emotional Reactions through Bare Attention (transcript below).

There's always a certain perfection arising, so we were happy to go with the flow. Thank you, Dee and Gerald, for your generosity! We'll move on to Part 3 next Friday (I think!).

In the meantime, the extra practice time on this particular method is a boon... bare attention is foundational to knowing one's own experience as it arises. Let's keep practicing!

Repeat Week

Hi friends!

If you had miss this past Friday, no worries! We'll repeat Friday's session the next time we meet, February 26.

For varied and sundry reasons, most of our group had to miss last Friday. We thought about cancelling, but those who showed up can't be here on the 26th, so we went ahead and listened and discussed the second half of Releasing Emotional Reactions through Bare Attention.

It's really good material and we'll all go through it together on the 26th. Remember, we're off this Friday, the 19th, because I have a family obligation. Looking forward to seeing you soon!

Many thanks and love,
Rita

Releasing Emotional Reactions – Method One, Bare Attention

Transcript of a podcast talk by Ken McLeod, RER02, accessible here.

When we approach practice, we almost always come to it, at least in the beginning, that we’re going to get something from it. While that is inevitable, it’s also a bit of a problem. Because right from the start, it’s very easy to have this constant appraisal, “How am I doing? Am I getting there? Is this right?” And so forth.

Buddhism has always placed a great deal of emphasis on this quality of knowing and trusting knowing. That’s really the heart and essence. There are many different paths in Buddhism to that knowing, such as:

• Contemplating impermanence, which helps us see how we grasp.
• Compassion, which helps us come to know the ways in which we hang on and protect a sense of “I.”
• Devotion, in which we come to find the ways we don’t trust and can’t trust.

This knowing isn’t what we ordinarily understand as knowing. It’s not “knowing ABOUT.” Which is dependent on a sense of separation. There are other kinds of knowing, like “knowing how to do.”

In Buddhism, we go for a knowing which is not separate from the experience itself. It is something we touch into many times a day and don’t notice. There are many times when we’re just there, and there’s a response, and the response doesn’t come from thinking or habituation, but from a knowing which isn’t separate from experience.

(Ken tells the story of how Ananda was enlightened.)

The union of knowing and experience... This is how we actually are. We function under the illusion that we’re separate from what we experience. And that natural knowing is what we seek to uncover and live from in our lives. Every tradition of Buddhism has its own way of approaching that.

The first method we will explore is based on the most ancient method. We use the breath as the basis on which to move into the union of knowing and experience. It is based on the Full Awareness of Breathing Sutra. (Together with the Four Foundations of Mindfulness Sutra, they are the primary sutras of Theravada and Zen.)

The original instruction has 16 steps, this condenses it to 5. They are not so much steps as phases, each maturing into the next. It is iImportant to allow the maturation to take place naturally rather than trying to force it.

How to hold something in attention:
Like holding your own newborn child tenderly.
Tenderness implies gentleness, but it’s not just soft. There has to be something behind that tenderness. So when you’re holding a baby, you can’t be completely relaxed because you actually have to support it. At the same time, you can’t be holding with tension or you’ll hurt the child.

There are many parts of our experiences to which we are alienated to a greater or lesser extent. This technique is about holding those elements of our experience where there is a real sense of separation.

Guided Meditation Instruction

Choose a painful experience, a difficult feeling, maybe a situation or interaction that is painful for you. Positive experiences can also be difficult. It can be a problem, emotion or some actual physical or emotional pain.

Just bringing it to mind, you might notice already, “I’m here and that’s there.”

And we don’t want to deal with it. It’s how we all are. We’d be much happier if it would just go away.

But it’s part of our experience and because we’re ultimately not separate from our experience, sooner or later we’re going to have to deal with it. By pushing it away or erecting a wall or not dealing with it, we’re actually creating an imbalance in our world of experience which manifests as imbalance in our lives and can lead to disruption or even dissolution of relationships which we value. So this is quite important.

