I noticed that some browsers won't display all of my log #2 in flat view, so I am starting a new volume, #3, here. 

If you are interested in an easily accessible explanation of my views on meditation and mindfulness start here: 
https://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/p/meditation.html

Index to various past posts:

How I define "suffering": https://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2023/07/how-i-define-dukkha-suffering.html#dukkha_def_ease_def
Practice in daily life: https://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2023/07/practicing-mindfulness-in-daily-life.html
How to measure progress: https://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2023/07/how-i-define-dukkha-suffering.html#dukkha_def_ease_progress
Techniques that ease suffering: https://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2023/07/how-i-define-dukkha-suffering.html#dukkha_def_ease_techs
My views on awakening: https://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2020/04/my-views-on-gradual-awakening.html
Letting Go: https://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2023/07/letting-go.html
Tranquility Before Insight (Relaxing Meditation): https://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2020/08/preparing-for-meditation-with.html
Observing the Mind: https://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2023/05/observing-mind.html

Summary of my views on practice: 

• https://www.dharmaoverground.org/discussion/-/message_boards/message/25628719
• https://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2023/08/tranquility-and-insight.html

​​​​​​​Other links:

• Shinzen Young Enlightenment Interview: https://www.lionsroar.com/on-enlightenment-an-interview-with-shinzen-young/
• Jack Kornfield, "Enlightenments": https://inquiringmind.com/article/2701_w_kornfield-enlightenments/
• The Stream Entry of Ajahn Chah - By Ajahn Nyanamoli Thero: https://www.hillsidehermitage.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/70hh-The-Stream-Entry-of-Ajahn-Chah-1.pdf
• One Tool Among Many The Place of Vipassana in Buddhist Practice by Thanissaro Bhikkhu https://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/thanissaro/onetool.html
• A reconsideration of the meaning of "Stream-Entry" considering the data points of both pragmatic Dharma and traditional Buddhism: https://www.reddit.com/r/streamentry/comments/igored/insight_buddhism_a_reconsideration_of_the_meaning/

My old blog, volume 2, is here: please view it in tree mode:
https://www.dharmaoverground.org/discussion/-/message_boards/message/23406442

Volume 1 is here: 
https://www.dharmaoverground.org/discussion/-/message_boards/message/22843214#_com_liferay_message_boards_web_portlet_MBPortlet_message_8496517

I have mentioned that very often when I do a certain type of relaxing meditation, that afterward nothing bothers me and I feel a kind of tranquil happiness. The practice involves physical relaxation, visualization, and a verbal aspect (saying inwardly the objects visualized and the parts of the body being relaxed). 

Here is a quote from a Shinzen Young video that relates to this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOLuaPltorA&t=58s

I am not claiming I have reached classical nirvana.

I am pointing this out as corroboration that the practice I recommend is capable of producing an effect like nirvana.

​​​​​​​Shinzen's views on nirvana (he calls it happiness independent of conditions) is that it is initially experienced temporarily, but can become permanent.

More and more these days I'm experiencing something very similar to the above quotation. It's like the pretense of duality drops and the sense fields (somatic, audio, visual - and the others) merge into reality in a more integrated fashion. It's a very playful and intuitive way to experience the world and I presume more and more how things "just are" as progress is made towards Nibbana. It has a quality of allowing action to spontaneously arise that feels very 'just right' to me.

But, this is a thing that "I" can "do" and "I" has a tendency to "want to do" things that feel good. I've been practicing a lot on noticing the difference between "Doing" the above and letting it accidentally arise when "Not doing". Watching all the processes wrapped up and involved in that mode selection has been insightful. How I subtly crave or prefer certain ways of being became more obvious when I started really looking at what aspect of experience thought it was directing attention towards doing that practice. Because weirdly that aspect of experience was the thing preventing reality from already being like that. Which was wild to see.

Can you recommend any Shinzen Young, they come up so much I'd love to explore more. 

Every time you notice your ego, your attachment to self, causing you suffering, it brings you closer to the moment when you see with equanimity how that attachment to self is just an opinion, a pose, an attitude - that seemed involuntary, but now appears to be just a habit of mind, a product of social conditioning, that was learned and which, with attention, you can give up like any other habit.

Most people have had the experience of not wanting to do something or not wanting to accept something - but then later, for one reason or another, they gave in, they acquiesced, they stopped resisting the inevitable, they stopped being stubborn. One moment they were set in their ways, the next moment they changed their mind.

Letting go of attachments and aversions is just like that. But you have to reach the point where you realize clinging is pointless, you're only hurting yourself.

And to let go, you have to be aware of what you are clinging to. Sometimes we suppress the reason we are clinging because it is not something we want to admit about ourselves. Other times our attachments are subtle and we are barely conscious of them - we have to look carefully to see what it is that is causing that faint feeling of unsatisfactoriness or stress.

And you have to remember to let go. When something happens that upsets a person, they often get so caught up in the situation, in their thoughts, emotions, impulses, sensory experience, and ego that they forget to be mindful. They forget that it is their reaction that is the problem not the situation. 

Letting go doesn't mean giving up on solving problems, it means you can find solutions through compassion and reason rather than out of control emotions.

Daniel wrote:
https://www.mctb.org/mctb2/table-of-contents/part-vi-my-spiritual-quest/70-around-the-world-and-finding-home/the-second-mbmc-retreat/And

https://www.dharmaoverground.org/discussion/-/message_boards/message/2715189#_com_liferay_message_boards_web_portlet_MBPortlet_message_2718243


What does it mean when someone "began a project ..., trying to go for one hundred percent capture, not letting a single sensation anywhere in the entirety of experience go by without perceiving the three characteristics clearly",...

... and the result is "Utter agencylessness: meaning no agency, no sense of doing, no sense of doer, no sense that there could be any agent or doer, no way to find anything that seems to be in control at all."

It sounds like a contradiction - he starts out trying to achieve a goal and the result is no sense of a doer.

​​​​​​​Is it an illusion?

All thoughts, emotions, impulses, sensory experience, and sense of self seem to pop into the mind "from out of nowhere" ie from unconscious processes.
That includes the feeling of just being an observer of that mental activity.
And it also includes the feeling of agencylessness.

The feeling of agencylessness, and the feeling of no watcher, are not different from feeling like a self, or an observer, or an agent. They arise from unconscious processes, they are not more or less "true" any more than feeling happy is true or feeling angry is true. 

This is one reason my approach is more focused on ending suffering than realizing anatta.  

Our sense of being succesful depends on getting/having what we want/like and avoiding what we don't want/like so all attachments and aversions are intertwined with the ego. And letting go of attachments includes attachments to self. So I am not ignoring anatta. But for me the motivation comes from suffering less, not a perceptual shift for the sake of a perceptual shift. 

And it's why I measure progress by what happens in real life (less suffering, less selfish behavior) not in meditation.

I've often thought there was a kind of contradiction between concentration, observing emotions, and letting go. Concentration means being focused and not distracted. Observing emotions means noticing what arises even if you are trying to concentrate. Letting go means recognizing emotions but not holding on to them. Eventually the contradiction or opposition disappears. When concentrating if an emotion arises, observe it to it's full depth and then it passes and concentration continues. Like a wave on the ocean. It's not separate. The emotion is not separate from concentration any more than a breath or a heart beat. The arising and fading of any movement of the mind has it's own pattern and rhythm like a breath or a heartbeat. And every physical movement in daily life can be part of the same concentration each with it's own pattern and rhythm.

There are seven factors of awakening that form a series of cause and effect. The seventh and last factor is upekkha translated as equanimity, or letting go, or non-attachment.

The best way to cultivate equanimity that I know of is relaxation, the fifth factor of awakening. When you are relaxed you are equanimous. When you practice relaxation and develop it as a skill to use in daily life, when you develop the ability to be more relaxed in daily life and in situations that otherwise would be stressful, you cultivate equanimity.  

When you are relaxed you are not experiencing dukkha. The absence of dukkha is nirvana. 

Relaxing often elevates your mood because it reduces the effects of stress that can weigh you down. This is another reason relaxation increases equanimity.  Happiness is the fourth factor of awakening.

Insight helps in developing relaxation because insight, understanding, weakens attachments and aversions. Investigation is the second factor of awakening.

Concentration also helps in maintaining equanimity because it helps you stay mindful rather than get carried away by thougths, emotions, impulses, sensory experiences, and ego. Concentration and mindfulness are the sixth and first factors of awakening respectively.

Mindfulness, concentration, relaxation, insight, equanimity, will benefit you more if you bring them with you in daily life. This takes effort and determination - the third factor of awakening.

In summary the factors of awakening are;
1 Mindfulness
2 Investigation
3 Effort/Determination
4 Happiness
5 Relaxation/Tranquility of mind and body.
6 Concentration
7 Equanimity

The technique I use to cultivate relaxation also develops concentration, happiness, mindfulness and equinimity. It helps you develop relaxation as a skill you can apply in daily to bring these other factors into daily life too.

And these factors facilitate the cultivation of insight in meditation and daily life.

(I have explained my views on what awakening is here and how to measure progress here.)

Crossposting this summary of my views of practice:

https://www.dharmaoverground.org/discussion/-/message_boards/message/25626350

I've written about how bringing out an emotion can feel like burping and how letting go requires feeling an emotion to it's full depth. Over time these two skills become an automatic habit and the result is like having the door to emotions entirely and constantly open so that when an unpleasant emotion arises you are just waving goodbye to it as it passes out the door. It isn't exactly pleasant, but the emotion doesn't hang around and cast a cloud over reality either. I think it is like how Shinzen Young describes the Bhanga-nana (dissolution) the stage after A&P where, as he describes it, you see arising and fading as simultaneous (which is different from other descriptions I've seen that you only perceive fading not arising). The consequence is that those unpleasant emotions don't linger in the back of your mind causing trouble (suffering). That comes from bringing them out (burping them up) and feeling them to their full depth (letting them out). In a way it's like Daniel's goal of 100% capture restricted to dukkha. But since dukkha is a charistic of everything maybe it is not all that different. Without all that trouble, without the dukkha aspect of all things causing you suffering, what remains is ... uh ... nice. Reading about these things can be misleading so I have to say I don't claim to have perfected this and I don't know if it leads to the perfect end of suffering, I don't have an opinion which of the 0 through 4 paths it might be, but it is ... um ... er ... nice. I am describing it in case any one else would like to try it.

