Unsettled Mind
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Hi, I am new to this forum and would love to be part of it. This is not because I have a lot to share on my knowledge. On the contrary, I believe in Buddhism but has no firm foundation to grasp its concepts. For a start, may I seek the kind guidance from anyone to enlighten me. Basically, I have a wondering mind, my mind never seem to be able to settle down. Partly because I am a dreamer since young, and lately i have been trying to stop that wondering mind...... but it can be difficult at times, esp. I have a rather hectic working life and there are many human interactions in office that could be disturbing to the mind. But luckily, i am thankful that my life so far is all good and well and i do cherish what i have.....
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sorry , something wrong with this PC, will write later. welcome to the thread btw.
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Welcome to the forum.
What you need is to maintain the presence of open awareness whether in the midst of thinking or when not-thinking. It is a relaxed, but clear alert presence, that does not reject nor chase after thoughts and experiences that arise in it, but is aware of and present in the thoughts and experiences. The luminous clear awareness simply 'lights up' whatever manifests without discrimination/judgments. Like an ever-present and unmoved mirror that clearly reflects everything but does not modify/seek/grasp/reject them (thoughts and experiences), and is untouched by thoughts and phenomena, indestructible. Then all thoughts are simply the expression of awareness, are not experienced/grasped through dualistic vision. That awareness that is always present but temporarily obscured (by dualistic fixation on thoughts and experiences) is none other than your Buddha-Nature. And in the latter stage of realisation, thoughts (and all other sensations and experiences) are realised to be none other than that pure awareness itself.
Why do I say that the presence of awareness is required?
Because even if you reach a state of an absence of thoughts through certain techniques to calm down the mind, or through gradually relaxing the mind, but without that presence of awareness, if just one bad thought arises and there is no awareness.... the tendency is to follow, chase after the thought, and act out according to the thought, creating bad karma and bad consequences. But if there is a presence of awareness, that simply witnesses the thought but does not follow the thought, the thought is allowed to come and go of its own accord and leaves no traces -- there is no grasping or chasing after the thought. Also, without that presence of awareness, a thoughtless state of absorption itself does not lead to insight, enlightenment, liberation. No insight will be born out of such a state, one is not any different than a piece of inanimate wood. (wood doesn't think too right?)
If you remain that lucid awareness, whenever thoughts that usually 'chain up' to form one thought after another, when they arise they are simply seen as it is -- the hypnotic spell-like quality of the thought is simply not present. It's like you're having a nightmare, yet if one experiences an aware presence in that dream and the intuition that the dream scene is not real, this is only a nightmare, then how can fear affect you? The 'hypnotic' quality of the dream to make you believe in it is gone. You are not totally identified with the contents of your thoughts or the dream, because there is a witnessing going on. That means the dream settings and dream character may play out but the witnessing/aware presence – the movie screen that allows the seeing of the dream/’movie’ scene, remains untouched. You know you are not the dream character in the dream, that it’s just a projection of the mind with no substantiality. The conditioning of thought to bind you, make you absorbed in thoughts and ‘believe them’ and treat them seriously is gone. I have such experiences before, where in dreams and nightmares that aware presence is still there, and I can end that dream.
As my teacher used to say -- it is better to have 1000 thoughts arise, and be aware of them all, then to have only 1 thought arise, and there is no awareness of it. Because that 1 thought will become a deluded thought, will chain up and form karma and samsaric sufferings (like that single bad thought that leads to committing evil).
As the saying goes: “ä¸�怕念起，å�ªæ€•è§‰è¿Ÿ”
Lastly, it is very helpful if you can practice meditation to develop ‘samadhi’. You can start with maybe 20 or 30 minutes and lengthen it to an hour a day habit. It is developing the quality of an unmoving mind that abides in no-abiding and is unmoved by circumstances. But this ‘samadhi’ must also come with ‘wisdom’ (awareness), otherwise it becomes the case of 1 thought without awareness leading to bad consequences. However, this practice of ‘samadhi’ and ‘wisdom’ must not be confined to sitting practice but should be a 24/7 daily practice. Whatever you are doing, you can ‘practice’ awareness.For meditation instructions, best is to receive instructions from a living teacher, though there are books out there on this. For beginners can try reading 'Mindfulness In Plain English’ (book available for reading online) or ‘Meditation Now or Never
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Verdandis,
The best way to learn meditation is under the guidance of a qualified yogi. You need to verify with them your meditative experience. There are limits to what you can know or understand by reading books or through internet.
Is there any good meditation centre in Singapore?
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A good teacher to the practice of meditation will be excellent.
Basically, I start by practicing concentration or one pointedness. Then I I direct my concentration to the wandering mind by noticing it wander, but not commenting or feeling irriated about it and bring myself back to the one-pointedness whenever possible.
In time you will notice your wandering thought slowing down (in the sense you are able to caught it faster before it wander away for too long)
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When a thought arise, ask yourself, what is the root of that thought? Where does it come from?? Like AEN has highlighted, it is ok to have wandering thoughts as long as awareness comes as quickly as the thought. Do not try to suppress the thought, just maintain your awareness that every thought arise due to conditions, you have the freewill to decide what to do with it. If you choose to just observe the thought by your awareness, it will subside eventually. Of course, if you have good thoughts (e.g. want to study more about Buddhism), then you should encourage and dwell on that thought :-)
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Originally posted by JitKiat:
When a thought arise, ask yourself, what is the root of that thought? Where does it come from?? Like AEN has highlighted, it is ok to have wandering thoughts as long as awareness comes as quickly as the thought. Do not try to suppress the thought, just maintain your awareness that every thought arise due to conditions, you have the freewill to decide what to do with it. If you choose to just observe the thought by your awareness, it will subside eventually. Of course, if you have good thoughts (e.g. want to study more about Buddhism), then you should encourage and dwell on that thought :-)
instead of asking for the root, where it comes form etc.... I prefer to just watch it comes and goes. -
Well said, Bro AEN.
I am having the same problem too.
I guess we can't stop the mind from wandering but to observe it when wandering, understand where it orignate from and to control it from wondering further.
By practising this over and over, the mind wanders less. Guess until we are enlightened, we can't stop the mind from wandering at all.
Just like the Law of Karma, we can't defeat it; we need to learn how to escape from it.
With Metta....
