Hello dear fellow practitioners,
Recently, through a friend, I was introduced to MCTB (and hence, Theravada Buddhism). With my background it was kind of mindblowing for me reading people talk so openly, straight-forward, pragmatic and detailed about many aspects of buddhisms. To be honest, for the first time I am getting familiar with buddhist terminology. This is after many years of sincere practice, despite having practiced in a community for some years.
I am reading MCTB right now. In particular, I have read part III about shamatha jhanas with great interest, and several times. I have never looked into that subject before. I never made contact with anybody studying or even mentioning concentration jhanas before. Hence, I am uncertain whether I have already attained any of the four formed shamatha jhanas.
I would like to ask if anybody with more experience would be so kind to help me connect the terminology with my experiences. I would simply describe in my own words, what I have expirienced resp. attained. I will try to do so from a concentration point of view. But to be honest, I have trouble wrapping my head around all that new information and keeping things separate. Also I have never ever told anybody about my experiencen is such detail before, so I really enjoy sharing it here. I hope you do not mind. Even if I get no answer I am happy to share this part of the story, and feel like this is a good place to do so.
I have not yet studied the chapters of MCTB about the stages of insight in comparable depth and I feel like I would have a harder time describing expiriences that may be related to stages of insight. So I simply leave them mostly out. Like a child that does not yet have the courage to show itself to strangers. Also please excuse any grammar mistakes. I lived in england for a year, but am not a native speaker and this is a tough subject to write about in a foreign language.
At some point in my early adult life, I started searching for something. I turned to the religion of my childhood, catholicism, and irregularly started praying and meditating. I did not obtain the answers I was looking for, but continued practicing. Then I started doing Yoga in order to attain a healthy body, but I performed it as a meditation practice, too. However, during praying, yoga and meditation I didn't know what I was doing. My mind was in a lot of distress. I tried to calm it down, and mostly failed. I practiced only every other day, but if I did, then at least for half an hour or more. I believe about two years passed like this. I do not really know what year I started. I started slowly and my practice grew slowly over time. Albeit with periods of discontinuity.
Thru others I was superficially introduced to several other religions, including hinduism. A friend of mine invited me to something that might be very well considered a yoga retreat. Seven hours of cleaning the ashram every day, lol. But accompanied by a lot of yoga, chanting and medition, too. Beginning with a fire ceremony at 5 am, and than a whole day of practice until 10 pm (with enough breaks of course). Meditation and Yoga were optional, the cleaning was mandatory, but I did it all. Because of the cleaning accomondation and food was free, and I was totally broke. So I was happy cleaning.
During this retreat I finally surrendered to my distress during meditation. I exactly remember that moment. So from then on, I consiously followed my thoughts and emotions 'into the swamp' as I would have said back than. That was kind of against everything I was taught until then. Against any advise I was giving by any teacher or practitioner. Most of them would have said, I started following my ego or the illusion 'maya' or something like that. I believed I finally surrendered to the fact that I am too weak to do actually practice. So, this was about two years after my journey began.
My meditation practice changed completely. Finally, I had something to do: Get my distressed mind in order. This is in contrast to me trying to supress what I experience, as I was doing before. I started practising more regularly and more intensively. Not every day, but several times a week and always for at least an hour. Meditation, Yoga, Pranayama, and sometimes still praying. Always consiously concentrating on whatever I am doing, but also allowing any thoughts and emotions that arise, and conciously following them if they do. Which they did. A lot.
Well, I had good reasons to be distressed, I must say. My life was a mess, and I wouldn't say that was mainly my own fault. I was way too young to handle what I was sucked into (respectively previously was born into) and did not even really understand what I was living through back then. I had no role models, or even anybody to tell what was going on. I was not molested or something like this, but let's say I had enough reason to be unhappy. I am sorry for needing to mention this, but I feel like I must do so because otherwise my description of my meditation expiriences are kind of distorted by omission. For quite some time already and also the following years I struggled to get my life together. Years later, I was able get out of that circumstances (with the help of other people) and since then: I am doing quite fine. Anyways, back to the important parts of the story.
