Forum: Dharma Overground Discussion Forum

Hello Everybody,

This is my first post on DhO. I'd like to share an adaptation of a Shingon technique that Hokai told us about at the Alabama gathering. I think it would be fun for a group of people to try out a new technique together and then talk about it. Here's my version of what I call "the mirror:"

Imagine your own face hovering in space just a few inches in front of you, at eye level. It is looking back at you, like a mirror image. Invest the mirror face with your identity and intelligence. Let yourself be confused about which one is really "you." Who is looking at whom? Notice that it's not so easy to tell. That's good. Now, gently invite in a third point of view, as though being observed by awareness itself. That's it! Try it out and let us know what happens.

Thanks for lettin' me hang out with ya,

Kenneth

Hey Ken,

My favorite type of technique are these "direct" type as well. I got deep in the path by doing nothing but "who am I" and then by exploring what the hell happened after each shift. Actually, I think that's how most of my practice has been-- techniques of direct noticing supplemented with vipassana to understand the openings and/or navigate the difficult territory.

I have been toying with a similar technique as this for a few weeks, but I never thought to add a 3rd person. I will definitely give it a shot next time I feel up to that type of meditation. The only problem I see, however, is that I almost always collapse into fruition incredibly quick with "two faces" that I'm not sure whether the 3rd would add anything? Only one way to find out I guess! I like the face technique because it seems to force the "mirror" gate to open, or at least sort of mocks that being the opened gate.

I toy around with a lot of variations of techniques like this and would love to hear/share more sometime.

Actually, the more I think about it, I think maybe the 3rd view is actually the very thing triggering the fruitions; almost like I get bored with 2 and the instant I flip to watch them from another perspective, the whole thing collapses. Argh now I am even more curious to see if I can replicate that or invalidate that curiosity!

Yabaxoule, what exactly do you mean when you say "fruitions," and how long have they been going on?

Fruition meaning the no-experience, reality blinking out, emptiness, etc. But yeah man, I think the 3rd is what caused the fruition. I was thinking about it while meditating just now, and I realized that I had started to intuitively see a face on "the other side" about 2 weeks ago, which correlates to when I started sliding around what you and Daniel refer to as "no-dog."

When I realized that, the other side flew into my face, fruition came on, but after the blink-out, the other side either did not reappear or is subtle enough that I cant really feel it right now. May be something that fades. Very interesting-- all sensations use to have a "direction" when I felt them, regardless of whether or not the eye was clear or not. I'm not sure why, but something in me felt like even though they were arising without any sense of a do-er, they were still arising to "this side" of the split. Now...uhh I dunno, feels like they appear but since the other side is not distinguishable, they just sort of come and go without some sense of direction.

Actually, it feels like everything is moving from bottom to top; although that does not quite make sense either.

Author: Dan_K

Hi Kenneth,

I tried ‘the mirror’ for a half an hour. I have been focusing on the observer/observed ‘flip’ for the past week of meditation so this exercise was fitting. The flip is where a sensation will appear to be an immersive observer on ‘this’ side until seen with the eye of mindfulness, and since the observed cannot be the observer, it flips to ‘over there.’ I imagined as clearly as I could my own face staring back at me. When thoughts would come, they still seemed to appear to an observer on ‘this’ side, but gradually they started ping-ponging from the image of my face to the skeletal seer. I say skeletal because as more attention was focused on the image, less and less appeared to be within the domain of ‘this’ side. The two wanted to try and switch sides at first, which was awkward. At the peak of my concentration it seemed almost equally feasible that ‘he’ (the visualization) was imagining ‘me’ rather than me imagining him, even though I ‘knew’ which side had started it. At this point the ‘observer’ sense was sputtering, less substantial than the viewed image. The first time I added in a third vantage point everything got very chaotic and disorienting, but the second time it was like everything wanted to converge to a single point, which was very cool and lasted for a few minutes. Afterward I noticed the observer-sense without visualizing, and I saw that the normal observer-sense was more on ‘that’ side, just an image. For a short time after I got up most of the body and mind were interwoven with the world over ‘there.’ It was very cool and I’ll definitely do it again, thanks.

Dan

Hi Kenneth,
I tried this last night. Initially, I ran into the problem that I could not remember what my face looked like. I tried to remember the bathroom mirror, but only details such as eyebrows or chin came up. Then I thought of the photo badge at work, and visualizing that picture I got a momenary recognition, "Hey, that's me!" but it vanished. The best I could manage was a sort of flickering image, with frequent flashes of recognition. I never got to the point where I could open up to a third perspective. I couldn't help but notice lots of impermanence and dissatisfaction, though.

Am I getting too hung up on trying to get a stable image?