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Originally posted by SevenEleven:
instead of asking for the root, where it comes form etc.... I prefer to just watch it comes and goes.
This is how I am being taught. Just observe. No discussive thinking. Discussive thinking means " oh this is rupa , this is nama, this is the root cause, this , that ". Just observe, and bring the attention of the mind back to the body (abdomen or walking) if it wanders. By even realizing that the mind wanders, we already have some form of mindfulness of the mental factors. -
The chanting therapy
Chant Amituofo / Om Mani Padme Hum.
Pay your attention on chanting. It is okay to chant silently.
It could be cool to read up on the 42 vows of the Amitabha if you are free too.
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to correct. its 48 vows of Amitabha.
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Originally posted by Forrest_Gump:
to correct. its 48 vows of Amitabha.
Actually in history and the 5 surviving translation of Larger Amitabha Sutra ,there isnt an exact figure on the exact number of vows of Amitabha .One version states 35 vows ,while the Qing Dynasty Master Layman Peng Jingqing and Master Layman xialian stated as 48 vows .So it doesnt matter how much vows is it .but Medicine Buddha vows is still 12 Vows throughout the translation fm tang ,wei , and North Liang Dynasty
Perhaps sanath can share the Jodo Upholded translation as to how many vows of Amitabha ?
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Hi All
Very thankful to all replies. It's always easier said than done and certainly requires a lot of determination to tame the mind.
Just to clarify below excerpt by AEN:
Like an ever-present and unmoved mirror that clearly reflects everything but does not modify/seek/grasp/reject them (thoughts and experiences), and is untouched by thoughts and phenomena, indestructible. Then all thoughts are simply the expression of awareness, are not experienced/grasped through dualistic vision.
To illustrate by giving a (ficticious) example: I was wrongly blamed by the boss due to office politics. This thought will keep wandering in my mind. If I were to let the thought come by without suppressing it, will it actually go off without me consciously "nipping off" the bud. Because the mirror analogy given above is like telling me that i know the bad thought is there but just let it be there and refrain from suppressing or accessing the thought. Things reflected by the mirror will always be there unless you removed them. If you do not remove, it will always be there. Hence, am I right to say i got to train my mind such that i know the bad thought exists but do not dwell in it or let that thought affect you. That is, will bad thought actually disappear by itself without you curbing your mind. From my experiences, it will actually linger there (sometimes without me knowing how long it actually has stayed there) if I do not intentionally stop the bad thought.
Nite All
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Here's a well written article our moderator Longchen wrote:
Are we supposed to get rid of unwholesome thoughts?
Are we suppose to get rid of unwholesome thoughts?
This article is related to a common misconception with regards to spiritual practice. Many spiritual teachings say that one must get rid of unwholesome stuffs in one's life. So does that include getting rid of unwholesome thoughts that one is having?
Are we suppose to get rid of unwholesome thoughts? Before we can answer this question, we must first ask..."Can the self or 'I' get rid of thoughts that are deemed as unwholesome?" The answer to the latter question is a NO.
As already mentioned and explained here, the sense of self or 'I' is not the doer of action. As much as this 'sense of self' desires, it simply has no power over the arising and ceasing of thoughts. Thoughts, are for most part, related to the functioning of memory. Because of that, thoughts and memory cannot be removed by will.
So, if thoughts cannot be stopped from arising using volition, are we powerless with regards to its influences. No.
While thoughts cannot be stopped, the attachment or aversion to them can be diminished with training. Both attachments and aversions are types of grasping.
<!-- google_ad_client = "pub-9718179356331760"; google_ad_width = 336; google_ad_height = 280; google_ad_format = "336x280_as"; google_ad_type = "text_image"; google_ad_channel =""; google_color_border = "FFFFFF"; google_color_link = "000000"; google_color_bg = "FFFFFF"; google_color_text = "000000"; google_color_url = "E1771E"; //--> window.google_render_ad(); So to be precise, during spiritual practice, we are not supposed to try to stop unwholesome thoughts from arising. This will prove to be ineffective and all we get will be more frustrations. What we can do, is to let go of the grasping to the thoughts. There is an energetic difference between the two.
About this letting go, it is really a gentle process and cannot be forced. Excessive forcing re-enforces the arising of 'sense of self' and ineffective grasping kicks into action again.
Often, the thoughts that arised are in conditioned response to what is being perceived by the senses. The speed of the arisal of the thought often is very fast. Because there is a perception, which is followed rapidly by the conditioned thought, the conditioned reaction(grasping) to the thought often is almost immediate. The rapid change that occur within this short span of duration is what makes 'recognising' the grasping from the perception and thoughts difficult.
OK, that all I can think of and write about this topic. I will revise and improve this article where the need arises.
For your necessary ponderance. Thank you for reading.
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From 'Meditation: Now or Never' by Steve Hagen:
Distracting Thoughts
All kinds of thoughts will bubble up in meditation. Some will be mundane, some surprising, some delightful, some disturbing. Let them all arise and fall.
Whatever thoughts come up, don't resist them. Resistance will only intensify thinking. Just let the thoughts crop up as they will, and they will die down or drift away on their own.
Learn just to watch your thoughts without comment. Put your bare attention on the thoughts without adding anything.
The unruly mind doesn't like to be watched. But if we just watch our mind without commenting, even to ourselves, our mind will begin to straighten up and settle down on its own.....
...People often think meditation is about driving thoughts out of your mind. But this isn't meditation at all, as Foyan correctly points out. You don't need to annihilate thoughts. Thoughts annihilate themselves, if you'll let them. They simply fall apart. Everything does.
Yet we think we have to make an effort to drive them out. We don't realize that, in doing so, we only solidify them, and thus deepen our confusion and entanglement.
In Zen we don't teach people to annihilate their thoughts. Instead we sit quietly and learn to pay attention to what's actually happening. Thoughts will naturally drop away if you don't hang on to them, don't build them into something.........In meditation, we give full attention to direct experience - that is, what we feel, see, think, hear, smell, or taste right now. That's all. In other words, we don't comment on it. We don't ignore it or squelch it or analyze it or dwell on it or control it. Thus it all washes through.
In learning to come into this moment, we realize feelings directly, and we see the thoughts that often come attached to them. But we don't judge them or talk about them. We don't make anything of them at all. They come and go, and we taste them fully and directly, with no aftertaste. We don't consume them, and they don't consume us.