After another year or so conciously following my thoughts and emotions during practice if they arise, I finally had a moment of peace. This was about three years after I began with some kind of regular practice and during a particularly long meditation of several hours. It was kinda magical, but in a quiet sense. For the first time I had the feeling I experienced a glimpse of (what I believe to be the catholic) god. I was not yet introduced to buddhism at that time. My thoughts and emotions did not stop, but they noticibly calmed down. _I_ did noticibly calm down. I was not particularly happy during that experience, but I was not particularly happy about anything back than. However, I finally came to rest to an extend I never experienced before. I did not actually appreciated that very much back than, since it clearly was not yet that crazy ecstatic 'samadhi' as I was told about from the yogis and hinduists. But it was clear to me: I must intensify my meditation practice. Which I did.
I believe I switched back and forth between my previous way to practice (most of the time) and dwelling in that new state of mind if I was lucky. Sometimes I tried to enter the calmer state, also with successes. But most of the time I did not bother much what state I was in. I felt like it is not up to me to choose, even if I could. Actually, I did not even think about these two different states as being distinct states. I was more concerned with the object: Conciously following my thoughts or calming down. My only intent was to do whatever is necessary (apart from maybe the intent to free myself from some unnecessary suffering). Whenever prevalent thoughts or emotions arouse, I was ready to meet them. Whenever I calmed down, I continued calming down. All of this during Meditation, Pranayama, Yoga and still a bit of praying. I did not really know what journey I was on, but I wanted to progress. I felt it was a necessity. (And it surely also was some kind of coping mechanism.)
Somewhen around that time I started participating in a kind of non-spiritual training that may be simplified as a fusion of body awareness with mindfulness. Among other things, the training cultivates to obey the very simple insight that to percieve things as they are and be open to whatever bodily, mental or --- in a non-religious/non-esoteric way --- soul-related sensation or movement reaches us, and that all of them are connected: this is the only rational basis we can ground our actions on. To avoid any ideological fuzz with more complex subjects, the training uses only simple settings like sitting, standing, reclining, walking, carrying the weight of a small object, standing up, etc. If I wouldn't know any better, I'd say these people are half-buddhist. But they are not.
I don't want to advertise anything, and that is why I purposely not mention the tradition here, but that training was mindblowing to me. The reason I write about this here is: Within mere months of this training the boundaries between my personal meditation practice and everyday living faded to a large degree. Even though this training had superficially nothing to do with my personal meditation practice. With this training everything became an opportunity to to practice, and so I started practicing a non-negligible amout of my daily life, too. During breakfast. In the subway. While talking to friends. In a sense it was as if I started to notice how alive the whole world around me is. Since then trying to cut of bodily experiences during meditation seems absurd to me. As absurd as trying to fall up, instead of down. (Please, nobody be offended by this remark. This feeling may be either based be my ignorance, or simply be a truth that is only valid for me and some other people, and not valid for all.)
Shortly after, I spottet 'Zen and Zen Classics I' from R.H. Blyth in a library while passing by. I came there for something completely unrelated. With reading the forward of this book my roughly four year quest for meaning suddenly came to an end. I binge-read the first three books (there is four of them, if I recall correct), but from a spiritual perspective, that was not even necessary any more. (Maybe back than, I was not ripe for reading on past the forword, but that is also another story.) Anyways, with reading the forward I expirienced something, I only had heard others describe when they told how they had read the bible and suddenly became a christian. It was like if I had finally found my religion: Zen. I can still feel it. Right now. About five years have passed since then and I can still clearly feel it right now: Some kind of clarity as if a life-long clogged drain finally was unblocked. This was my first voluntary contact with Buddhism.
I believe I found Zen about one year after I had this expirience of calmness. I took what I absorbed of Soto Zen and Zazen literally. Just sitting. No mind. Whatever that was supposed to mean. I did not even bother. I stopped asking questions. Before, I conciously followed my toughts or tried to deepen my calmness, depending on what seemed neseccary in the given moment. Now I had no intentions on whatsoever. I believed sitting in Zazen is as enlightened as one can get. While at the same time believing the opposite. I did not really understand anything backcthan, and believed that is an essential aspect of life. I still feel like this, somehow.
Also, during all of the Zazen I still had thoughts. At all times. As with my other practices before. I did not explicitly mention it, but of course I also had enough moment in which my mind just mindlessly wandered around. I did not really pay much attention to how long I was able to concentrate. I did not think about concentration at all. I was just concerned with training in either morality or insight. But these are words I have now, and wouldn't have said back then. Most likely, back then I would have proudly said some nonsense, when somebody whould have cared enough to ask, what exactly I was practising. Without realizing what kind of fool I am making of myself. Sometimes I conciously followed my thoughts as before, but I felt like that was not that necessary anymore most of the time.