A lot of time spent observing the mind and dukkha in particular (in meditation and daily life) is needed to get to this point. At first suffering seems involuntary, then after a lot of observation you begin to feel more like it is a habit that you are doing automatically, so you begin to try to change your habit. You notice that suppressing doesn't really help, relaxing while feeling emotions to their full depth does help, and bringing them out fully into consciousness even if they are just faint inklings in the back of the mind helps too. Somewhere in there can be a lot of very unpleasant feelings coming out so you don't try to do it all at once, you give yourself a rest when you need to - meditation that produces tranquility can help. And emotions can hide under layers of other emotions so sometimes you have to dig through the layers to find what you need to let go of. But in time you get out a lot of baggage and become somewhat desensitized, and eventually bringing out and letting out becomes a habit you notice your mood is a lot lighter and it's ... nice

The Buddha taught that tranquility and insight are two qualities of mind that should both be cultivated.

Tranquility yields immediate benefits - you should feel tranquil after your first meditation session. Insight yields benefits that accumulate over time. As you observe the mind, you gradually learn how to let go of attachments and aversions.

In my view, tranquility involves two factors: relaxation and quieting the mental chatter. Relaxation occurs when the parasympathetic nervous system is active the sympathetic nervous system in inactive. Mental chatter is reduced when the default network in the brain is inactive and the experiential network in the brain is active.

The parasympathetic nervous system can be activated and the sympathetic nervous system can be deactivated with relaxing meditation.

The default network in the brain can be deactivated and the experiential network can be activated through relaxed concentration in meditation and through mindfulness in daily life. When the mind is focused on something occuring in present moment, the experiential network becomes active and the default network becomes inactive. The focus can be on an object of meditation as in the relaxing meditation in the previous paragraph, or it can be some type of mindfulness practice.

Tranquility is beneficial in itself (most people would prefer to feel tranquil and serene rather than stressed and upset)

And tranquility also assists in developing insight. When the mind is tranquil you do not get distracted and carried away by thoughts, emotions, impulses, sensory experiences, or the ego so you can observe the activity mind much better when the mind is tranquil. Observing the activity of the mind is how insight is acquired.

Insight can be explained in various ways and different people take different approaches to it. My approach to insight is to understand suffering so that one can reduce it as much as possible. The way to do this, in my opinion is to observe the activity of the mind.

In my opinion the essence of Buddhism is that it tells how to bring about an end to suffering. It seems to me the simplest way to do that is to cultivate tranquility and then observe the activity of the mind, see how suffering arises and fades and then use that knowledge to reduce the amount of suffering you experience.

In a very simple way of saying it, insight comes from observing suffering arising and fading which is the same as noticing when tranquility is disturbed and then returning to tranquility.

My approach is similar to that of Ajahn Chah which Jack Kornfield described as:


My article on Observing the Mind describes how I recommend cultivating insight.
​​​​​​​
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Wow, thanks for posting that Jack Kornfield blog post. I had no idea he talked so explicitly about enlightenment.

The self that doesn't exist is the self that is right all the time, the self that can control every situation, the self that always wins, the self that everyone loves, the self that has the most money, power, status, the self that can fix every problem, etc etc. The lack of that self is at the root of all suffering. Suffering is the resistance to the fact that that self is nowhere to be found.

Suffering occurs when the facts of reality conflict with our ideas of a self, with our desires for the self. In those situations we are confronted with the fact that despite our desires, there is no such self. When things go wrong we feel diminished, belittled, insignificant. Reality is telling us we have no such self. When we can accept the truth that there isn't a self like we want, a self that can control and solve and fix anything, we eliminate a lot of suffering. Everything is impermanent, everything has a dukkha aspect, there is no self that can alter these facts of reality no self that can control anything or make everything nice.

Accepting that eliminates a lot of suffering.

I think that in any type of meditation there is going to be some samatha aspect and some vipassana aspect, when you focus the mind that is samatha, when you return to focus from a distraction you see you don't control your mind that is vipassana.

​​​​​​​And I see noting practice as something that can be done to cultivate samatha or vipassana (tranquility or insight). If you practice noting or noting with labeling it can have the effect of deactivating the default network in the brain and activating the experiential network. I consider that to be within the realm of samatha.

If you practice noting while examining the three characteristics and or dependent origination, and or digging through layers of emotions, and or trying to interrupt dependent origination by relaxing and letting go, I would consider that to be within the realm of vipassana.

And depending on the details of how you do it I think it is possible to do noting in a way that cultivates mostly insight (not activating the experiential network - for example if your concentration is not good, or you do a lot of analyzing rather than observing).

The Buddha taught his students to cultivate both samatha and vipassana, some might need to put more emphasis on samatha others on vipassana, so you doing noting for samatha, vipassana, or both can all be appropriate in different circumstances. For example if your mind is turbulent it might be best to cultivate samatha until it is quiet and then proceed to vipassana. If you find that you have a lot of turbulent emotions and you need to dig through layers of emotions hiding behind other emotions there might not be a lot of samatha in that.
_________________________________________________________

I recently took an on-line course in qigong which I recommend.
The fee is $1.00 
https://longevity-center.com/awakening-qi-8-day-challenge/

I am also currently looking at the 8 week MBSR (mindfulness based stress reduction) course. 

A free self-paced version (no registration, no zoom meetings just reading and videos) by a certified instructor is available here:
https://palousemindfulness.com/

The "original" course which you have to register for and pay tuition for is also available on-line through zoom meetings is available here:
https://www.ummhealth.org/umass-memorial-medical-center/services-treatments/center-for-mindfulness/mindfulness-programs/mbsr-8-week-online-live

My interest in MBSR is based on this quote by Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn:

I am interested in ways to deactivate the default network in the brain and activate the experiential network.

I have been thinking about what a good way to identify when the default network is inactivated, and I think access concentration would be a good indicator of that.

http://www.leighb.com/jhana2a.htm

I've posted elsewhere that in the Sattipatthana Sutta, the Buddha encouraged his students to live practicing mindfulness.

If they do this with access concentration, then it seems to me that dependent origination will be disrupted naturally. Dukkha would not easily arise. A person would not get carried away by thoughts, emotions, impulses, sensory experiences or the ego, that type of mental activity would not take over their mind and body the way it does in the absence of access concenrtatin.

This may have something to do with why that sutra also says that practicing mindfulness continuously for a week is equivalent to the third for fourth stage of awakening.

If someone can experience access concentration while sitting in meditation, they can continue to meditate after their sitting meditation sessions by expand their practice to include practicing mindfulness in daily life (being aware of what you are doing as you are doing it), and through those practices maintain access concentration (and keep the default network in the brain inactive) during daily life.

And Shinzen Young often says that concentration equanimity and clarity are the three qualities you should cultivate as part of a meditation practice. And that at first meditation is something you do in life, but later life becomes something you do in meditation. In his book The Science of Enlightenment he describes his time at a Zen temple in Japan where they cultivated samadi all day not just during sitting meditation.

All this corroborates the idea of maintaining concentration as part of daily life.
_____________________________________________

Have you checked out Mindfulness in Daily Life? It sounds like it could be your cup of tea. Adi is a big fan and so am I by extension, having worked with Adi's versions of those teachings. https://midlmeditation.com/midl-meditation-system

The activity of the mind thoughts, emotions, impulses, sensory experiences, the ego, arise into consciousness from some unconscious process that we are not aware of. We don't intentionally create these things, they arise unasked for uninvited from who knows where. We don't control them. They are independent of us - they are not self, not me or mine. We observe them, they are out side us, they are not self not me or mine.

Every thought that pops into your mind unasked for, uninvited, is reality telling you, "Thoughts are not self, not me or mine."
Every emotion that pops into your mind unasked for, uninvited, is reality telling you, "Emotions are not self, not me or mine."
Every impulse that pops into your mind unasked for, uninvited, is reality telling you, "Impulses are not self, not me or mine."
Every sensory that pops into your mind unasked for, uninvited,experience is reality telling you, "Sensory experiences are not self, not me or mine."
Every self image that pops into your mind unasked for, uninvited (eg friend, worker, sport fan, parent, child, hobbyist, house owner, car driver, one who feels like just an observer of the activity of the mind, one who feels like he has no self), is reality telling you, "Ideas about self are not self, not me or mine."

Why make yourself suffer by clinging to attachments to thoughts, emotions, impulses, sensory experiences, or self image if they are not self, not you or yours?

​​​​​​​
Every distraction during meditation is reality telling you this.

If you pay attention in daily life noticing what comes into awareness unasked for, uninvited, (Where did that thought emotion, impulse, sensory experience, or self image come from? Who decided to do that?) you will receive many many lessons on the meaning of not-self.

Inquiry of the Day

When you notice dukkha arising in meditation or daily life, ask:

"Who decided to start suffering?"

Who decided?  Examine how dukkha arose. You don't know how, you notice suffering just appeared into consciousness after some type of sensory experience or thought. Suffering is not something you control, it is independent of you, it is not me or mine, it is not self. If you can observe suffering, it is outside yourself, it is not me or mine, it is not-self, so you are reminded of the anatta, not-self, characteristic.

Suffering = dukkha, the suffering characteristic.

Start = change =  the impermanence characteristic.

So you have the three characteristics right in front of you every time dukkha arises.

But you have to be mindful and notice. To do that it helps to be relaxed, and to have the default network in the brain deactivated which happens when you have access concentration. 

And if you are mindful, you don't let the suffering take over your mind and body (as much as possible), you don't get carried away by thoughts, emotions, impulses, sensory experiece, or ego (as much as possible), you interrupt dependent origination (as much as possible). So just feel it to it's full depth and then let it go. Why should you accept attachments and aversions, unpleasant emotions and cravings, when you don't know where they come from, when they just pop into your mind from nowhere? It doesn't mean you should igore problems, it means you can respond with compassion and reason rather than out of control emotions.