Cheers,
Florian

Yes, Florian, I think that's the problem. While this exercise may be adapted from a visualization exercise, we aren't using it that way, so you don't have to get a stable image at all. The idea here is just to get a sense that someone is looking back at you, and that that someone is you. It can be a very transparent image, just the vague sense of your own intelligence peering back into your face. Relax into it. It's happening anyway. The sense that the locus of awareness is inside your head is an illusion created by the fact that that's where your eyes are. Awareness could be anywhere (or everywhere).

Let your mind be completely filled up with these three perspectives of knowing, i.e. me, other me, and third party watcher. In this way, there is no processing power left to project a phony universe. What a relief! Thanks to Hokai for this concept.

I did this last night with the same result. So then I started mirroring the sensations I was feeling into the space in front of me. Pretty soon the sensations lost there sense of being connected directly with my body. It was more like wearing the sensations of my skin just outside my skin, the sensations of my eye were just outside the surface of my eyes, etc. The sensations could be seen as being from the outside coming in or the other way around. (Not profoundly, just experimentally.) Adding a third-party viewer was awkward. I put it first on the left side of me, then the right... now I'm realizing I should have explored a more transcendent, non-material third party.

I get a giddy feeling thinking about this experiment. I gotta try it again...

Author: Dan_K

This is interesting because, since trying it again, I have noticed more often that I am 'doing' this excercise nearly all the time except not purposefully, and I really do think it's me!! What I found helpful is to spatially place the face image over the tactile sense of my face, and then bring it toward 'the viewer' just a bit farther then what feels comfortable. It blurs the here/over there demarcation, and feels weird at first but then really takes a life of its own. Also I would have the face mouth whatever thoughts were arising and respond to stimuli. I got the face relatively stable, so that it really seemed not to be looking back at anything. I will focus more on the third party next time, this time it didn't really seem to do much. When you are done with the excercise, be sure to watch your 'face' re-build on its own! I then made it an object for insight, which was disconcerting but fascinating.

Dan

Beta, Kenneth

Very close to my experience last night. I was able to mirror or move sensations into the space in front of me and play with the "location" where they were perceived. I did not get the "recognition" effect from my first try. My question: is this about moving the "location" of the sensations ("that's where the hearing takes place"), or is it about the "recognition" ("hey, that's me"), or am I mixing up something here?

As to the third perspective - I got that left-right-inside-outside searching for the third, too. Thinking about it, the third perspective should not be about positioning sensations in space, but, ... about what? Qualities like openness, receptivity? Any good hints for staging this "invitation" of a third perspective?

This exercise has been very profitable, so far. For example, I noticed how habitual noting has become for me. Noticing this habit was quite a revelation in its own right.

Cheers,
Florian

Kenneth, thanks for starting this thread!

I played with it again last night, and pretty much have the same questions as Florian. I started by projecting sensations in front of me, then pretended that was were my "me-ness" was. But I had a hard time turning it toward me and looking at it face to face. I got a little frustrated because it was less earth-shaking than the previous attempt. Adding a third perspective made the experience even weaker.

Funny, I also noticed how much I wanted to give up the experiment and return to noting! (Could be a form of doubt?)

It's the second. Basically, the "other side" that you're seeing the "other face" on is completely illusory. There is no other side. The watcher ("you") and the watched ("the face") is essentially the same thing. Techniques like this sort of set up feed-back loops which, as the loop deepens and becomes too "tightly woven" results in something very interesting. Understanding all of the details of this technique is something you should also investigate, but probably not until quite a bit later down the path.

As Yaba (and J. Krishnamurt) have pointed out, "the observer and the observed are one." When you imagine a face staring back at you, what's really happening is that consciousness has created a structure and is now looking at it. "Consciousness is looking at consciousness," as Hokai describes it. It's valuable to notice how the mind gets confused about who is looking at whom. This confusion is good. Both the "fake I" that you are imagining in front of you and the "real I" that you imagine yourself to be are fictions. They are actually interchangeable.

But the real value of this exercise, in my opinion, is that after you invite in the third party watcher, the mind is so full that it doesn't have anything left with which to create the dualistic universe. There is only the unitive sense of "I," "I." This is what mystical phrases like "I AM that I AM" point to. It is also the quintessential advaitist exercise (not the two faces, etc., but the pure dwelling as "I.") This is the no-dog, as in "it doesn't have a dog in this fight." It is not primordial awareness, but it is the last thing that can be done by a doer. When even that is let go of, primordial awareness, which is the simplest thing, is revealed.