Phase One – Experience the Feeling

The first phase is…
BREATHING IN, I FEEL THIS FEELING. (emotion, pain, problem)
BREATHING OUT, I EXPERIENCE THIS FEELING.

In the beginning, it might be like a hot potato. Ouch.

In that case, there are two methods to help get in touch with the feeling without overwhelm:

1. Experience a Fraction — 1/10th of it. Or 1/100th. Or 1/1000th.

2. Proximity — put it a safe distance away.
“That’s too close.” If I put it on the other side of the room. Or the other side of town.
How far away from you does it need to be before you can be with it?

BREATHING IN, I EXPERIENCE THIS PAIN..
BREATHING OUT, I EXPERIENCE THIS PAIN.

BREATHING IN, I FEEL THIS FEELING.
BREATHING OUT, I FEEL THIS FEELING.

And imagine holding the pain tenderly in your attention. You’re not trying to do anything to it and you’re not going to get anything from it. You’re just holding it there in your attention very, very gently.

As you do that, Phase 2 starts almost immediately.

Phase Two – Experience the Reactions to the Feeling

In Phase 2, we become aware of our reactions to that pain. Basically, there are three kinds of reaction that arise:

1. Body (flinch, tense, defensive, discomfort, nausea, “disembodied”)
2. Emotional (fear, anxiety, anger, sadness, jealousy, grief, wanting)
3. Mental (stories and associations)

The second phase is:
BREATHING IN, I EXPERIENCE THE REACTIONS TO THE FEELING.
BREATHING OUT, I EXPERIENCE THE REACTIONS TO THE PAIN.

Start with the physical. When you can be in the physical, include the emotional. When you can be in the emotional, include the mental. As you do this, you will find yourself moving into a fuller experience of the pain itself.

So Phase 2 builds on Phase 1 and enriches it. Let’s do that for a few minutes together.

BREATHING IN, I FEEL THE REACTIONS TO THE PAIN.
BREATHING OUT, I FEEL THE REACTIONS TO THE PAIN.

Just as you hold the initial pain or feeling tenderly, hold all the reactions tenderly— the reactions in your body, the emotions, the stories. Don’t try to get rid of the discomfort. Just hold them tenderly in attention and let them be experienced.

Phase Three – Experience the Calm with this Feeling

Phase 3 begins with the story that even though we are in the presence of an uncomfortable or difficult pain or feeling, we can actually be in that experience and quite, calm. We can be experiencing the pain and all of the reactions to the pain, and all of that can be going on, and yet there is the capacity to have a sense of calm in all of that.

So the third phase is,
BREATHING IN, I EXPERIENCE CALM WITH THIS FEELING.
BREATHING OUT, I EXPERIENCE CALM WITH THIS FEELING.

Going through it like this, you may not completely be there in experience, but the possibility is there. That behind all experience, permeating all experience is a fundamental spaciousness that is always, already there.

Phase Four – Experience Ease in the Feeling

The fourth phase begins with the discovery that in that calm, we can actually relax. We discover, sometimes to our surprise, a sense of ease.

So here’s this difficult feeling which we’re experiencing, But our experience has a basis of calmness. And we can begin to relax into the feeling.

And this is the beginning of a very important point in practice — resting in the experience. By this point, we have a pretty full experience. We’ve discovered the calm. Now we can rest in the experience. With a sense of ease and relaxation.

When your mind joins with the object of attention, body and mind both relax. So let’s do this one as well, resting in the calm.

BREATHING IN, I EXPERIENCE EASE IN THE FEELING.
BREATHING OUT, I EXPERIENCE EASE IN THE FEELING.

You may find that when you start relaxing in the feeling, you suddenly experience the feeling more fully, And you tense up again, and want to push it away. So that takes you back to Phase 1 again, but now you’re working at a deeper level. And the way this practice works, there is a constant cycling.

Everything becomes more vivid, more awake. Each time you cycle back, you are moving closer to the full experience of the feeling itself.