Breathing in a relaxing way, reminding myself "tranquility and insight", which resolves much uncertainty about practice. Watching my stream of consciousness, trying to understand suffering, it's origin and it's end, noticing thoughts emotions and impulses forming a sequence of cause and effect, each one triggering the next, experiencing each to its full depth, then letting go. Trying to see how decisions to move are made and not seeing how. Asking where did this [thought/emotion/impulse] come from? Where did this come from? Where did this come from? Somehow it all seems to function autonomously. Whoever designed this must have been a genius.

"noticing thoughts emotions and impulses forming a sequence of cause and effect, each one triggering the next ... . Trying to see how decisions to move are made and not seeing how. ... Somehow it all seems to function autonomously."

This is how we get fooled into thinking there is a continuous unchanging self. When we don't look closely it feels like there is a self, when we look closely at the mind we see there isn't one. We make an assumption that we are in control, we assume it is our will that is the cause, that the self is the will, but when we look closely we see it is just cause and effect operating autonomously.

And if all is cause and effect, if there is no self, then the idea of separation is meaningless, if there is no self, there is no other.

But the illusion is so strong, attachment to self is so strong, so ingrained in our thinking and behavior, that you can know self an illusion and still suffer because of its influence.

Recognizing the link between the illusion and suffering helps to weaken the attachment, disenchantment with identity view weakens its hold on us. When you observe dukkha arising in the mind, and see how identity view: the ego, the sense of self, the sense of self importance, egocentricity is involved, and how getting what we want and avoiding what we don't want is central to our belief that the self is a success or failure, that helps to weaken the attachment.

When you observe the three characteristics and you see that all mental activity and all things in the physical world are impermanent, not self (not me or mine), and unsatisfactory, it creates disenchantment and weakens attachments and aversions.

Repeatedly observing the three characteristics shows you that you can't always control everything, not your mind (thoughts, emotions, impulses, sensory experiences, ego), not your body, not material things, not other people, we can't always avoid what we don't want and we can't always have what we want. 

Eventually it sinks in, particularly when you are suffering, that attachments and aversions are pointless because we can't control everything and clinging does not help us get what we want or avoid what we don't want. It just causes suffering. Changing our attitude, realxing, letting go, accepting we just have to muddle through life one way or another, biding our time, not feeling responsible for things we don't control relieves us of much suffering. And there is really no alternative, the alternative is a delusion and involves much more suffering. 

​​​​​​​We can still plan as best we can and try as best we can, but without clinging, we can plan and act with compassion and reason rather than selfish emotions.

Try to notice how a slight change in attitude eases suffering and then cultivate that attitude. Notice, particularly when unpleasant emotions or cravings arise, how this attitude eases suffering.

I write, "we can't control everything" instead of "we can't control anything" so the lay person can understand. People who understand we can't control anything probably don't need to be reading this.

Practicing mindfulness, relaxed in the present moment,

feeling the dukkha aspect of every distracted thought,

noticing it's nicer to be in the present moment than suffering, 

getting positive reinforcement to stay mindful.

This dukkha aspect to every distracted thought seems so obvious now when the alternative is being relaxed in the present moment, but it goes unrecognized when you are submerged in the stream of consciousness and your attention is focused on the story your mind is weaving rather than what the the story is doing to you. When you see what the the story is doing to you, you understand there is something fundamentally wrong, a systematic error.

If we would stop judging our emotions (good/bad, right/wrong), that would eliminate a huge amount of suffering.

That doesn't mean we ignore them or suppress them. It means we can feel them, understand what they are telling us, and try to let go of them with compassion for ourselves and reason rather than getting caught up in a story and reacting with selfish emotions. 

Two big obstacles to letting go are, 1) consciously recognizing we are suffering, most of the time we are caught up in the story focused on what to do about the "problem" and we don't stop to think about what is happening in our mind. And 2) remembering we can let go. A lot of things are actually easy to let go of, if we have the mindfulness to notice, "this is suffering" and remember to relax and try to let go.

In a way suffering is like air, we are constantly immersed in it but we rarely notice it and think about it.

Ajahn Nyanamoli Thero discusses stream-entry here:
https://www.hillsidehermitage.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/70hh-The-Stream-Entry-of-Ajahn-Chah-1.pdf


He says stream-entry is when you understand what the Buddha was teaching.

This understanding is equivalent being free from the first three fetters: identity-view, attachments to rites and rituals, and doubt about the teaching.

He explains that being free from attachments to "rites and rituals" means you don't do meditation and mindfulness practices as if they are going to magically awaken you. You do them because you understand how they will end (a lot of) suffering.


He explains that identity-view is when you see the self as something outside the five aggregates, something that is separate that can observe the five aggregates. 




This is also interesting:

That was... deep

When the sense of self is "vague" it might be hard to recognize it which you have to do before you can do anything with it such as "stop putting it first; stop putting it external ...".

You have to have a clear sense of self before you can let go of attachment to self.

And if some of your feelings about self are not good feelings, they might be somewhat suppressed, in which case you might need to do some digging to get to see your sense of self, your feelings about self, clearly.

Self inquiry, asking yourself "What am I", while trying to notice "the feeling of being" might help. Also just trying to notice the sense of self in different situations might help, as well as trying to notice how the sense of self is involved with dukkha as it arises in the mind. In particular, "hot button issues" things that get  you upset and are almost impossible to let go of are good candidates in which to look for suppressed emotions relating to the self.

When you can get a clear sense of self in different situations, then understanding how the mind creates it, how the sense of self is involved in suffering, how it is constantly changing, impermanent, and not something you control, not "me or mind", and how to let go of it becomes easier.

Before you can see the not self characteristic, anatta of the three characteristics, you have to see the sense of self. How can you know when something isn't there if you don't know what the thing is in the first place?

I noticed that metta meditation has an effect on me where certain "hot button" triggers that normally produce anxiety and ill will were somehow not having that effect on me. This surprised me because I normally find them hard to let go of (that's kind of the definiton "hot button" issues, things that upset you that are hard to let go of).

I did a search for how love influences the brain and I found the excerpt quoted below. This correlates very closely with what I experience from what in the anapanasati sutra is called "Gladdening the mind" (abhippamodayaṁ cittaṁ). I tried to explain it here (before I understood what gladdening the mind was I coined my own phrase "lightness of mind").  

One time, after being "triggered" I asked myself if I wanted existence to be permeated with anger and fear or if I wanted existence to be permeated with love (despite the reality of the situation at the moment). Obviously I perferred love so I tried metta meditation and I found it produced not just relief after being triggered but resistance to being triggered if I maintained it with mindfulness in daily life. After further investigation I narrowed the effect down to what I have been calling lightness of mind. I didn't appreciate the usefulness of the effect until I deliberately tried it in response to, and compared it to the state of, being triggered. (Think of something that would trigger you and notice how it feels, then turn on metta and think of the trigger, notice the difference.) It is kind of frustrating that I had a valuable tool for letting go of very strong clinging but somehow I didn't appreciate how to use it. I knew Lightness of mind helped with letting go but until I tried it on hot button issues I didn't appreciate how helpful it was. (My neurological explanation and interpretation of the anapanasatti sutra might be wrong but the main point, what I learned from my experiences, stands on its own as an empirical observation.)

https://hms.harvard.edu/news-events/publications-archive/brain/love-brain

The article says that the neural effects are found to occur due to romantic love however my expereinces convince me they are what I have been calling lightness of mind and can be produced when I do metta meditation, soft jhana's, and anapanasatti. It is not an emotion like metta or piti or sukkha. It is more of an attitude. After learning to recognize it and produce it, it feels more like an attitude than an emotion.

So I think I will include this in my list of neurological techniques that reduce suffering:

• Activating the parasympathetic nervous system and deactivating the sympathetic nervous system with relaxing meditation.

• Deactivating the default network and activating the experiential network in the brain through mindfulness in meditation and daily life.

• Deactivating neural pathways responsible for fear and ill will and activating neural pathways that result in feelings of contentment, calmness, security, and forgiveness through techniques that produce lightness of mind.

To get the most out of these techniques it helps if you can maintain them in daily life. That is one reason mindfulness in daily life is so helpful, it can allow you to extend the duration of these neurological states beyond sessions of sitting meditation.


Here is the prior post I linked to above where I discuss what I mean by lightness of mind

I find it is very helpful to have a neurological model of emotions because in that case emotions like anger, fear, and ill will, etc do not necessarily represent some fact about the situation you are in, they represent something about the neurological state you are in. So it seems much easier to change that state. Instead of fixing the "problem" to improve your emotional state, you just have to change the neurological state - which is something you can control. Its as if you have colored light bulbs lighting up reality and instead of your belief that an external force controls which light bulb is lit, you discover you can switch from one to another as you please. You just have to know it is possible so that you make an effort to learn how.

By relaxing and  observing the activity of the mind, by observing emotions not suppressing them, you see how emotions arise and fade. After a time, what at first seemed to be involuntary now seems more like something you do inadvertently out of habit, and you see you can change your habit. There isn't any external force determining which light bulb is lit, you realize the bulb that is lit is something your control.

You don't suppress emotions, you observe them.
You don't ignore problems, you can react to them with compassion and reason rather than out of control emotions.

A very simple way to practice this is to notice that when you are relaxed in the present moment, dukkha does not arise. When you are distracted, when you are no longer in the present moment, then dukkha can arise. When you notice this, experience the emotion to it's full depth (should take seconds, not minutes - unless you have to dig through layers of emotions) and then relax and return to the present moment.  Practice this in meditation and daily life. There are many ways to be in the present moment.

In my 2nd practice log I wrote about a nihilistic feeling. I am now thinking this is related to the 7/8th (soft) jhanas. My mind gets very quiet. Then next thing that happens is what I call the "transition" which I think is what others call cessation/fruition.

I do my relaxating meditation, then I experience 5/6 jhanas (floating feeling "infinite space/infinite consciousness"), then 7/8 jhanas (very quiet mind "no-thing-ness/neither perception nor non-perception), then the transition (nibbana), then the afterglow which is what I mean when I say "after I do this practice nothign bothers me". 