We only need to watch. Negative emotions under wordless observation cannot last for long. As long as we don't say anything to ourselves about them, they will naturally weaken and die away. But if we feed and amplify those feelings, they will just as naturally remain and grow.
Our emotions and thoughts are like the weather. They are sometimes pleasant, sometimes unpleasant, always changing. We can do little to control them directly, and are wise not to try. Yet they needn't control us, either. What we can do is to be alert. Just observe and let them be what they are. And after the occasional, inevitable storm has passed, we only need to quietly watch as the clouds dissipate on their own without any help from us.
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Different humans have different capacities, what works for one may not work for another. A method that is useful for others may not work on you. Buddhism practice has 84,000 ways, we have hundreds of sutras, we have Theravada, Tibetan, Chinese Mahayana Buddhism, within Chinese Mahayana we have Tiantai, Yogacara, Pureland, Zen .... What is important is that you must find what works for you.
But all methods must adhere to principle of three fold training i.e. sila (conduct or virtue), samadhi or samatha (concentration), and pañña (wisdom) 戒， 定， æ…§.
Sila requires you to abstrain from killing, stealing, intoxicating yourself etc.
Samadhi - many different ways: chanting (e.g. the amitbha in pureland sect, meditation, cultivation for awareness， tibetan mantra like om mani padme hum ...). Most of these methods require instruction from a Master when you go deeper.
Panna - cultivate wisdom in Buddhism, there is basic teaching like law of karma, 4 noble truths and more advanced one like the law of dependent arising (sunyata)
Training in one of the 3 aspects will help you in the two other aspects. For example, you may find your progress in meditation is slow. So you shift your focus to Sila and Panna to make progress. Later when you come back to meditate again, you may be surprised how the other two espects are helping you.
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Very well said by The Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche:
This Very Mind, Empty and Luminous
http://www.shambhalasun.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=3204&Itemid=247
Excerpt:
Think about it from the perspective of your own experience. What do you do when an aggressive thought suddenly arises? You might try to stop that thought, deflect its energy by justifying it, or even correct it—change it from a “negative” thought into a “positive” one. We do all these things because we feel that that thought, just as it is, is not good enough to meditate on. We will meditate on the next pure thought we have; or even better, we will rest in the essence of the gap between our thoughts, the very next one we recognize. In this way, we continually miss the moment that we are awake now. The problem is that we will never catch up to the wakefulness of the next moment, the wakefulness we will have in the future. If aggression is here now, then that aggression is at heart, in its very nature, vividly awake, empty, and luminous. As our simple-minded master of Mahamudra and Dzogchen might say, “Do you see it? That is it.”
You may prefer to meditate on the Buddha rather than on your emotions. The Buddha is always perfectly relaxed and at ease; therefore, you feel very comfortable. When you are meditating on your emotions, you may start to feel slightly anxious and uncomfortable. You may think that your mental health is at risk, or that the environment of your mind is not in a sacred, uplifted, or spiritual state. It is helpful to a certain point, at the beginning of our training, to meditate on pure objects like images of the Buddha, deities, or great masters. If, however, you get addicted to relying on such objects, there can be negative consequences. When you feel you cannot invoke the experience of sacredness or connect with your basic, enlightened mind through your everyday experiences of perceptions, thoughts, and emotions, you are developing a serious problem. Your emotions are as familiar, as commonplace, as sunshine and flowers, and that is great news for realizing ordinary mind. You have so many opportunities. Appreciate and take advantage of them.
What we have been looking for—the true nature of our mind—has been with us all the time. It is with us now, in this very moment. The teachings say that if we can penetrate the essence of our present thought—whatever it may be—if we can look at it directly and rest within its nature, we can realize the wisdom of buddha: ordinary mind, naked awareness, luminous emptiness, the ultimate truth. The future will always be out of reach. You will never meet up with the buddha of the future. The present buddha is always within reach. Do you see this buddha? Where are you looking?
Adapted from the “Wild Awakening” lecture series presented in Vancouver and Toronto, Canada, in February, 2004. -
i think read more taoism or buddhism stuff, could help you settled, it works for me,
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Sometime the more you focus on the problem, the bigger it becomes.
Thus I could rather divert my energy away to something else and forget about it in the meantime.
We have so many things to do in life. Work, family, relationships and friendship babababa.. You will soon forget about it if you don’t persist in thinking about it.
Thought arises and goes away naturally. Unless you emphasis on its importance, it will not become important. Some people act on the arising negative impulse and result in unwholesome action. Therefore, it is important to train in our mindfulness, not to be too blur, to read up on wise teachings to manage and live our life wisely.
I could recommend if you are keen in insight meditation, to learn under a teacher. I have tried to look at my own thinking in my daily routine but often I could be lost in the content of thought due to my lack of experience in meditation.
My few cents
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Thank you all for taking the time and patience in explaining to me. Your explanation is indeed profound and I would never be able to put it down in detailed words on the delicate workings in our mind. I am amazed by your thoughts and take my hat off. At least I now understand that thought will just arise and is not something which can be controlled by a person’s will power. However, it is conditioned by our perception from our fives senses. But instead of me dwelling on the thought when it arises, I should always try to be alert on when it arises and know when it disappears …. with no attachments or comments on these thoughts.
Just to digress a little, I can be very emotional when watching movies and this has affected my mood. So, perhaps the next time when I am watching movies, I should just enjoy it and try to disassociate the storyline with reality. I also love gazing at the scenery and really enjoying it esp in good mood. But does this mean my mind shouldn’t be carried away to indulge in the moment. I certainly do not think so since I am living in the moment and appreciating the mother’s nature. As what I assume AEN has implied that we are not a piece of wood. But it's kind of difficult not to be carried away and be alert / mindful at all times. In summary, I gather one got to be mindful, have compassions yet should not be attaching too much emotions in anything. I am no saint and can only try to strike a sweet balance between all these ......
Also, without that presence of awareness, a thoughtless state of absorption itself does not lead to insight, enlightenment, liberation. No insight will be born out of such a state, one is not any different than a piece of inanimate wood. (wood doesn't think too right?)