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I know that as a concept this sounds like nonsense. But the important thing is to see it (be it?) for yourself. I disagree with Yaba that you should wait until later to go deeply into this practice. I never waited for anything, but experimented with every practice I ever heard about. Sometimes I didn't get the true benefit of a practice right away, but I always got something. And, as we know, some gifted yogis are able to see the simplest thing right away and remain in that awareness. Always ring the non-dual bell first. If it doesn't ding, grind out some more vipassana. :-)

I was a very dull yogi, and had to take vipassana all the way to its conclusion before I gave myself permission to be awake. Don't be like me. Be awake now.

Kenneth

Kenneth, Yabaxoule,

Thanks for the explanations - they give me some context for the exercise.

I have my "bread & butter" vipassana practice, which I don't modify too frequently, but I like to try experiments like this one. It looked simple enough, but it's challenging in an interesting, fun way.

I got to the point where both position and recognition of the mirror became ambiguous. However, I'm still stuck at "How do I go about inviting the third party watcher". I feel a bit stupid that I can't figure it out. However, if you tell me figuring that out by myself is actually part of the exercise, I'll be happy to do my homework.

What I tried was: try to remember the "feel" of reading a story written in third person, and actively ask, "anybody else?". Neither worked.

Cheers,
Florian

try this for practice:

as you're reading this, look at how it is that youre currently reading this. i mean, you know you are reading this, right? this is happening, reading is happening, comprehending is happening, eyes are moving, someone isnt really thinking about it, ooh now someone's aware that thinking's going on, what is this awareness? is there anyone here that's looking or watching? is there some higher-dimensional intelligence that is manifest in every sight, sound, thought, feeling, occurrence? wait, who's wondering about all this anyway?

basically get to know 3rd person in real-time, as you going about your things.. with some kinda understanding that 3rd person awareness isnt really you either, any more than a 1st person awareness. take this 3rd person awareness and hit it really f'ing HARD (by which i dont mean solidify it but put absolutely everything you've got into it so that if the rest of life happens it must just be happening on its own cos you've put all your energy into doing this).

I completely agree with you. I just meant that there are other profound, somewhat indirect insights to be had from some of the subtleties of these types of inquiry which are probably not very evident until things have unfolded a lot.

During my sit last night, a really strange perspecive unfolded. I don't think it's the 3rd person view, though. Anyway:

Initially, I took the approach of "turning around to watch me sitting" - i.e. I took on the mirror role, until distinction started to blur. This currently works best for me to get into the ambiguity of the point of view. Once perception was "going both ways", I added awareness of the volume of the room I sat in, and tried to gently expand that volume, in an attempt to introduce the 3rd person view.

I had to start over a few times, but then the weird perspective arose: it was as if the right half of my face was turned inside-out. Really hard to put into words! As if one half of the sphere around the two mirror images was somehow inverted or rotated (no sense of movement, though) or mirrored in on itself. This included a reversal of the convex/concave quality of the inside and outside of "the sphere".

When the sit was over, I had a strong awareness of the inside of the back of my skull, which made me feel strangely "flat" - as if the back of my head was immediately adjacent to my eyeballs.

I'm curious what will happen tonight. (I do noting practice in the morning and over lunch).

Comments?

Cheers,
Florian

Author: Ant_808

Hi Kenneth,
I just tried the technique you mentioned and I found after each perspective shift major body spams occurred flowing from bottom to top. The after that it settled down and a very light sense clarity developed that permeated my meditation as my awareness was pulled to the third perspective and then my attention was very broad and horizontal. The most prominent aspect was the light sense of clarity and seemed to hang around.

Nice technique thanks for sharing it... Anthony

Author: Dan_K

@kennethfolk

In the arahat thread you wrote: “Prior to the arising of the universe, prior to the invention of time, prior to the self/other split, there is what we might call primordial awareness. It is here now. You can find it by following your own mind upstream…Primordial awareness is what is there when you stop being distracted by everything else. Stopping does take some getting used to though, so in some ways it's similar to a skill.”

This was my main practice before vipassana. I would ignore/let go of everything that arose and allow “sinking.” I still do this every so often, and I began vipassana primarily as a way to facilitate this. I can get to a point where phenomenal reality seems very far away, but not yet to the conclusion. Distractions keep coming, mostly is the form of doer/seer. I really appreciate that the mirror exercise is dealing with this territory, and I have a couple of questions.

1. Can you explain what is meant by “no-dog”? I had to look up the expression to get that it means a situation without any stake in the outcome (it yielded links about Michael Vick ). Can you elaborate about what doesn’t have a stake in what sort of outcome? Are there markers to determine if you are in that state?

2. Any advice about following the mind up-stream, stopping the distractions, in order to realize the simplest thing? I worry that more details might retard it in some sense (as a non-technique), but no harm in asking.