For me (and maybe for some other people), this samatha path seems to be much easier than vipassana path (POI does not align with my experiences - which had me so confused it is taking me a long time to figure out what actually is aligning with my experiences.). I think the focus on relaxation rather than concentration is what makes the difference. Concentration naturally results from this kind of relaxation, as I said "my mind gets very quiet".

I then do vipassana when my mind is calm from samatha, and I am feeling 'unbothered'.

After the transition metta is very excessible which at that point I find is helpful for letting go of attachments and aversions that are very hard to let go of ("hot button issues").

For me the point is not to experience cessation as a goal in a series of attainments. The point is to quiet and "gladden" the mind because ...

https://inquiringmind.com/article/2701_w_kornfield-enlightenments/- Jack Kornfield

I am not advising people to have cessation/fruition before doing vipassana. Just do what you can to relax, quiet the mind, and let go of unpleasant emotions and cravings as a way to prepare for vipassana. This is essentially what the anapanasatti sutra says to do.

That's the spirit!
Though it is best to not overdo pure control as much as me mindful of what causes what.
It is possible to learn such skills to force things through brute force by what I call consciousness duplication - I stayed away from this 'tech' even in case of jhanas and even though it is kinda what jhanas evolve to when purified anyways - there is the difference between pure jhanas which arise due to being pure from hindrances and forcing them through this duplication.

Anyways emotions IMHO arise in this overwhelming "don't know why but I must go deeper in to ths emotion" because for brain emotions are good way to shift activity elsewhere - parts of the brain get tired and any means to shift activity elsewhere is good. This means that rather than trying to do anything with emotion when it arises the very good way to deal with such emotion is to recognize which parts of the brain in-use are tired and shift activity elsewhere consciously - eg. to copies of faculties (we always have lots of backups - even though we might not realize it) or shut it down completely (cessation) - though for important faculties it always means arising of it and in case of such cessation which forces inactivity for some time it means it will arise elsewhere in one of the copies. When this happens then reasons for emotion disappear  and so is urgency and feeling of actually needing emotion for anything. Then even the justification for emotion being there feel much less relevant. So for example sadness instead of feeling like "this sad thing happened - need to be sad" feel like "oh... ok, maybe this thing was sad but... well.. uh... oh... do we need to continue this, I'd (sadness) rather go to sleep if that's ok with you?".

In case for working through emotions - there is some times need to actually experience something. What I noticed it is NEVER good to dwell in emotions from this sorta forced "panic mode" mind which does emotion because of this issue with tired parts of the brain I mentioned earlier. When emotion arise for the sake of emotion and working through stuff - it then lacks this urgency to experience stuff and things go much smoother and more cerebral as in figuring out if reasons for the emotion really matter that much and what working through it even means. Also - personally - I despise any method of release where it comes to emotions. It literally never works, working through emotions to get some grand relief at the end is the way to constantly have this kind of issues, if not with this topic (reason for emotion) then different topic. I saw through it right away (let's say in my teens I realized it just doesn't work to bring peace of mind) but people seem illusioned it does help. It seems people who go to therapy and have these emotional releases which they claim to be so much help for them and improve their lives so much... after some time mention having even more issues (at least they mention a lot more than before - not necessarily be aware their state worsened) and even start calling them "traumas"

So yeah, your approach is the right one. Working with nervous system to figure how it all ticks there and not being swayed by emotions themselves. From my side I might add "neurons don't really care for all this stuff". When neuron is sad it won't necessarily be eg. sad along whole brain full of neurons and in this case it is good to be perceptive enough to recognize when in part of the brain you have sadness and give them some metta. That works for all emotions and good to give them metta even if nothing bad happens. At the same time I really recommend avoiding anything called 'relief' or that causes 'release' - it is biggest illusion people fall in to. It doesn't work at all. The way it works is create illusion elsewhere and otherwise at best put affected part of mind to sleep/inactivity. It doesn't work on neurological level or psychological - thinking issue is resolved for it to resurface again isn't really helping and relying on this release only leads to generating dukkha. After a while it stops working and it will feel like the issue we thought was resolved is still there and so apparently goes much deeper and is an actual trauma. 

On the note of that relief/release - at times even when already not letting it happen and being more conscious it still might feel like this time it is skillful way of release. No, just no, it never is. Consciousness + metta and not letting things blow up to anything which feels like relief. Noticing hindrances (note: desire for relief is hindrance!) and consciously quieting them down (eg. with metta! why not). After some time that same part of mind which needed release, needed relief will just feel charged and happy, like there newer was any issue. This is meditation way of resolving emotional issues. Bonus points: less invoices for psychotherapists and antidepressants and never any reason to go to mental hospitals

Metta Fruitions,
Ni

ps. Metta fruitions are neither release nor pause in experience... more like neurons feeling loved stop keeping 'coherence of mind' (which they do out of duty toward keeping mind cognitive) which causes its typical 'image' to disappear, literally melts away. When it resumes most of it is still melted away unless normal activity is needed - which is the afterglow. It is not unlike normal fruitions but better cause it lack any relief and only has metta... metta fruition is actually fruition proper, imho ;)

I think it is intimately tied into identity view.

When you think unpleasant emotions (and thoughts and impulses, and sensory experience, the five aggregates) are part of a self, they have reality, you want  to defend your self from whatever is causing the emotions.
If you don't believe emotions are a natural inevitable feature of reality, but are just a brain state that one person might have but another person might not, then you are not confusing them for something to do with a self. You don't have to defend yourself from anything in the environment. (I don't mean one should ignore problems, just that they are better dealt with through reason and compassion rather than out of control emotions.)

Understanding that the situation is not cause of suffering, your reaction to the situation is the cause of suffering, is actually equivalent to understanding identity view well enough to begin working free from it. When you realize suffering is a habit you are engaging in inadvertently rather than an involuntary reaction you can't control, you have realized self is an image painted by the aggregates.

Identity-view is when you think the self, the observer, is outside or separate from the five aggregates.

What is wrong with identity-view?

The observer does not exist independently of observations.

If you see something, you observe the sight. The same is true for hearing, other sensory experiences, thoughts, emotions, and impulses.

If you don't see anything, you don't observe any sight. The same is true for hearing, other sensory experiences, thoughts, emotions, and impulses.

The observer cannot exist outside of the five aggregates because without something to observe, there is no observation, without observation there is no observer.

This is step 6, sparsa/phassa of dependent origination.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sparśa

If you understand this, then when you are mindful in daily life and in meditation, when you are relaxed in the present moment, you know you are observing and  you know the "observer" is an artifact of phassa, the observer is not separate from the five aggregates. If you are not mindful, if you are lost in thought, if your mind is taken over by thoughts, emotions, impulses, and sensory experience, then you feel like an observer separate from the five aggregates. 

If you are mindful and you know the observer is not separate from the five aggregates, you know that there is no separate, continuous self that exists independently of observation, there is no thing that is a self, you have no grounds to be attached to the observer, to the self. You don't need to defend it from insult or injury. Even though habitual reactions remain (you still suffer), you can begin to work your way free from identity-view (end suffering). When you know you have no grounds for being attached to self, you can more easily let go of attachments and aversions because attachments and aversions are founded upon attachment to self.

When you observe the activity of your mind in meditation and daily life, you see how dukkha arises and how it fades. You find that althought suffering once seemed to be involuntary, later it seems to be more of a habit that you engage in inadvertently, and you see that you can learn to change your habits.

-------------------------------------------

Mantra of the day:

"Relaxed in the present moment, mindful of letting go."

Somewhere lost in the milieu of an activated parasympathetic nervous system, a deactivated default network in the brain, piti, sukkha, metta, forgiveness, generosity, unselfishness, gladdening the mind, neither pleasure no pain of the 4th jhana, the spaciousness and nothingness of the higher jhanas, is an attitude where dukkha doesn't stick, your mind is like Teflon. You can find this attitude in any of the aforementioned states. You probably already know this attitude, the trick is to recognize it and practice it. Try to remember in the past when you let go of unpleasant feelings about some situation, when your sense of self importance was not woken. It may also help to watch the activity of the mind and notice how dukkha arises in the mind/body (stop doing that, relax) and watch how dukkha fades (do more of that, relax), and notice how the ego is involved in dukkha arising.

"Mindfulness of letting go" means being aware of this attitude in your mind so you know when you have it and when you don't have it.

I think it is possible to over do the observing emotions if you dwell too much you can train youself to be unhappy, or produce a jhana like feedback loop but with an unpleasant emotion instead of bliss. Sometimes emotions are have a purely biological cause (like some types of anxiety and depression) and no amount of letting your self feel them or analyzing them will make them go away.

But I also think at the right time analyzing your emotions can help because sometimes we hide thoughts and feelings we don't want to admit or acknowledge behind other layers of other emotions. And when when emotions arise if you don't interfere they often fade.

So each person has to find the right balance between letting out emotions (feeling them) and not overly dwelling on emotions.

That feeling/attitude of not interfereing with emotions as they arise and fade is something you can learn to recognzie and be mindful of and do it even when there is no emotion arising - I find if I do that then I am less likely to get caught unawares and carried away by entense emotions if they happen to arise because of some situation.

Mantra of the day:

Relaxed in clear awareness

• Relaxed means your parasympathetic nervous system is active and your sympathetic nervous system inactive.

• Clear awareness means at the neurological level the experiential network in the brain is active and the default network is inactive. At the level of personal experience it means you are aware of something occurring in the present moment, in a relaxed way not in an intense way. As if someone said in a normal tone of voice, "Look over there". and you turned an looked where they were pointing. You would just look. Your mind wouldn't be wandering thinking about the past or future or trying to solve a problem. Also you would not be straining to have intense focus on just what you were seeing, trying to stamp out any other mental activity. You would just be fully focused and aware with a normal level of attention without distraction and without straining to stay focused. Mindfulness in meditation and daily life means having clear awareness, relaxed, focused, but not straining or suppressing.

Mindful of letting go

• Mindful of letting go means you are aware of a feeling like forgiveness or generosity or metta or compassion or sukkha, where if something unpleasant happened you would not be upset by it. Not getting upset might be hard if something really bad happened, but if was something minor you probably have already done it many times. Mindful of letting go means you are familiar with that attitude and you try to be mindful of that attitude during daily life. It doesn't mean you don't get upset, it doesn't mean you don't have emotions, it means you practice being mindful of that attitude of acceptance and letting go.