At that time my life circumstances escalated, which ultimately lead to me finally asking for help and getting some resp. getting out. But during the months before, I found relief in hard core practices. In particular, in order to train appreciating and enjoying every moment of life even though nothing made sense, I practiced every day at random moments a funny little practise: "Assume you die in x amount of time, but you don't really know about this, and spend your remaining time meaningfully." I went from x is a rather large value in successive steps down, whenever I felt comfortable to increase the difficulty. At the end I arrived at x being 2 minutes and managed to spend them well. Which of course means doing whatever I was doing at that moment, since I must assume I don't know I am going to die. But then actually doing it. I can assure, this practise keeps one sane in insane situations. I wouldn't recommend it otherwise, though.
A couple of months after I regained a rather normal life, I had two profound experiences in a matter of some weeks.
One morning I was stil laying in bed. And suddenly realized: "I do not need to keep thinking." Just it was not this thought that I realized, but instead the very fact beneth. I just stopped. This was the very first time I experienced my thoughts as something I had always been doing actively somehow, and just didn't realize I could stop. Before, whenever I tried to stop active thinking, a tought process continued and I believed I percieved it to the largest extent completely passively, something out of my control, like a radio on a high shelf I am not able to reach because I was to small. Even before it was clear to me --- at least intelectually --- that this thought process is a part of me. But now could just stop.
However, it was immediately clear I am not able to do so indefinitely. And immediately, I checked how long I was able to stop thinking. On the very fist day it was about a couple of seconds. Almost 10 seconds but not quite. Of course my practice changed again. Now I practiced actual No Mind. Not thinking. Now I was able to do so. Within a short period of time I was able not to think for half a minute or more. I am not very proud of myself to say I was satisfied with this, but I was. I stopped training because of two reasons. The noble reason was that I instead trained to sit with almost no thougth for prolonged periods of time, in the sense, that during a prolonged period of time only twice a minute I had a thought. The less noble reason was: I expirienced it as too hard, continueing to train not to think for more than 30 seconds. I tried sometimes, but I just didn't come very easy, and I gave up. I gave up on no thought, at least preliminarily, and dwelled in almost no thought.
Another night not long after that experience, in the middle of the night started drawing an enso, i.e. a zen cicrle on a large blackboard I possess. I can not recall whether I had slept before, and probably I had just stayed awake as I do sometimes. While drawing that enso I suddenly felt the width of the whole existence with me being just somewhere in it. It was like from both perspectives. From mine and from the space. That was the other experience.
After I gave up on trying to strictly stop thinking for prologned periods of time, my practice became less predictable and less enjoyable. But even more regular, and even more prolonged. Every morning at least one hour, often two. Sometimes three. Most evenings halve an hour, and often longer. I couldn't say what I was doing, because I was doing something else every time I sat down to meditate. Either listening to my breadth, or to my body, sometimes, to everything, sometimes praying, but not like before. I stopped doing yoga, but I believe this was and is just laziness. I moved somewhere else and I found out there is a zen monastery not far away from where I live. Not even 30 minutes with a bycicle. I joinded and went there often, steadily practising. Now with chanting as well. I continued doing what I felt was necessary during meditation, but somehow I feel a bit I stagnated. On the other hand, I didn't bother to much about this and even feel as if whatever I am practising has broadened a lot.
What comes now, may be a bit disappointing. I stopped ritualistic practicing of meditation. It came naturally in a sence. One major reason was, that I consiously substituted my morning practice with sleep. There were other valid reasons. I needed to shift my focus for some time. The zen master leading the monestary expelled a dedicated student from the monastery for not vaccinating against covid, and I felt as I had been expelled myself. So I stopped going there, but did not break up contact. (To the zen masters defence, he was intensely involved in a community abroad that was hit hard by corona in the early days of the pandemic. With a lot of people dying in that area. So vaccination was an emotional matter to him. I still have troubles to forgive him.) However, in a sense I never turned my back on practising. I just had a prolonged period of now more than a year, where I turned to practicing in morality and almost did not explicitly meditate.
And now I was introduced to MCTB, and ask myself, whether I had attained any shamatha jhanas during my journey so far, and I am dedicated to more explicitly exploring the states I had lived trough already. I checked and I can still can enter more or less all states for at least some moments (Edit: Exept for the 'universe state'. I reached this only this one time). Though with varying degrees of difficulty.