Thanks a lot!
Dan

I tried this technique last night with interesting result. Whilst I was trying to "shift" my consciousness from my body to the mirror image, my awareness initially flitted back and forth between me and the image at a fairly brisk pace (1-2 Hz). Eventually it seemed to stabilise somewhat in the mirror image. But after a short while, sensation seemed to take on a "disconnected/disassociated" quality, analogous to the strange perception of repeating a word over and over until it loses meaning and becomes just sound. Very odd. Afterward, when I got off the cushion, I felt both relaxed and wrung out.....

Hi Dan,

For some reason I find this a really delightful question. Non-dual teachers often start a talk by saying "What I'm about to say isn't true." Then they talk on and on. So elaborating on this thing that can't be spoken is a delightful idea.

Maybe the best approach is to point to it. Even better, to point from it.

What is the common denominator of all experience? Since all experience is by definition known, knowing must be present in all experience. Knowing is a very simple thing, not complex at all, and it's always here. But knowing is so often turned outward, toward the world. Even the knowing of thoughts and body sensations requires turning the knowing mind outward, away from itself. What happens when you "turn the light around," and let knowing know itself?

Knowing is really only at rest when it knows itself. When it knows itself, it doesn't want anything else. It's just happy and complete. This is the no-dog. It has no stake in whether Dan lives or dies, goes to hell or to heaven, gets enlightened or not.

You know you are in that state if there is no more wanting. It's not a spectacular thing. No lights or visions. You can be in the no-dog while sitting, or walking around the house, or taking a walk outside. You could do it in the supermarket. People might smile at you. Sometimes they can see it. Most importantly, Dan doesn't have to do or be anything in that moment, and it can be a surprise to learn that all Dan really wants is a vacation from the intolerable burden of being Dan. That's all any self really wants. So we let it die for a moment. In that death is another kind of life.

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So how do we follow the mind upstream?

Listen to the sounds around you. Any sound will do. Listen to that sound at its source. Listen to that sound halfway between the source and your ear. Listen to the sound where it contacts your ear. Listen to the sound where it enters the nerve cells of your brain. Listen to the sound all the way in, where knowing takes place. Follow it. All the way in. Who is the knower of that sound? Who is the knower of that sound? Who is the knower of that sound?

Y'all are likely way ahead of me on this...it was new to me, and though I can't say I gained any real insights or anything of worth other than amusement and a good time - I'm just throwing this little deviation out there for your consideration... (background: theme from The Twillight Zone).

I absolutely SUCK at visualization; always have for some reason. I tried to do the exercise according to Kenneth's original directions, but god knows, I just can't visualize my "self" positioned at eye level looking back at me, or in any other posture.

So I did the next best thing I could think of -- I stood in front of an actual mirror with very dim lighting in the background, began following my breath, closed my eyes half-shut and just observed what would unfold.

Whatever "that" was, if nothing else, it certainly was facinating and entertaining! I "saw" everything from my father's face staring back at me (he's been dead since I was 11 years old) to what I might describe as crow-magnon men looking around as if asking "what the hell am I doing here?".

I don't know that it was a valuable experience, but it most definitely was entertaining and the images ranged from mildly disconcerting to terrifying in the 15 to 20 minutes I let it run.

So my point is (unless someone can point out something of real value in this enterprise), if you're bored and want to see something fantastic - give it a shot.

Thanks for suggesting this technique. When I try it, I find that I quickly get into a "lots of vibrations" state. And then I noticed that it's easy to take that perception of something else as being the watcher and transfer it to pretty much any sensation. So I've been playing with taking a sensation and regarding *it* as the watcher. Strangely, it seems to work with all sorts of sensations, and it appears to be good for "penetrating" through regions of apparent solidity.

So, it's not intuitive, but the often-given instruction of "whatever arises, observe it" can be dualized into "whatever arises, let it observe".

I don't have particularly good visualization powers (that I know of...) but it seems like this exercise is doable without them. It's more about flipping the notion of what's the watcher and what's the watched.

While I'm at it: Thanks Kenneth for your open letter. Down-to-earth accounts of enlightening are amazingly encouraging.

This is my first post since I overenthusiastically asked "was that an A&P??!?!?" without reading the FAQ first Thanks for all the tolerance. I'm still curious to know what stage I'm in. To judge from advice given by Ken to John (=n8sense, "Spasms while meditating") it's possible that I'm in the 4th ñana. However, I did have that very intense A&P-ish event together with signs of dissolution that one time, so it's not entirely clear.

Author: msj123

This is a good exercise. I've been "playing" with it from time to time. What I've noticed is that the essence of the imaged "me" and the essence of the "real me" both have the same essential mental flavor. They both feel, equally, like mental images. I must admit it is somewhat disconcerting to experience this directly--- it is one thing to say "the ego is an illusion" and quite another to see the illusion. Good stuff, I'll continue to play with this one.

Matt