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The greatest enjoyment comes from being authenticated with non-dual, open awareness. When you are in nature, be fully mindful of what you see and hear. In fact it is our thinking that prevents us from fully 'enjoying' what is present. Our obsessive thinking will try to come up with something to worry ("what am I doing here walking in the park, I got to do this and that, blah blah...") or think, instead of being fully alive to what is present in one's own experience. Also when looking at, say, a tree, one does not label the tree, think about the tree etc, but simply submerge himself in that pure experience of the tree.
You may encounter experiences of a sense of openness/boundlessness, as if you are not confined and limited to your body mind. When looking at nature, you are at one with nature, and everything is experienced in immense clarity. When seeing the tree there is the sense that you are the tree (more accurately there was no 'you', just the tree), you are not some entity inside the body looking outwards -- that you are in fact the seeing that is inseparable from the seen. In seeing tree there is just that experience of tree, which is pure aliveness, without a separate observer. Any sense of a separate self, or separation, uncoils. Everything is experienced as pure awareness. It might be a bit difficult to imagine but once you have glimpses of this you will understand. Yet even when one has had glimpses of such experiences, it is not yet the same as having the realisation/insight into it (the no-self and non-dual nature) as an ever-present characteristic of reality, or a dharma seal, and not as a temporary stage of experience.
Pure Awareness perfectly reflects everything in clarity like a mirror, whether thoughts, or sight, or sound, everything is being 'awared' in/as pure awareness, our Buddha-Nature. But awareness itself does not 'grasp' or 'seek' any of these experiences, it is our deluded, sentient mind that does that. Awareness just naturally, non-discriminatorily, 'awares' by itself -- like the sound of airplane will effortlessly be heard when the condition arise (and it's not like you have any choice in that! unpleasant or pleasant sounds will be heard when the condition is there, whether you like it or not), awareness is always already 'here' manifesting as everything -- just that our being immersed in identifying with the story of 'me', 'mine', etc that we miss it all.
Many people have pre-conceived notions that awareness requires a lot of mental effort to be sustained. They may think that it is some sort of highly concentrated state where one is fixated/focused an unmoving point. (which it is not) It is not an exercise in concentration (like samatha practices). Awareness is actually effortless, and the practice of awareness is more like a process of 'undoing' than a 'doing' and is just allowing our pure awareness, pure experience, to manifest in its completeness and clarity without mental filters (symbols, labeling, interpreted, etc). Awareness does not need a lot of effort to be 'held on to', (it is always already naturally here), we just have to relax/release our fixation on our thoughts and return to being mindful of our experience, which may include thoughts occasionally arising.
The key point about the practice of mindful awareness is there is no keeping of the mind on anything and by not resting on anything, it fuses into everything; therefore it cannot be concentrated; rather it is to relax into nothingness empty of self, empty of any artificial doing so that the natural luminosity can take its own course. There is no focusing, there is only allowing the mirror bright clarity to shine with its natural radiance. In essence there is no one there, only the phenomenon arising and ceasing according to conditions, telling their stories.
If you practice mindfulness, you will be amazed by the quality of experience... everything becomes alive. There will also be immense bliss accompanied by this experience.
As Thusness told me many years ago,
You must taste, sense, eat, hear and see Pure Awareness in every authentication. And every authentication is Bliss.
Anyway being "carried away" implies that your attention is fixated on thoughts and concepts, and you are immersed in thinking about past and future. But if you are fully present to your experience, that is not being carried away, more like 'returning' to where you have never left.
p.s. an author 'Byron Katie' wrote her own awakening experience:
Less than two weeks after I entered the halfway house, my life changed completely. What follows is a very approximate account.
One morning I woke up. I had been sleeping on the floor as usual. Nothing special had happened the night before; I just opened my eyes. But I was seeing without concepts, without thoughts or an internal story. There was no me. It was as if something else had woken up. It opened its eyes. It was looking through Katie's eyes. And it was crisp, it was clear, it was new, it had never been here before. Everything was unrecognizable. And it was so delighted! Laughter welled up from the depths and just poured out. It breathed and was ecstasy. It was intoxicated with joy: totally greedy for everything. There was nothing separate, nothing unacceptable to it. Everything was its very own self. For the first time I — it — experienced the love of its own life. I — it —was amazed!
In trying to be as accurate as possible, I am using the word “it” for this delighted, loving awareness, in which there was no me or world, and in which everything was included. There just isn't another way to say how completely new and fresh the awareness was. There was no I observing the “it.” There was nothing but the “it.” And even the realization of an “it” came later.
Let me say this in a different way. A foot appeared; there was a cockroach crawling over it. It opened its eyes, and there was something on the foot; or there was something on the foot, and then it opened its eyes — I don't know the sequence, because there was no time in any of this. So, to put it in slow motion: it opened its eyes, looked down at the foot, a cockroach was crawling across the ankle, and … it was awake! It was born. And from then on, it's been observing. But there wasn't a subject or an object. It was — is — everything it saw. There's no separation in it, anywhere.
All my rage, all the thoughts that had been troubling me, my whole world, the whole world, was gone. The only thing that existed was awareness. The foot and the cockroach weren't outside me; there was no outside or inside. It was all me. And I felt delight — absolute delight! There was nothing, and there was a whole world: walls and floor and ceiling and light and body, everything, in such fullness. But only what it could see: no more, no less.
Then it stood up, and that was amazing. There was no thinking, no plan. It just stood up and walked to the bathroom. It walked straight to a mirror, and it locked onto the eyes of its own reflection, and it understood. And that was even deeper than the delight it had known before. It fell in love with that being in the mirror. It was as if the woman and the awareness of the woman had permanently merged. There were only the eyes, and a sense of absolute vastness, with no knowledge in it. It was as if I — she — had been shot through with electricity. It was like God giving itself life through the body of the woman — God so loving and bright, so vast — and yet she knew that it was herself. It made such a deep connection with her eyes. There was no meaning to it, just a nameless recognition that consumed her.