Observation creates the observer

• If you watch the activity of the mind you notice that thoughts, emotions, impulses, sensory experiences, and sense of self arise into the mind from unconscious processes and we don't really have much control over them. They form a chain of cause and effect where a sensation or thought causes a reaction, such as a sensation causing a thought that causes an emotion that produces a new thought that produces an impulse etc etc. Even if you feel like you are trying to use your mind to solve a problem, where did the impulse to solve the problem come from? It might seem like you are just an observer of these things. But the observer is just like any other thought or feeling, it arises into consciousness unasked for uninvited. (The same is also true for feelings of noself.) The sense of being an observer is created by observation. If there were nothing to see you would not feel like an observer of sights, if there were nothing to hear, you would not feel like an observer of sounds, if there were no emotions, you would not feel like an observer of emotions, if there were no thoughts you would not feel like an observer of thoughts, etc, etc. The observer, the feeling of self, is not separate from the process of observing. It is not separate from the five aggregates. It is not a permanent unchanging thing that has independent existence.

Let emotions flow

• Let emotions flow means you do not judge or resist emotions.  You experience them to their full depth when they arise. At first this can be difficult to do and it can also be unpleasant. In time it becomes easier and you realize the pain of unpleasant emotions and cravings has more to do with resistance, the disliking of emotions, than to the emotions themselves. When you stop judging emotions, they can seem somewhat interesting, something you want to examine rather than avoid. (In this context I am referring to reactive emotions which I defined at the link.) This is related to "Mindful of letting go" where you have an attitude of not getting upset. However upsets will occur and when they do, you try to let the emotions flow without resistance or judgement. 

If anyone thinks what I have written is not logical, it is because I am trying to communicate feelings and feelings are not logical. The only way I have to communicate feelings is through words, and using words makes it look like I am trying to use logic even though I am only trying to communicate feelings.

When you are fully involved in observing/experiencing there is no observer/experiencer. Noting in meditation and daily life can get you fully involved in observing/experiencing.

I am noticing that the 5th/6th (soft) jhanas have an element of relaxation and the 7th/8th jhanas have an element of non-attachment that can be cultivated during daily life. If you spend time meditating in those jhanas you become familiar with the states and if you are mindful, you can keep them going after the meditation session is over or sometimes just invoke them. 

Using both elements produces a relaxed non-attached state. Its beneficial in itself, and as a background from which to notice dukkha arising and fading which is useful in vipassana practices.  (I am not claiming I've perfected this or that it is 100% protection from dukkha - staying mindful is the difficulty as it is in many other kinds of practices.)

I find there is also a kind of compassion that is generated for all suffering beings. (But it's easy to be sympathetic when you are not suffering, the people I admire most are those who show compassion when they are suffering themselves.) 

I use a type of relaxing meditation to go thorough jhanas 6-8 leading to cessation. 

If you relax and  observe the activity of the mind, you see attention is constantly shifting from one thing to another, among thoughts, emotions, impulses, sensory experiences, senses of self. If mind is the self, then the self is not a solid, continuous, consistent thing - there isn't anything that lasts long enough to grab on to, there isn't anything to cling to ... or to be attached to. If you can maintain, be mindful of, that awareness/experience of impermanence of mind/self, dukkha doesn't have anything to adhere to.

This way of perceiving the impermanence of mental activity, during meditation and in daily life, keeps you from being drawn into stories about good and bad, right and wrong, winning and losing, where thoughts, emotions, impulses, etc take over your mind and carry you away into the dream realm of dukkha.

Instead, your awareness is focused on the pixels rather than the image and what it means, you are aware of individual frames rather than being absorbed in the action of the movie, you are aware of the individual words and understand the plot but you do not become attached to the plot in the novel.

​​​​​​​You are not ignoring reality, you are understanding reality so that you can avoid believing in a fantasy. You are not emotionally numb, you are able to respond to situations with compassion and reason rather than out of control and selfish emotions

I have been trying trigger practice recently. Trigger practice is a term I found used by Shinzen Young to describe the practice of meditating in some type of a situation that you don't like, so you can study your reaction and learn to let go. 

I think I found something useful.

I've noticed there is a kind of mental switch or gate or valve that lets me turn on or off emotional flow.

For the most part I think it is beneficial to keep this gate open so that you are aware of emotions as they arise. (There could be exceptions, such as if one is feeling overwhelmed, I don't mean this as an absolute statement.)

When you meditate or practice mindfulness and you divert your attention to the object of meditation or mindfulness, you can still keep this emotional gate open. (I don't advise concentrating with intensity that creates stress. I prefer gentle concentration, getting distracted is okay and normal I just good naturedly return to the focus of meditation.)

In my opinion "concentration" should not mean closing this emotional gate.

When emotions arise during meditation or mindfulness practice, I observe them to their full depth. And I am referring to reactive emotions.

Being relaxed is also helpful.

It seems to me that the suffering is much less if you are open with your emotions as they arise.

A lot of suffering comes from resisting/rejecting/judging emotions rather than from the emotions themselves. And if you try to ignore emotions when concentrating, they accumulate and burst into consciousness and that is much more unpleasant. And when that happens, thoughts emotions and impulses can take over your mind. And you lose mindfulness and since you are more upset, it is harder to calm the mind and return to meditation.

If you are not clear on how to tell if your emotional gate is open or not, it can be helpful to practice metta or produce sukkha (tranquil happiness). Or if you are feeling any type of emotion, let yourself be aware of that as you focus on the object of meditation. Actually one of the difficulties people might come across in learning to do the soft jhanas is that they don't open their emotional gate. (I don't advise producing intense levels of metta or sukkha, just enough to know you are feeling them. And if you find any negative side effects from producing emotions don't push yourself to keep doing it.)

And I think it is also possible to overdo observing unpleasant emotions - too much and you might train yourself to be unhappy or produce a feedback loop like what happens to produce the jhanas but with an unpleasant emotion rather than bliss. So you have to work out what is the right balance.

If you notice you sense of self, your feeling of being, you will notice that it changes from situation to situation. In school you think of yourself as a student. At work you think of yourself as an employee. When you are with your parents, your children, your friends, you have a differnt sense of self in each situation. When you think of different issues that you often think about, you will notice you have a different sense of self with each of those. The same is true for emotions and emotional issues you experience.

And if you keep observing you will see that the feeling of self is actually influenced moment to moment by every sensory experience, by everything you see, hear, and feel.

You will see that every moment of experience produces a unique sense of self.

You see that observation creates the observer. Experience creates the experiencer.

In dependent origination step 6 is contact -> step 7 is feeling -> step 8 is craving -> step 9 in clinging. If you are mindful during meditation and during daily life and  you notice what is happening between step 7 and 8 and interrupt it, by maintaining mindfulness, staying relaxed in the present moment, you prevent suffering arising, and you also prevent the sense of self from forming.

If you stay mindful, relaxed in the present moment, fully involved in experiencing/observing, with clear awareness, and you have some type of sensory or mental experience and that's all that happens, if when seeing you just see, if when hearing you just hear, and you don't let your mind get carried away with thinking that because there is an experience there must be an experiencer or how that experience relates to the experiencer in terms of good and bad, winning and losing, right and wrong, should or should not, then you will avoid a lot of suffering.

I am not saying you should ignore or suppress emotions, just try not to judge them. And I am not saying you should ignore problems, just that without all that judging you can respond to situations with reason and compassion rather than out of control selfish emotions.

When you practice mindfulness in daily life or meditation you are not getting carried away by thougts, emotions, impulses, if when seeing you just see, without creating a seer, you are interrupting dependent origination.

Mindfulness alone will cause identity view to atrophy.

Crossposting with some many modifications:
https://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=10262&messageId=26068080

(UPDATE: the most up-to-date version is here: https://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2023/10/perceptual-shifts-caused-by-meditation.html)

I've seen the term "perceptual shift" used occasionally and I recently got around to finding out what it means. So in this post I am explaining what perceptual shifts I think are important. I also try to explain why I think they are important: they lessen suffering and change behavior. I am not trying to imply that they do or don't fit somewhere in the spectrum of awakening according to some particular definition of awakening. None of these perceptual shifts have anything mystical about them. They are easy to understand intellectually but they are not transformative unless one sees the truth of them in their own mind.

​​​​​​​............................
I am not implying these do or don't fit on the scale of awakening but some perceptual shifts that some folks might notice (in no particular order) are:
​​​​​​​

• At first you see events as the cause of suffering, later you see events are not the cause of suffering, the cause of suffering is your reaction to the event. This doesn't mean you ignore problems, it means you can respond to them with compassion and reason rather than out of control selfish emotions.

• Unpleasant emotions and cravings at first seem involuntary, later they seem to be more like habits that you engage in inadvertently and with attention and effort you can give up the habit and stop making yourself suffer by staying relaxed, staying mindful in the moment - neither suppressing thoughts, emotions and impulses nor getting carried away by them - not mistaking the stories they try to tell you about good and bad, right and wrong, winning and losing as having anything to do with reality.

• At first you think emotions are about reality, for example: in such and such a situation it is right to get angry, later you realize those kinds of stories are not reality, they are just a dream about how to make yourself suffer.

• At first you get upset over problems, you might dislike or get angry at people and events. Later you realize you cannot learn to stop suffering without actually suffering and so you stop judging people and events because they help you to make progress, and because you feel compassion for people who are themselves suffering.

• At first it seems like your mind is you, you think your thoughts, opinions, emotions, and impulses are yours. You think you are using your mind when you try to solve a problem. Later you see that thoughts, emotions, impulses, sensory experiences, and feelings of self arise from unconscious processes, unasked for, uninvited. Even when you are trying to solve a problem you don't know where the impulse to solve the problem came from.

• Still later, when you observe the activity of the mind, you see that the moment to moment activity of the mind is a constantly changing sequence of cause and effect. An event or a thought may lead to another thought or invoke a memory that might cause an emotion that might produce an impulse etc etc. You feel like there isn't anyone in control, all there is just cause and effect.