This goes on and on, and the process takes from five seconds to five decades. So there’s no specific timeframe.

You may find at certain times that the feeling you’ve been working with seems to dissolve and there is something else there. If that happens, you begin working with that. The original feeling was a layer obscuring something underneath, so now you start working with what’s underneath.

Phase Five – Understanding the Feeling

The fifth phase happens naturally, spontaneously, when you actually join with the feeling. There is no longer any separation between the knowing and the experience. The illusion of being separate from the experience crumbles.

Then understanding naturally arises. You understand what it is and how it arises. And you can fully experience the feeling and there is no confusion.

So the fifth step is:

BREATHING IN, I UNDERSTAND THIS FEELING.
BREATHING OUT, I UNDERSTAND THIS FEELING.

When that understanding arises, if an insight arises, don’t hang onto it. You will fall into distraction. Rest in the knowing. It will feel, perhaps, like you have no reference. That knowing is the union of knowing and experience. Now you’re no longer separate from what you experience.

So this technique uses the breath as a way of knowing your experience. Go through these steps. Let them unfold naturally. Holding the feeling tenderly in attention.

Another image: Imagine holding a flower that hasn’t opened. Your attention is like the sun. Being in the breathing, letting your attention be with the flower, the flower in its own time, opens in the warmth of your attention.

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Q&A

As you experience these things, be right in it. How do you experience the turmoil? Agitation? How do you experience it in your body? A pounding heart? Then that’s your experience. Don’t make anything other than it is. Heart is pounding, so sit with a pounding heart. As you do this, you’re going to discover the capacity to just experience a pounding heart. And that’s not suppression. Now you’re moving into the actual experience.

Once you experience the pounding heart, you may find you also have a contracted stomach. So you include that in your practice:

BREATHING IN, I EXPERIENCE THE STOMACH...

Whatever is arising, don’t try to make it into something else. Or “I meant to experience something else.” This is a sequence of experiences which arise as you are completely in whatever is arising and you’re experiencing at the time. You’re not trying to make something into something else. It’s how your relationship to the experience changes as you’re in the experience.

When you are able to experience A, B arises. Don’t drop A for B. Include both. Rest in the whole experience… all the reactions.

Don’t get caught up in labelling. It’s not a labelling practice.

It is recommended to start with the body. You may feel tension, you don’t even have to call it tension. Just be aware there is sensation there. If you say, “There is this sensation, that sensation,” then you step back from the feeling. You don’t have to label something in order to experience it. Labeling is in the conceptual mode. Come back to the body, come back to the body, come back to the body.

Usually when we have a difficult feeling, we start with the stories and we’re not connected at all. Start with how you’re reacting physically. That will cut through the preoccupation with the stories.

I’m feeling agitated in my body,
“Well, he shouldn’t have said that.”
Agitation. Body.
Sick feeling in stomach.

The stories will start up again. Come back to what you’re feeling in the body. It may have shifted.

As you stay in the physical experience, you will gradually become aware of emotional responses...
sad, glad, betrayal, longing, feel bad about yourself. All of those will spark stories. Just keep coming back until you can stay in all the physical and emotional reactions.

Then you can start to include the stories. Now they’ll just be stories. Now you experience the totality of that feeling.

Then Phase 3 starts to click in. The function of a feeling is to be felt. As long as it’s not felt, it keeps calling for our attention. More and more insistently. Once we completely feel it, it has fulfilled its reason for existence, so it releases.

As you do this again and again, you move into a deeper understanding of your own behavior and all the processes that are active within you. From that direct knowing, your behavior will change quite naturally.
We don’t have to “understand” it in the analytical sense for that change to occur.

A great deal of understanding comes from knowing your experience completely. You realize, “Oh! I don’t have to do this anymore.” Then that particular situation ceases to arise because you’re not doing your part anymore. That’s knowing.

Clarity is personal. All it takes is for you to be clear. It doesn’t require anything of the other person. That’s up to them. You can’t control anyone else’s experience.