Love is the best word I can find for it. It had been split apart, and now it was joined. There was it moving, and then it in the mirror, and then it joined as quickly as it had separated — it was all eyes. The eyes in the mirror were the eyes of it. And it gave itself back again , as it met again. And that gave it its identity, which I call love. As it it what it is. People name things a wall, a ceiling, a foot, a hand. But it had no name for these things, because it's indivisible. And it's invisible. Until the eyes. Until the eyes. I remember tears of gratitude pouring down the cheeks as it looked at its own reflection. It stood there staring for I don't know how long. looked in the mirror, the eyes — the depth of them— were all that was real, all that existed — prior to that, nothing. No eyes, no anything; even standing there, there was nothing. And then the eyes come out to give
These were the first moments after I was born as it, or it as me. There was nothing left of Katie. There was literally not even a shred of memory of her — no past, no future, not even a present. And in that openness, such joy. “There's nothing sweeter than this,” I felt; “there is nothing but this. If you loved yourself more than anything you could imagine, you would give yourself this. A face. A hand. Breath. But that's not enough. A wall. A ceiling. A window. A bed. Light bulbs. Ooh! And this too! And this too! And this too!”
All this took place beyond time. But when I put it into language, I have to backtrack and fill in. While I was lying on the floor, I understood that when I was asleep, prior to cockroach or foot, prior to any thoughts, prior to any world, there is nothing. In that instant, the four questions of The Work were born. I understood that no thought is true. The whole of inquiry was already present in that understanding. It was like closing a gate and hearing it click shut. It wasn't I who woke up: inquiry woke up. The two polarities, the left and right of things, the something/nothing of it all, woke up. Both sides were equal. I understood this in that first instant of no-time .
So to say it again: As I was lying there in the awareness, as the awareness, the thought arose: It's a foot. And immediately I saw that it wasn't true, and that was the delight of it. I saw that it was all backward. It's not a foot; it's not a cockroach. It wasn't true, and yet there was a foot, there was a cockroach. It opened its eyes and saw a foot, and a cockroach crawling over the foot. But there was no name for these things. There were no separate words for foot or cockroach or wall or any of it. So it was looking at its entire body, looking at itself, with no name. Nothing was separate from it, nothing was outside it, it was all pulsing with life and delight, and it was all one unbroken experience. To separate that wholeness and see anything as outside itself, wasn't true. The foot existed, yet it wasn't a separate thing, and to call it a “foot,” or an anything, felt like a lie. It was absurd. And the laughter kept pouring out of me. I saw that cockroach foot are names for joy, that there are no names for what appears as real now. This was the birth of awareness: thought reflecting back as itself, seeing itself as everything, surrounded by the vast ocean of its own laughter. and
When I try to explain how The Work was born in that instant of realization, I can analyze the instant, slow it down, and tell it so that it takes on time. But this is giving time to an instant that wasn't even an instant. In that no-time, everything was known and seen as nothing. It saw a foot, and it knew that it wasn't a foot, and it loved that it was. The first and second of the four questions is like the slow-motion mechanics of the experience. “It's a foot” — is that true? Can I absolutely know that it's true? No. What was it like before the thought of “foot” appeared, before there was the world of “foot”? Nothing.
Then the third question: How do I react when I believe the thought? I was aware that there's always a contraction, that when I believe any thought I create a world separate from myself, an object that is apparently “out there,” and that the contraction is a form of suffering. And the fourth: Who would I be without that thought? I would be prior to thought, I would be — I am — peace, absolute joy. Then the turnaround: It's a foot / it's not a foot. Actually, all four questions were present in the first — Is it true? — and everything was already released in the instant that the first question was asked. The second, third, and fourth questions were embedded in the inquiry that was there in the experience. There were no words for any of the questions — they were not explicit, not thought, not experienced in time, but present as possibilities when I looked at my experience later and tried to make it available for people. With the fourth question the circle is complete. And then the turnaround is the grounding, the re-entry. There's nothing / there's something. And in that way people can be held without the terror of being nothing, without identity. The turnaround holds them until it's a comfortable place. And they realize that nowhere to go is really where they already are.
Our moderator Thusness also wrote about his own account of awakening here: Thusness's Six Stages of Experience
Excerpt:
('stage 4' of six stages)
...I got in touch with Buddhism in 1997. Not because I wanted to find out more about the experience of ‘Presence’ but rather the teaching of impermanence syncs deeply with what I experience in life. I am faced with the possibility of losing all my wealth and more by financial crisis. At that point in time I have no idea that Buddhism is so profoundly rich on the aspect of ‘Presence’. The mystery of life cannot be understood, I seek for a refuge in Buddhism to alleviate my sorrows caused by the financial crisis but it turned out to be the missing key towards experiencing total presence.
I wasn’t that resistant then about the doctrine of ‘no-self’ but the idea that all phenomenon existence is empty of an inherent ‘self’ or ‘Self’ did not quite get into me. Are they talking about the ‘Self’ as a personality or ‘Self’ as ‘Eternal Witness’? Must we do away even with the ‘Witness’ itself or the Witness is another illusion itself?
There is thinking, no thinker
There is sound, no hearer
Suffering exists, no sufferer
Deeds there are, no doer
I was meditating the above stanza deeply…about its meaning until one day, suddenly I heard ‘tongss…’, it was so clear, there was nothing else, just the sound and nothing else! And ‘tongs…’ resounding…. It was so clear, so vivid!
That experience is so familiar, so real and so clear. It is the same experience of “I AM”….it is without thought, without concepts, without intermediary, without anyone there, without any in-between…What is it? IT is Presence! But this time it is not ‘I AM’, it is not asking ‘who am I’, it is not the pure sense of “I AM”, it is ‘TONGSss….’, the pure Sound…
Then come Taste, just the Taste and nothing else….
The heart beats…..
the Scenery…
There is no gap in between, no longer a few months gap for it to arise…
There never was a stage to enter, no I to cease and never has it existed
There is no entry and exit point…
There is no Sound out there or in here…
There is no ‘I’ apart from the arising and ceasing…
The manifold of Presence….
Moment to moment Presences unfolds…Presence is the Crystal Bright Clarity...
-
Originally posted by An Eternal Now:
Many people have pre-conceived notions that awareness requires a lot of mental effort to be sustained. They may think that it is some sort of highly concentrated state where one is fixated/focused an unmoving point. (which it is not) It is not an exercise in concentration (like samatha practices). Awareness is actually effortless, and the practice of awareness is more like a process of 'undoing' than a 'doing' and is just allowing our pure awareness, pure experience, to manifest in its completeness and clarity without mental filters (symbols, labeling, interpreted, etc). Awareness does not need a lot of effort to be 'held on to', (it is always already naturally here), we just have to relax/release our fixation on our thoughts and return to being mindful of our experience, which may include thoughts occasionally arising.