• At this point you may feel like you are just an observer of mental activity without any agency, but later you realize observation creates the observer. Without anything to see, there would be no seeing, no observing of sight. This is true for the other senses, and it is also true for all mental activity. Without thoughts there would be no observing of thoughts etc etc. So you see there is no observer separate from the process of perceiving, no experiencer separate from experiencing. The feeling of being an observer and the feeling of having no self both arise from the same unconscious processes from which all mental activity arises.

• Another similar perceptual shift happens if you notice your sense of self, your feeling of being, you will notice that it changes from situation to situation. In school you think of yourself as a student. At work you think of yourself as an employee. When you are with your parents, your children, your friends, you have a differnt sense of self in each situation. When you think of different issues or topics that you often think about, you will notice you have a different sense of self with each of those. The same is true for emotions and emotional issues you experience. And if you keep observing you will see that the feeling of self is actually influenced moment to moment by every sensory experience, by everything you see, hear, and feel. You will see that every moment of experience produces a unique sense of self. This is another way of seeing that experience creates the experiencer. There isn't a separate continuous constant self apart from experiencing/observing.

• Knowing that observing creates the observer you then notice, for example, when you see, if you just see and stay mindful, and you don't get carried away by thougths, emotions, and impulses, you don't assume, because you see, that there is a seer, you just see without any observer necessary. When you are fully involved in experiencing, there is no experiencer.

• Initially you think the ego is you, and is the good guy in all the mental stories the mind weaves, and who is someone that must be defended at all costs from insult and injury. Later you realize the ego is an opinion that is the main character in the plot to make yourself suffer. This disenchantment helps you to let go of selfish attachments and aversions arising from egocentrism and egotism.

These perceptual shifts come from observing the activity of the mind, in meditation and in daily life, and observing how dukkha arises and fades and how the ego is involved in dukkha (ie observing the three characteristics and dependent origination). These perceptual shifts result in less suffering and in changes in behavior, they change one's approach to dealing with problems, and reactions to problems involve less emotional lashing out. They allow people who want to be more rational and compassionate to be so, people who don't desire those qualities will not automatically gain them by making these perceptual shifts although some might change their attitude if they do make these perceptual shifts.

There seems to be a tipping point where practice in daily life and relaxed non-attachment begin to carry you forward almost on autopilot. Where awareness of relaxed non-attachment will reinforce it, and mindfulness of it throughout the day gives it quite a bit of reinforcement, and that leads to automatic strengthening of it without much intention. As if it is becoming a new default state of mind.

If something is bugging me and I can't seem to let go, it is often because my emotional gate is closed. If I open the gate, relax and let it out, whatever it is seems to stop bugging me.

It's not so much that I need to become conscious of the particular issue in an intellectual way or the exact type of emotion in a psychological way, it's more like a neurological phenomena, I have to realx a certain thing to allow the emotion flow, to stop suppressing it. In a physical sense it feels like it is in my solar plexus or chest somewhere.

And by opening the emotional gate I don't mean obsessing on every unpleasant emotion I can think of or remember.

It's more like if a situation arises that upsets me, it's because my ego is offended and I have to respond to defend my ego. But if instead of doing that, I just look for an emotion being held in, and let it out, then I'm not suppressing anything, and the unpleasant feeling, the "I don't like" or "I don't want" aspect fades. 

The emotion I let out might be unpleasant but the emotions I feel from suppressing are worse. Far more suffering comes from resisting emotions than from the emotions themselves. We resist emotions because we don't want to admit what they imply - often something unflattering about oruselves or about some situation we don't want to exist.

It's hard to explain in words sorry if it's not clear.

"Far more suffering comes from resisting emotions than from the emotions themselves."

A large part of suffering is resisting emotions, ie not wanting to acknowledge the situation causing emotions, ie. resisting reality, ie cognitive dissonance.

​​​​​​​Dukkha = cognitive dissonance.

Mantra of the day:


"Immersed" means you are absorbed in thoughts, emotions, impulses, sensory experience, and senses of self so they seem like reality. This is the way most non-meditators experience consciousness.
So the first line means to be clearly aware of the difference between being a relaxed and aware observer of thoughts, emotions, impulses, sensory experiences and senses of self, slightly detached versus being immersed.

The second line, is really a restatement of the first line. It explains what to do with emotions that arise. Don't push them away (suppress) but don't get carried away (become immersed). Observe them mindfully, and aware, but somewhat detached. When you get this right you avoid a lot of extra suffering. Pushing away, suppressing, resisting/rejecting reality creates a psychological conflict between what you feel and reality. It is not pleasant, reality still exists and the feeling of rejection, "this is not right", dukkha never ends. Becoming carried away means you accept as real the unpleasant/nightmarish story, the mind is creating. 

When you carry out these two lines in meditation and daily life, you are observing the three characteristics and interrupting the sequence of dependent origination. When you clutivate relaxation (activating the parasympathetic nervous system/deactivating the sympathetic nervous system) and observation (activating the experiential network in the brain/deactivating the default network), you are cultivating samatha and vipassana. (If emotions are too strong or you begin to feel overwhelmed while practicing vipassana you can practice more relaxation.) In time, with practice, detached becomes non-attached.

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​​​​​​​
https://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2023/07/practicing-mindfulness-in-daily-life.html
In the artcle Enlightenments, Jack Kornfield explains Ajahn Chah's philosophy:

In the Sattipatthana Sutta, The Sutra on the Four Establishments of Mindfulness, The Buddha said: "Should any person practice these four foundations of mindfulness in this manner [every waking moment] for a week, then one of these two fruits may be expected by him: highest knowledge here and now, or if some remainder of clinging is yet present, the state of non-returning."
https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.010.nysa.html

​​​​​​​Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn explains:

I am finding it is helpful to mindfully watch the mental chatter, the stream of consciousness - as meditation and as mindfulness in daily life.

When you do that you see the stream of consciousness is a sequence of cause and effect.

You observe that a sensation (sight, sound, feeling) or a thought might lead to a thought or emotion or impulse that leads to another thought or emotion or impulse. And the process continues like that until a new sensation or thought might cause another sequence of cause and effect in a new direction etc.

And this all happens by itself with no one in control, you are just observing, detached, not participating.

But the sense of self comes from the same place the other thoughts and feelings come from. And it changes from situation to situation, from moment to moment actually. You can see how the feeling of being is the sum total of all sensations thoughts emotions impulses that are changing from moment to moment that arise from the aggregates, from unconscious processes. Self is an image produced by the pixels that arise from unconscious processes.

And when dukkha, unpleasant emotions or cravings, arise if you can see how the ego is involved, which it usually is, you know the ego is just produced by the aggregates too. This hodgepodge of sensations thoughts emotions impulses senses of self and senses of no-self  is coming from the aggregates, as a sequence of cause and effect, with no one in control, producing suffering. 

And when you see that, it creates a sense of detachment because you don't feel like the sense of self is really you, the upset ego isn't yours. So that you are aware of things that are pleasant or unpleasant physically and emotionally that arise but the extra emotions, the suffering  you normally add on top of that when you relate the experience to yourself is greatly diminished.

The thing that learns from this is the aggregates, and as the aggregates learn, their output changes.

(Also, I prepare for this type of practice by doing relaxing meditation first.)

Very nice! Thanks, Jim!

https://mohitvalecha.wordpress.com/2016/06/15/stepping-on-a-frog/

If you want to know what this story really means you can follow the link.

What I want to say is that this story illustrates an important principle of how to let go of attachments and aversions, how to let go of suffering.

The monk was upset when he thought he stepped on a frog, but when he found out it was an eggplant he wasn't upset any more.

When you are upset and it is due to a misunderstanding, if you clear up that misunderstanding, you can let go easily and you won't be upset any more.

I find that when I am upset, usually I don't notice that it is my ego that is making me upset because it feels like an unalterable fact of reality that I should be upset in that situation. That, in my opinion, is the fundamental misunderstanding of most suffering we think our emotions reflect reality when they are really produced by ego, by egotistic and egocentric thinking (identity-view).

But if I can examine my feelings and see how my reaction is somehow due to egotistical or egocentric thinking then I realize I am being silly, I don't have to be upset. And I can let go.

Sometimes it's hard to see how our ego is hurting us. Sometimes this is because these ways of thinking are so ingrained we don't even notice them, we don't notice our thinking is hurting us, we just think "this is reality and it is not always nice." 

But if you can examine your thinking and see how it is really your ego that is causing the trouble, you see it was just a misunderstanding (you thought it was an inevitable aspect of reality but then you realized it was just your ego), and you can let go. Then reality is a lot nicer.

It might be hard to understand what I mean so I will provide an example.

Today I walked to the grocery store. Often when I go out for a walk, I walk in my neighborhood and it is a pleasant walk. It's a residential neighborhood, there isn't much traffic, there are birds singing, and cute rabbits in nicely landscaped yards. But today I needed to go to the store and instead I had to walk on streets with a lot of noisy traffic, past storefronts on streets with litter. It wasn't very nice. I didn't like it. Then I noticed it was my ego that was upsetting me. This idea that it is better to walk by the houses rather than the busy streets is egoic thinking. The word "better" is telling you about winners and losers. I realized it was my ego that didn't like the walk to the store, my ego (the aggregates) wanted to do what was better and not what was worse. Then the distinction between better and worse disappeared. I (the aggregates) felt like the walk to the store was just different. It had it's own flavor of familiarity, there were people in the cars and stores, it enabled me to get the groceries I needed, etc. It wasn't all good, but it wasn't all bad ether. Really, it wasn't good or bad. The problem was my unconscious egoistic reaction.

This kind of thing can happen many times a day. We have ingrained in our thinking that if we get what we want and avoid what we don't want we are successful, and if we don't get what we want and can't avoid what we don't want it is a failure. If you are mindful, if you watch the activity of your mind in meditation and daily life, and can see how every little twinge of dukkha, every little craving or aversion, every little liking and disliking, wanting and not wanting, is your ego is making you suffer, you can let go each time. It sounds simple, but this kind of thinking is so ingrained, it seems like an aspect of reality rather than something you are doing to yourself. You have to be alert to how you feel and then examine your feelings and see what role the egoistic and egocentric thinking (identity-view) is playing. If you do it, you can probably remove a lot of gloom from reality.

https://inquiringmind.com/article/2701_w_kornfield-enlightenments/

The term ego as well as similar terms unconscious, subconscious are somewhat problematical because they call to mind a self as a thing, they perpetuate identity-view, even if  through an indirection, at a distance once removed.

