Vajrayana Buddhism has a form of meditation called Trekchö which is difficult to explain. It translates as ‘cutting through’ and ‘spontaneous’. It has been described as “recognition of one’s own innately pure, empty awareness”. Another trekchö instruction states: “This instant freshness, unspoiled by thoughts.”
There is no approach, no development path, no gradualism in this practice. It is direct, immediate and lacking in content. There are only “pointing out” instructions.
This practice is “inside itself”. There is noticing (“rig”) and there is noticing that you notice (“rigpa” or awareness). Can you combine them in one movement? Can you look directly into the awareness that experiences? Can you see that you are seeing?
Thinking will not get you there. The question triggers the event, or not. It is a skill that comes more easily with repetition. Once you know it, you have a reliable ‘place’ of refuge from your thoughts. You have spaciousness.
Trying to think it is solipsistic.
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March 18, 2024
Tags: meditation, Trekchö, Vajrayana Buddism, work notes
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February 5, 2024
Slow the breath, slow the pulse, this slows the turning of the mind.
To slow the breath, extend the outbreath.
The outbreath releases tension, slowing breath further.
Slowing the breath allows attention to be present and to descend into the senses. This is direct attention, not attention mediated by headbrain thinking.
Attention deepens its penetration, transforming the energy of the body.
Direction turns up naturally. There is a sense of buoyancy.
Consciousness increases and stabilizes.
To be conscious is a specific term meaning the ability to experience spatially, not linearly. It requires an energy different from sensitive energy. Consciousness arises from the transformation of sensation by impartial attention.
Tags: breath, meditation, work notes
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January 29, 2024
Meditation is first and foremost a relaxation of habitual bodily tensions unnecessary for the physical performance of sitting quietly. These involuntary muscular contractions hold the personality and prevent spaciousness. They are the physical manifestation of identification and therefore the perfect place to begin the objective observation of self (selves).
Can you sit quietly, notice your habitual contractions and ask your body to release them one by one? If so, your state changes and you begin to experience unordinary states of being outside the realm of the personality.
Comment:
I attend a meditation class in which everyone in the room is sitting on the floor cross legged. Outwardly everyone is looking quite blissful but my posture is not comfortable and I cannot relax while my muscles are screaming at me. What am I capable of?
The first thing is that I must appear to be quiet and in agreement to be in the circle, I must contain my discomfort and objections. I think that this is a useful challenge.
Mostly in life if something is uncomfortable I simply don’t engage in it. I get up and leave. In this setting I must try to find a way to endure it. I notice where the root of the pain is and direct my breath there to relieve what is becoming quite unbearable. Somehow, despite my expectation that this is impossible, I discover that the discomfort begins to recede and since discomfort is so all engaging, other thoughts and distractions have disappeared. Eventually, almost miraculously, my body becomes quiet. This may happen just as the meditation is ending but if I am lucky I can experience something on the other side of this quiet.
At the beginning of this process I would say that the direction that relaxation takes is downwards, letting go towards the pull of gravity, removing my resistance to that pull. But at some point the direction changes and I feel a pull from above. That upward pull creates spaces, spaces between the vertebrae, a lengthening of the spine and neck, a feeling of becoming lighter and lifted.
Knowing that this state is possible doesn’t necessarily mean that I get to skip the discomfort stage. Every time that I attend to meditation I begin at the beginning, I never know what will occur. I cannot determine or direct what will happen, I can only observe.Tags: habitual contractions, meditation, relaxation, work notes
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December 12, 2021
In prayer, or when I meditate, my mind wanders incessantly and I have to keep bringing it back.
This is the human experience. The ordinary mind is continuously turning over with mostly meaningless content. I’m not aware of it during the day because my activities and body sensations are dominant. Ordinary life is grounding. When I am tired or sleeping, the ongoing mental content becomes more evident. It’s a kind of ongoing ‘subvocalization’ or commentary often entirely disconnected from my life. I call it the ‘backdrop’. It’s a whole fantasy dream world exposed when I become inactive.
This backdrop can be exposed in meditation or prayer.
The first remedy is always to place attention on sensation. Voluntary attention cuts the backdrop’s power cord.
But there is more. We are three part beings…body, psyche (thought and emotion) and presence. The psyche is in disorder so I cannot remain in the present. I am therefore vulnerable to being drawn into the backdrop. Entering the present with voluntary attention on sensation is a partial remedy. A further remedy is to encounter my timeless identity, the true ‘I’ that is found through the doorway of presence, where I meet myself as I always was. My original face before time began.
Prayer can enable you to meet your real self. The One who is remembered in prayer enables me to remember myself. I am called to my true identity, as I was created in the beginning. When this happens, you won’t be satisfied to live in the unstable, inexhaustible churning of the psyche. You will sense that something is missing.
Is this what it means to be present?
It fulfills presence. I can ask to be present in the present and dis-identify from my personality. That’s stepping up to the threshold. Someone or something calls me through to the other side where I am who I always was. I am re-membered. It may make you uncomfortable to think of this someone as God but this greater presence needs no name.
How do I know if I am having the experience of my original face?
This is hard to express in words but I’ll try. There is a deep feeling of familiarity with myself that is wordless and timeless…a feeling that is direct, not mediated or derived from something else. The state recognizes itself. There is a sensation as if my face is shining. And there is a sense of being seen, as if I am facing in the right direction for an intimate meeting with an honored guest. There is nothing grim or forced. It’s a feeling of perfect security as if I have come home.
Tags: attention, meditation, original face, practical work on self, prayer, present
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May 25, 2021
I was reminded of this phrase from Buddhist teachings when hearing of some of the meditation experiences in the group. Shamata properly practiced can lead to an experience of vibrant emptiness in which self is temporarily suspended, returns and evaporates again. This is consciousness moving in and out of a state that is unsupported and unconfined by self and the things we identify with. It’s spacious, alive, non-reactive.
Dull shamata often comes to those who meditate on their own and fall into a trance-like state that is non-reactive and empty but not alive and spacious. This is in fact a fairly steady state, somewhat easily maintained because it is a production of self. Beware of dull shamata, meditators.
Tags: meditation, shamata
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November 1, 2017
I entered the zikr chamber and almost immediately felt as if suspended in space.
Most of my attention is used unconsciously to maintain my physical positioning in the world. It fixes my position in a particular time and place….a day, a street address, a set of clothes, a task I am doing, a place I am going, my body shape, the way I occupy space. All these references are set in place and habitually held there by involuntary attention without conscious notice or involvement.
To be present is to bring voluntary attention to contemporary engagement which may then be used for transformation of energies. This is what happens when I invoke presence; presence entering the present transmutes sensation into consciousness. Attention is voluntarily re-connected with its source. But the possibilities do not end there. Engagement with the present can then be released. Presence remains but it is free to enter another realm, another set of references.
This is the point of meditation. Meditation unwinds my habitual set of references.
Once I am present, my presence may find relationship with a larger presence, leaping into the lap of the mother as the vajrayana teaching says. One pronounced effect is that you may sense and feel that you are suspended in space. There is nothing supporting you nor is any support needed. This is what is meant in this work when it is said that presence is a voyager. I remember myself as the voyager, a presence suspended in the labyrinth of creation.
Tags: invocation, meditation, presence, present, voluntary attention, voyager, zikr