The key point about the practice of mindful awareness is there is no keeping of the mind on anything and by not resting on anything, it fuses into everything; therefore it cannot be concentrated; rather it is to relax into nothingness empty of self, empty of any artificial doing so that the natural luminosity can take its own course. There is no focusing, there is only allowing the mirror bright clarity to shine with its natural radiance. In essence there is no one there, only the phenomenon arising and ceasing according to conditions, telling their stories.
If you practice mindfulness, you will be amazed by the quality of experience... everything becomes alive. There will also be immense bliss accompanied by this experience.
As Thusness told me many years ago,
You must taste, sense, eat, hear and see Pure Awareness in every authentication. And every authentication is Bliss.
Anyway being "carried away" implies that your attention is fixated on thoughts and concepts, and you are immersed in thinking about past and future. But if you are fully present to your experience, that is not being carried away, more like 'returning' to where you have never left.
p.s. an author 'Byron Katie' wrote her own awakening experience:
Our moderator Thusness also wrote about his own account of awakening here: Thusness's Six Stages of Experience
Excerpt:
Want to add on to something about the difference of awareness and focusing.
Awareness is not the same as the practice of focusing or concentration. Many non-Buddhist kinds of meditation, yoga, etc etc are purely exercises in concentration and does not bring about the kind of insights that as a practitioner of Buddhism we are aiming for, the kind of insights that eventually lead to liberation and Nirvana. Exercises in concentration can bring about altered states of consciousness but not wisdom and enlightenment.
In Buddhism our practice of mindful awareness does not require us to be focusing on a single unchanging object of awareness. During meditation in Buddhism, some people may employ certain kinds of 'support' in meditation -- for example they may begin by practicing mindful awareness of their breathing sensations. Or they may practice a more formless kind of meditation which is aware of whatever is happening without focusing solely on the breathe. But even in the mindfulness of breathing practice in Buddhism, the purpose is not just to enter a profound state of concentrative absorption, because our breathe is constantly changing, and if you are simply aware of the changing sensations itself, it cannot be an unchanging object of concentration. Awareness of the impermanency of all experiences is one of the goal of Buddhist meditation, fixating on something stable as if it is solid does not bring about insight into its nature but leads to progressive stages of absorption known as samatha jhanas, which are very blissful but temporary.
Similarly in daily lives, even while we are moving about, we can practice awareness. Our attention may shift from one thing to another, and we do not have to suppress that movement. No movement needs to be suppressed and whatever arises in awareness is perfectly fine to meditate on, whether it's scenes, sounds, taste, smell, touch, or thoughts. Including as mentioned by Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche, negative emotions, or any kind of emotions, thoughts, feelings. If it were a practice of concentration, then shifting of attention away from that object of concentration may be deemed as a hindrance to one's meditation. But in the practice of mindful awareness, we are not trying to fixate or focus or concentrate on one unchanging point to the exclusion of others. That is not the purpose of it. Rather it is to fully experience that luminous clear nature in all our experience, and also its empty nature. And its nature of impermanence. And the nature of no-self.
Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche: "We need to dismantle our fixation on the permanence of what we experience. A normal person clings to his experiences as being 'real,' concrete, and permanent. But if we look closely at what happens, experience is simply experience, and it is not made out of anything. It has no form, no sound, no color, no taste, no texture; it is simply empty cognizance."
As a friend of mine asked our moderator Thusness a few years ago:
Ck: john, how to practise vipassana in daily life?
Thusness: just observe every sensation.
Thusness: until one day u are able to experience "emptiness as form".
Thusness: then it becomes effortless.
Thusness: Truthz u cannot imagine the bliss when one clearly experiences that.
Thusness: but there is no point to over stress anything.
Thusness:
Ck: Thusness just observe every sensation... give me an eg?
Thusness: when u breath, u don't have to care what is the right way of breathing, whether u breath hard or soft, smooth or fine...just experience as much clarity as u can...just that experience...regardless of what it is like.
Thusness: same for all other experiences.
Ck: wot abt sound? hows it?
Thusness: when u hear, just the sound...the totality of the sound. There is no how but just to do away with all abitary thoughts. Hear the sound as clear as u can be.
Ck: then wot abt thots?
Ck: thots r v sticky
Thusness: thoughts seldom arise if the practice is correct. If it arises, then not to chase after its meaning. Not to answer urself what it means, not to dwell in 'what'...then u will resort to just the moment of awareness.
Ck: when i try to be just openly aware, i notice that i jump from sense to sense
Ck: like one moment hearing, then touch, etc
Thusness: that is okie.
Thusness: our nature is so.
Ck: wots the rite way to do it
Thusness: don't think that u should concentrate.
Thusness: ur only duty is to sense with as much clarity as possible.
Ck: and for all the sensations, i dun dwell in the 'what'?
Thusness: ur mind is looking for a way, a method
Thusness: but what that is needed is only the clarity.
Thusness: however because our mind is so molded and affect by our habitual propensities, it becomes difficult what that is direct and simple.
Thusness: just stop asking 'how', 'what', 'why'.
Thusness: and submerge into the moment.
Thusness: and experience.
Thusness: i perfer u to describe.
Thusness: not to ask how, what, why, when, where and who.
Thusness: only this is necessary.
Ck: ok
Thusness: if u practice immediately, u will understand.
Thusness: if u entertain who, what, where, when and how, u create more propensities and dull ur own luminosity.
Ck: i shuffle btw self inquiry, observing sensations n thots, being aware... its ok rite
Thusness: yes
Ck: means start work i'll hv even more propensities...
Thusness: that is when u do not understand what awareness, but it is true to certain extend. -
Hi, I am not certain if I have understood Byron Katie's awakening experiences. But I like the dialogue part with Thusness, it has kind of enlightened me a little. In this forum, I am only beginning to see the indepth knowledge on Buddhism, and got to admit that I am certainly far out of the class of most of you here with respect to the Buddhism knowledge, such as the Heart Sutra.
Today, I have tried to be mindful and tried to live in the present moment. Of course, I am not seeing myself and the environment as "one-self", rather just experiencing all the things that are surrounding me just as they are. I like it and enjoy the way it is. However, I found myself wondering how would one handle this precious moment when one has a setback in life, for instance illness, stress in work, financial problems, etc..... . The mind will not be as calm to appreicate the beauty of the present moment, needless to say is this the ideal time to cultivate one mind's under these circumstances. Sadly, I find it hard, though i know my faith in Buddhism will still remain unwavered.