Aggregates is a better term because it refers to various distinct impersonal elements, like pixels that form an image, but are not actually of the same substance as the thing they depict.

Good observation. Framing makes a difference. 

And fears, and worries, and annoyances, and every little twinge of dukkha is about as credible as if it was coming from a magic 8 ball.  Would you trust a toy to give you advice on what to do, how to treat people, how to feel, what to say. These things are going to happen, but there is no reason to be attached to mental phenomena or the consequences - like "my magic 8 ball didn't work, boo hoo".

And non-attachment doesn't mean you are numb or callous, it means out of control selfish emotions don't drown out reason and compassion.

The sequence of dependent origination stops when the magic 8 ball stops trusting its own output - so it stops using its output as the input for the next step in the sequence.

"The term ego as well as similar terms unconscious, subconscious are somewhat problematical because they call to mind a self as a thing, they perpetuate identity-view, even if  through an indirection, at a distance once removed."

They call to mind the self as a thing separate from the aggregates, a thing that has an ego or an unconscious or a subconscious.

It's hard to express these ideas without implying a separation between self and the aggregates. And that is the source of the problem - thinking the self is separate from, or distinct from, or outside, the five aggregates.

"They call to mind the self as a thing separate from the aggregates, a thing that has an ego or an unconscious or a subconscious."

A way to get beyond thinking of ego or aggregates as something one has - ie identity view - the self as something separate or apart from the aggregates - is to observe the observer. Ways to do this include: watch the activity of the mind, the stream of consciousness, notice how it all goes by itself, or take a walk and notice how walking goes by itself you don't have to pay attention it's automatic. Then get a good sense of being an observer and notice the feeling of being an observer. Or notice the feeling of self, or that the self concept changes from situation to situation, or that the feeling of being changes form moment to moment as thoughts, emotions, impulses, sensory experience, and feelings of self and noself are constantly changing. Or just become absorbed in perception, be absorbed in the present moment, without thinking (analyzing, judging etc) about it, with dependent origination suspended, get used to mentality without engaging any conecpt of self. When seeing, just see.

But for easing suffering I think samatha = tranquility = relaxation is very helpful. And watching the activity of the mind, the stream of consciousness, and seeing (it is all cause and effect, one thought triggers the next, or an emotion or an impulse, without anyone in control) the aggregates as something you don't control (like a magic 8 ball) and therefore have no reason to take seriously and therefore have no reason to be attached to, helps to cultivate an attitude of nonattachment.

Mantra of the day:

"That's coming from the aggregates."

Every moment of awareness is produced by the aggregates, every thought, emotion, impulse, sensory experience, sense of self or noself, every feeling of being. There is no perception of objective reality, just the output of the virtual reality generator - the aggregates. There is no reason to be attached to this, self is a thought or feeling generated by the aggregates, not an actual thing, there are no grounds to be attached to anything that is me or mine, those thoughts and feelings are just output from the virtual reality generator.

Noting "aggregates" for every moment of awareness, every moment of mental or physical experience, every subtle inkling, every twinge of dukkha, every egocentric or egotistic thought or feeling, keeps you in the present, interrupts dependent origination, helps you give up unhelpful mental habits, cultivates equanimity and prevents much suffering. It keeps you from being carried away by thoughts emotions impulses etc,. It keeps you from getting tricked into thinking dukkha or self is something real when it is just a thought or feeling generated by the aggregates.

Dukkha and self are like two sides of the same coin. Almost all dukkha has an involvement with the sense of self.
identity view = dukkha view

I have been thnking lately that samatha and vipassana are not separate practices but things you do at the same time.

The anapanasati sutta is evidence of this:

http://dhammatalks.net/Books3/Bhikkhu_Buddhadasa_Anapanasati_Mindfulness_with_Breathing.htm#APPENDIX%20B

As many of these stages as possible are to be done in order during each meditation session. Much of these instructions involve observation - vipassana, but lines 4,8,10,11,12 involve samatha.

In daily life when dukkha arises one may wonder how to handle it, should one just observe it (vipassana) or to let go (relax, samatha)?
The answer is both observe it, feel it to its full depth, and simultaneously relax and let go, noticing how dukkha fades as well has how it arises.

This relates to another non-contradiction: letting go of dukkha (samatha) and realizing anatta (vipassana) are best understood not as two different approaches, but as the same thing. Most dukkha has the ego or self image or attachment to aggregates involved. If you are letting go of dukkha you are letting go of attachments to the aggregates. If you have insight into anatta you will be less attached to the aggregates. If you are investigating dukkha you will find anatta, the sense of self that causes dukkha is constantly changing, and is not separate from the aggregates. If you are investigating anatta you will find dukkha - you will see how the sense of self is caused by attachment to the aggregates.

In my experience, understanding this confluence, seeing the relationship between dukkha and the clinging to the aggregates that creates the sense of self, is crucial to letting go. You can't let go if you don't understand what conception you are clinging to. But once you see the relationship between dukkha and how clinging to the aggregates creates the ego that is causing you pain you can to let go much more easily - the hardest part is remembering - staying mindful, not letting thoughts, emotions, and impulses carry you away.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skandha




"In the Theravada tradition, suffering arises when one identifies with or clings to the aggregates. This suffering is extinguished by relinquishing attachments to aggregates."

And the sense of self arises when one identifies or clings to the aggregates.

Whenever we think in terms of "I" "me" or "mine" we assume there is a self - my possessions, my body, my feelings, my perceptions, my mind, my consciousness.

Realizing anatta (stopping clinging to the aggregates) ends suffering.
Ending suffering (stopping clinging to the aggregates) is realizing anatta.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rūpa#Buddhism
   Overall, rūpa is the Buddhist concept of material form, including both the body and external matter.
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vedanā
   Vedanā (Pāli and Sanskrit: वेदना) is an ancient term traditionally translated as either "feeling"[1] or "sensation."[2] In general, vedanā refers to the pleasant, unpleasant and neutral sensations that occur when our internal sense organs come into contact with external sense objects and the associated consciousness.
3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samjna_(concept)
   Saṃjñā (Sanskrit; Pali: sañña) is a Buddhist term that is typically translated as "perception" or "cognition."
4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saṅkhāra
   Saṅkhāra (Pali; सङ्खार; Sanskrit: संस्कार or saṃskāra) is a term figuring prominently in Buddhism. The word means 'formations'[1] or 'that which has been put together' and 'that which puts together'.
5. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vijñāna
   Vijñāna (Sanskrit: विज्ञान) or viññāṇa (Pali: विञ्ञाण)[1] is translated as "consciousness", "life force", "mind",[2] or "discernment".[3]

1. Form = material objects including the body.
2. Sensations = any feeling that can be classified as pleasant, unpleasant or neutral including physical sensations psychological feelings like emotions.
3. Perceptions = Perception occurs when you recognize or identify something by its characteristics. 
4. Mental activity = thoughts, emotions, impulses etc.
5. Consciousness = self awareness, sense of self or noself, self image, ego.

What causes suffering? What creates a sense of self? Attachment to material objects. Attachment to the body. Attachments and aversions to sensations. Attachments to perceptiveness or ability to perceive or recognize different things. Attachments to thoughts, emotions, impulses, opinions etc. Attachments to self, self image, self concept, feeling of being, sense of noself.

When you feel dukkha in meditation and in daily life, try to discern the aggregate(s) you are clinging to. Try to notice any cause and effect relationships for example: object -> sense organ -> sensation -> recognition -> thinking -> sense of self -> suffering. The greater clarity you have over what you are clinging to, the easier it is to let go (relax)

I have thought that the type of practice described in this article could be helpful but I haven't done much of it. 

https://www.amritamandala.com/2pf

It seemed reasonable to me that by observing your sense of self and then observing something else you would develop a greater awareness of your sense of self. With a greater awareness of it you would also develop a greater sensitivity to when you were not subject to that sense of self, when you were not subject to identity-view.

After seeing the article I thought about it some more and tried something very similar. I remembered how I feel in different situations, how I felt when I was with my parents, when I was with children, with friends, with a girlfriend, at work, with my boss, with people I supervised, when I was playing sports with other people, or doing something alone etc etc. How I felt having a car, a house, money, a job, or losing money, or a friend, or moving to a new city etc. And how I felt experiencing different physical sensation, heat, cold, pain, pleasure, pleasant tastes, unpleasant tastes, good smells bad smells etc etc. And how I felt experiencing different emotions, impulses and mental feelings, happiness, unhappiness, anger, jealousy, generosity etc etc. What qualities I thought I had or what kind of person I thought I was: smart or dumb, proud or humble, arogant or modest, nice or mean, rich or poor, etc. which also change from time to time and situation to situation.

I noticed what is was like to be me experiencing all those things. I helps me understand how the aggregates create the sense of self, how the mind creates the sense of self, the feeling of being me.

Then I would just be mindful, in the present moment, not thinking just observing: noticing my breathing in and out, or noticing what was happening around me, seeing, hearing, feeling. In this way I would still be experiencing and feeling but I would be just feeling, just experiencing, not thinking, not creating a sense of self, not thinking "me" "mine" "my" or "I"

And I would alternate the two ways of meditating a number of times during the same meditation session.

I think is is very instructive. I recommend it.

Also, it can help to preparing by doing relaxing meditation first.

And this is not the only practice would recommend, I think it is also useful to observe the activity of the mind and sensations in the body and notice dukkha arising and fading and notice how the ego (sense of self, identity view) in involved in most dukkha. As you learn to notice dukkha and relax and let go, you become aware of subtler and subtler ways you carry suffering around with you so you can let go of them. Sometimes just observing the tensions within your body that accompany emotions can help melt those emotions and results in letting go.

Wherever you find dukkha you find something you can't control doing something you don't like.
Wherever you find dukkha you find anatta. 
​​​​​​​Some cases of dukkha may involve the external environment, but all of them also involve the mind doing something you can't control and you don't like.