Nite All!
-
Originally posted by Verdandis:
Hi, I am not certain if I have understood Byron Katie's awakening experiences. But I like the dialogue part with Thusness, it has kind of enlightened me a little. In this forum, I am only beginning to see the indepth knowledge on Buddhism, and got to admit that I am certainly far out of the class of most of you here with respect to the Buddhism knowledge, such as the Heart Sutra.
Today, I have tried to be mindful and tried to live in the present moment. Of course, I am not seeing myself and the environment as "one-self", rather just experiencing all the things that are surrounding me just as they are. I like it and enjoy the way it is. However, I found myself wondering how would one handle this precious moment when one has a setback in life, for instance illness, stress in work, financial problems, etc..... . The mind will not be as calm to appreicate the beauty of the present moment, needless to say is this the ideal time to cultivate one mind's under these circumstances. Sadly, I find it hard, though i know my faith in Buddhism will still remain unwavered.
Nite All!
No matter what circumstances one is in... it is always possible to come back to this moment. The tendency to chase or worry about things is strong, but as long as we notice, let it go and return to this experience.. our mind will not 'control' us. We should cultivate that mindfulness, if there is mindfulness, it is not difficult.
One simply acts out to solve the practical problems of life without giving reality to mental stories. Much like in dangerous situations people act out to save people (in a fire, or someone drowning). There is no notion of 'I' and no sense of volition -- it just acts out spontaneously according to condition. Buddha-Nature has always been acting out spontaneously according to conditions.
There are no 'problems' ultimately. What's wrong with right now unless you think about it? If possible you can also try to spend some time to meditate everyday.
Hopefully this helps:
The Power of Now; Eckhart Tolle, Excerpt:
All negativity is caused by an accumulation of psychological time and denial of the present. Unease, anxiety, tension, stress, worry - all forms of fear - are caused by to much future, not enough presence. Guilt, regret, resentment, grievances, sadness, bitterness, all forms of nonforgiveness are caused by too much past, not enough presence.
Most people find it difficulty to believe that a state of consciousness totally free of all negativity is possible. And yet this is the liberated state to which all spiritual teachings point. It is the promise of salvation, not in an illusory future by right here and now.
You may find it hard to recognise that time is the cause of your suffering or your problems. You believe that they are caused by specific situations in your life, and seen from a conventional viewpoint, this is true. But until you have dealt with the basic problem-making dysfunction of the mind - its attachment to past and future and denial of the Now - problems are actually interchangeable. If all your problems or perceived causes of suffering or unhappiness were miraculously removed for your today, but you had not become more present, more conscious, you would soon find yourself with a similar set of problems or causes of suffering, like a shadow that follows you wherever you go. Ultimately, there is only one problem: the time-bound mind itself.
I cannot believe that I could ever reach a point where I am complete free of my problems.
You are right. You can never reach that point because you are at that point now.
There is no salvation in time. You cannot be free in the future. Presence is the key to freedom, so you can only be free now.
Finding The Life Underneath Your Life Situation
I don't see how I can be free now. As it happens, I am extremely unhappy with my life at the moment. This is a fact, and I would be deluding myself if I tried to convince myself that all is well when it definitely isn't. To me the present moment is very unhappy; it is not liberating at all. What keeps me going is the hope or possibility of some improvement in the future.
You think that your attention is in the present moment when it's actually taken up completely by time. You cannot be both unhappy and fully present in the Now.
What you refer to as your "life" should be more accurately be called your "life situation." It is psychological time: past and future. Certain things in the past didn't go the way you wanted them to go. You are still resisting what happened in the past, and now you are resisting the is. Hope is what keeps you going, but hope keeps you focused on the future, and this continued focus perpetuates your denial of the Now and therefore your unhappiness.
It is true that my present life situation is the result of things that happened in the past, but it is still my present situation, and being stuck in it is what makes me unhappy.
Forget about your life situation for a while and pay attention to your life
What is the difference?
Your life situation exists in time.
Your life is now.
Your life situation is mind-stuff.
Your life is real.
Find the "narrow gate that leads to life." It is called the Now. Narrow your life down to this moment. Your life situation may be full of problems - most life situations are - but find out if you have any problem at this moment. Not tomorrow or in ten minutes, but now. Do you have a problem now?
When you are full of problems, there is no room for anything new to enter, no room for a solution. So whenever you can, make some room, create some space, so that you find the life underneath your life situation.
Use your senses fully. Be where you are. Look around. Just look, don't interpret. See the lights, shapes, colours, textures. Be aware of the silent presence of each thing. Be aware of the space that allows everything to be. Listen to the sounds; don't judge them. Listen to the silence underneath the sounds. Touch something - anything - and feel and acknowledge its Being. Observe the rhythm of your breathing; feel the air flowing in and out, feel the life energy inside your body. Allow everything to be, within and without. Allow the "isness" of all things. Move deeply into the Now.
You are leaving behind the deadening world of mental abstraction of time. You are getting out of the insane mind that is draining you of life energy, just as it is slowly poisoning and destroying the Earth. You are awakening out of the dream of time into the Present.
[Pause and meditate]
All Problems Are Illusions Of The Mind
It feels as if a heavy burden has been lifted. A sense of lightness. I feel clear... but my problems are still there waiting for me, aren't they? They haven't been solved. Am I not just temporarily evading them?
If you found yourself in paradise, it wouldn't be long before your mind would say "yes, but...."
Ultimately, this is not about solving your problems. It's about realizing that there are no problems. Only situations - to be dealt with now, or to be left alone and accepted as part of the "isness" of the present moment until they change or can be dealt with. Problems are mind-made and need time to survive. They cannot survive in the actuality of the Now.
Focus your attention on the Now and tell me what problem you have at this moment.
[Pause and meditate]
I am not getting any answer because it is impossible to have a problem when your attention is fully in the Now. A situation that needs to be either dealt with or accepted - yes. Why make it into a problem? Why make anything into a problem? Isn't lifechallenging enough as it is? What do you need problems for? The mind unconsciously loves problems because they give you an identity of sorts. This is normal, and it is insane. "Problem" means that you are dwelling on a situation mentally without there being a true intention or possibility of taking action now and that you are unconsciously making it part of your sense of self. You become so overwhelmed by your life situation that you lose your sense of life, of Being. Or you are carrying in your mind the insane burden of a hundred things that you will or may have to do in the future instead of focusing your attention on the one thing that you can do now.
When you create a problem, you create pain. All it takes is a simple choice, a simple decision: no matter what happens, I will create no more pain for myself. I will create no more problems. Although it is a simple choice, it is also very radical. You won' t make that choice unless you are truly fed up with suffering, unless you have truly had enough. And you won't be able to go through with it unless you access the power of the Now. If you create no more pain for yourself, then you create no more pain for others. You also no longer contaminate the beautiful Earth, your inner space, and the collective human psyche with the negativity of problem-making.
[Pause and meditate]
If you have ever been in a life-or-death emergency situation, you will know that it wasn't a problem. The mind didn't have time to fool around and make it into a problem. In a true emergency, the mind stops; you become totally present in the Now, and something infinitely more powerful takes over. This is why there are many reports of ordinary people suddenly becoming capable of incredibly courageous deeds. In any emergency, either you survive or you don't. Either way, it is not a problem.
Some people get angry when they hear me say that problems are illusions. I am threatening to take away their sense of who they are. They have invested much time in a false sense of self. For many years, they have unconsciously defined their whole identity in terms of' their problems or their suffering. Who would they be without it?
A great deal of what people say, think, or do is actually motivated by fear, which of course is always linked with having your focus on the future and being out of touch with the Now. As there are no problems in the Now, there is no fear either.
Should a situation arise that you need to deal with now, your action will be clear and incisive if it arises out of present-moment awareness. It is also more likely to be effective. It will not be a reaction coming from the past conditioning of your mind but an intuitive response to the situation. In other instances, when the time-bound mind would have reacted, you will find it more effective to do nothing - just stay centered in the Now.
A Quantum Leap In The Evolution Of Consciousness
I have had glimpses of this state of freedom from mind and time that you describe, but past and future are so overwhelmingly strong that I cannot keep them out for long.
The time-bound mode of consciousness is deeply embedded in the human psyche. But what we are doing here is part of a profound transformation that is taking place in the collective consciousness of the planet and beyond: the awakening of consciousness from the dream of matter, form, and separation. The ending of time. We are breaking mind patterns that have dominated human life for eons. Mind pat-terns that have created unimaginable suffering on a vast scale. I am not using the word evil. It is more helpful to call it unconsciousness or insanity.
This breaking-up of the old mode of consciousness or rather unconsciousness: is it something we have to do or will it happen anyway? I mean, is this change inevitable?
That's a question of perspective. The doing and the happening is in fact a single process; because you are one with the totality of consciousness, you cannot separate the two. But there is no absolute guarantee that humans will make it. The process isn't inevitable or automatic. Your cooperation is an essential part of it. However you look at it, it is a quantum leap in the evolution of consciousness, as well as our only chance of survival as a race.The Joy Of Being
To alert you that you have allowed yourself to be taken over by psychological time, you can use a simple criterion. Ask yourself: Is there joy, ease, and lightness in what I am doing? If there isn't, then time is covering up the present moment, and life is perceived as a burden or a struggle.
If there is no joy, ease, or lightness in what you are doing, it does not necessarily mean that you need to change what you are doing. It may be sufficient to change the how. "How" is always more important than "what." See if you can give much more attention to the doing than to the result that you want to achieve through it. Give your fullest attention to whatever the moment presents. This implies that you also completely accept what is, because you cannot give your full attention to something and at the same time resist it.
As soon as you honor the present moment, all unhappiness and struggle dissolve, and life begins to flow with joy and ease. When you act out of present-moment awareness, whatever you do becomes imbued with a sense of quality, care, and love - even the most simple action.
[Pause and meditate]
So do not be concerned with the fruit of your action - just give attention to the action itself. The fruit will come of its own accord. This is a powerful spiritual practice. In the Bhagavad Gita, one of the oldest and most beautiful spiritual teachings in existence, non-attachment to the fruit of your action is called Karma Yoga. It is described as the path of "consecrated action."
When the compulsive striving away from the Now ceases, the joy of Being flows into everything you do. The moment your attention turns to the Now, you feel a presence, a stillness, a peace. You no longer depend on the future for fulfillment and satisfaction - you don't look to it for salvation. Therefore, you are not attached to the results. Neither failure nor success has the power to change your inner state of Being. You have found the life underneath your life situation.
In the absence of psychological time, your sense of self is derived from Being, not from your personal past. Therefore, the psychological need to become anything other than who you are already is no longer there. In the world, on the level of your life situation, you may indeed become wealthy, knowledgeable, successful, free of this or that, but in the deeper dimension of Being you are complete and whole now.
In that state of wholeness, would we still be able or willing to pursue external goals?
Of course, but you will not have illusory expectations that anything or anybody in the future will save you or make you happy. As far as your life situation is concerned, there may be things to be attained or acquired. That's the world of form, of gain and loss. Yet on a deeper level you are already complete, and when you realize that, there is a playful, joyous energy behind what you do. Being free of psychological time, you no longer pursue your goals with grim determination, driven by fear, anger, discontent, or the need to become someone. Nor will you remain inactive through fear of failure, which to the egois loss of self. When your deeper sense of self is derived from Being, when you are free of "becoming" as a psychological need, neither your happiness nor your sense of self depends on the outcome, and so there is freedom from fear. You don't seek permanency where it cannot be found: in the world of form, of gain and loss, birth and death. You don't demand that situations, conditions, places, or people should make you happy, and then suffer when they don't live up to your expectations.
Everything is honored, but nothing matters. Forms are born and die, yet you are aware of the eternal underneath the forms. You know that "nothing real can be threatened."
When this is your state of Being, how can you not succeed? You have succeeded already. -
Hat's off to AEN for his dedication to this forum.
Sometimes, it is probably not as simple as just living at "now". For example, you are trying to meditate or chant and suddenly your 3-year old kid is making noise or tries to disturb you ... what are you going to do? The same question is posed to Mr �炳� (a disciple of Master Yin Kuang). He said you can scold or hit your children after you finish your meditation or chanting but you should not get angry while you are chanting. And you also must not get angry when you are scolding your children later.
Well, this is easy said than done. It takes time and mindfullness to slowly improve ourselves.