The feeling of being includes dukkha, any sense of self is necessarily a self that is suffering. 

Identity-view is dukkha.

Looking into dukkha you will find anatta and identity-view.
Lookint into any one of them you will find the other two.

Dukkha starts out as a habitual reaction, and if we accept the premise it poses we will amplify it, allowing ourselves to get carried away by thoughts, emotions, and impulses.

But if we recognize dukkha is anatta, that is comes from the aggregates, that it is not self, it is not something we chose, then we don't have to accept the premise it poses, we don't have to take it seriously, we don't have to believe it is necessary, reality, truth, then we can remain mindful, not get carried away thoughts emotions and impulses and not amplify the dukkha. It remains a habitual reaction, but we can let go of it as we become aware of it arising in the mind and feeling it in the body.

As you observe the sense of self, how it changes from situation to situation, how it is influenced by emotions, by sensations, etc you see that it is produced by unconscious impersonal processes (thoughts, emotions, and impulses seem to appear in consciousness, seemingly from out of nowhere, without our constructing or choosing them).

And then when emotions (dukkha) arise from those same unconscious impersonal processes you don't take things personally.

Studying dukkha is the same as studying anatta.

Because when you look at the source of dukkha what you find is anatta (not self, unconscious impersonal processes).

When you look for the source of dukkha,  or look for the source of the sense of self, or look for the anatta characteristic in the activity of the mind, you find the same unconscious impersonal processes.

Different approaches to practice, emotional work - studying dukkha or realizing anatta, take you to the same place: that the source of consciousness is the aggregates, unconscious impersonal processes.

"Any customer can have a car painted any color that he wants so long as it is black" - Henry Ford

I have felt somewhat dissatisfied with how awakening is defined, in the scriptures and by many modern teachers,  because metta does not seem to have any place in it.

One exception I am aware of is here

https://inquiringmind.com/article/2701_w_kornfield-enlightenments/

I realize I am thousands of years too late to have any input into defining what awakening is and that many people think awakening is a natural phenomena and not something humans can arbitrarily define.

But an awakened person can practice metta - or any other practice for that matter. They can color their awakening in any number of ways.

Trying to maintain metta in meditation and daily life provides a helpful indicator when dukkha or distractions arise metta fades, so it is a useful tool as well as a desirable way of being. If you are maintaining metta you are not suffering.

I might have been mistaken about the scriptures...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pāramitā

And there's this...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brahmavihara

UPDATE: The most up to date version of this post can be found here:
https://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2023/12/do-buddhists-believe-in-soul.html

On another forum someone asked about Buddhist beliefs about the soul. This is how I replied.

I have been considering how to tell when to work with emotions and when to cultivate mindfulness and concentration. Suppressing emotions is not helpful but obsessing over them is also not helpful. It can be hard to tell the difference. What I have come up with is that when something is bothering you, you should try to resolve it in your mind.

Techniques I find helpful are:

• Digging through layers of emotions to find underlying hidden issues - ask yourself "why do I feel this way" repeatedly.

• Recognizing that "resisting emotions can cause more suffering than the initial emotion". So trying to recognize resistance (denial), and letting go of it can make accepting (letting go of) the initial emotion much easier.

• Seeing how the ego may be involved in the problem and acknowledging that the ego is coming from the aggregates - ie the ego is not a real thing it is just an emotion like any other type of mental activity that comes into consciousness from unconscious processes. Recognizing "It is ego coming from the aggregates" can end a lot of suffering.

I have found that this process can eliminate the suffering (unpleasant emotions) associated with a situation, and at that time, cultivating mindfulness, concentration, and deeper insights can be more productive than when I am troubled by something.

​​​​​​​I'm not trying to imply this is easy, it can be difficult to see through the layers of emotions, see the difference between resistance and emotion, see the role of the ego, and remember that the ego isn't a distinct thing, it arises from the aggregates like any other thought, idea, emotion or impulse.

It might seem like the unconscious mind, the source of thoughts, emotions, impulses is the self. But this source is not unified, one part might be sending the impulse to meditate while another is sending out distracting thoughts. One part might be trying to accomplish a purpose to gratify the ego while another might be sabotaging it because of fear of the consequences of success. Even the unconscious mind is not a unified thing, it is an aggregate of different functions.

 Good stuff!

Recently I have been reflecting a bit on the so-called "mature psychological defense mechanisms", and I find they are a helpful framework when seen as skills that can be cultivated. I can relate the development of these skills to a lot of what meditators do. What you wrote here reminds me of this, so I felt called to share it: hopefully interesting and helpful.

In a way, I've started to see them as the psychological counterpart of a healthy immune system: a lot of mental and physical problems seem to be associated with biological inflammation, ie, an inadequate immune (defense) response from the body, which may actually cause problems based on imaginary threats, and also then react inadequatly to real threats. In the same way, healthy and amture psychological defenses will know how to handle imaginary and real threats more adequately.

They are:

Affiliation > as I see it, several aspects to this, friendship, support, getting advice from trusted others, community building. IMO, one can say that intrapersonal emotion and ehart based practices, as well as real interpersonal and social behaviors, fall under this.

Anticipation > changing one's attitude towards fearsome situations or things, instead of shutting out possible unpleasant stuff, projecting into it, and coming up with possible ways of acting in advance. Death and suffering oriented meditations might fall under this, in some ways.

Humor > very efficient way of loosening aversion/clinging

Self-observation > well... this has many levels, but could include the kind of fine examination and investigation of subtle phenomena that people do with meditation

Self-acceptance > one could expand this to say self-love and love of others

Sublimation > turning mud into gold, so to say, attitude change: things like Tonglen, working with views, etc.

Suppression > not repression, but the ability to temporarily not engage with something when that is appropriate, and address it later when conditions are right.

I am usually not a fan of psychoanalysis, but I really like this framework! Thoughts?

Best,
​​​​​​​Olivier
 

I find you have to understand what you are clinging to in order to let go of it. Relaxing can help calm emotions but to root them out you have to become conscious of their cause - which is not always obvious. Any framework that can help with this is beneficial.

Hi Olivier, 

I like your listing, it reminds me of George Eman Vaillant's defense mechanisms. I would also add to the list a "sense of purpose", to give meaning to life and so work as a motivation booster and so let one set goals. In other words, to glue as coherently as possible values, beliefs and actions. 

Pepe

Yes, I agree sense of meaning is very important! This is definitely not an exhaustive list. Though sublimation to me sort of implies meaning making and seeing beauty in life difficulties.

Yeah I agree that it somehow overlaps with the concept of sublimation

Nicely put! That's a very well-condensed explanation. 

I've spent the past couple of years working mostly on emotions, and find this a deeply interesting topic. Where I've got to so far is the idea that the emotions aren't fundamentally any different from the sort of "conceptual elaboration" that we work with in the vipassana part of meditation. In a way, they are the physical analogue of conceptual elaboration.

What I mean by that is: we tend to see mental concepts as a useful fiction. A way of organizing inchoate reality in ways that are helpful to us in terms of achieving certain goals. It's impossible not to have concepts, but it is possible to go overboard with them: to elaborate upon them, to reify them, and to hold on to them long after they've lost their usefulness.

The emotions are analogous to this in that they are impulses that help us guide our physical bodies through physical reality, according to our goals and needs as living animals. That starts with safety and survival, obviously, but includes a whole range of other goals, most of which are hinted at by Olivier's list above. I believe that our minds organize these goals in terms of stories, and that emotions largely arise based on how we perceive ourselves to be situated within these stories, but this idea is a work in progress! Regardless, the emotions exhibit the same characteristics as mental concepts: they are useful and it's impossible *not* to have them, but it's very easy to reify them, glom them together, and to let them overstay their welcome. It fact it's harder to let go of reified emotions than it is to let go of concepts, because they are rooted in the body.

The main idea that I've come away with is that "emotional elaboration" can be dealt with in the same way as conceptual elaboration: by simple observation and investigation. The emotions themselves are distinct from the stories that we build around them, and the trick is to be aware of the emotions (which usually means surrendering to or re-experiencing the emotions) while remaining neutral to the stories themselves. Vipassana is as appropriate a tool for dealing with the emotions as it is for dealing with ignorance.

Once we've dealt with the elaboration, we arrive at a place of better balance. It's impossible to do away with the emotions, just as it is impossible to do away with concepts. But it's possible to "right size" our concepts, emotions, and mental storytelling: to make use of them to the extent that they're useful, to hold things lightly, and let them go when we're done with them. Whatever continues to arise is real, everything else can be set aside.

Anyway, that's as far as I've gotten! In theory I think it points to an appropriate relationship with emotion.

Yes. I think all of that is correct, as are all the useful things that Jim has pointed out. 

Another interesting thing about emotions and thoughts is that emotions are slower than thoughts. It is common to have a thought that persists for less than a second, but the body systems on which emotions run (hormone levels, heart rate, visceral contractions) generally pay out over multi-second, and often multi-minute time spans. This can create a prolonging and stitching-together effect. A thought happens that triggers a body-based emotion which, as it plays out, repeatedly re-triggers the thought, and so on, and all of this can seem to be a single thing. As you say, investigation is key. Even apparently longer-lasting emotions are made up of parts that arise and pass away in a fairly predictable manner. Also, as it is easy to see that the physical mechanisms behind emotions are governed by biology, which is to say, by ordinary physical laws, such as the rate at which a hormone can be cleared from the blood, it is easier, as compared to thoughts, to see that these events are not under the control of a self. 

The balance you describe, of not ignoring emotions, but also not clinging to them so that they proliferate, or pushing them away so that their counterparts proliferate, takes a lot of practice to achieve. I'm still working on it. 

Oof, you've given me flashbacks to my teen years, when awareness of my emotional reactions to events lagged the events themselves by hours. I'd be lying in bed that night, finally experiencing emotions from earlier in the day. Horrible.

I quite agree that the "chunky" nature of emotions both makes them easier to reify, but also easier to investigate.
As am I! My earlier post was mostly aspirational

Agreed, and if one takes the idea far enough, one could conceive of contemplative practices such as advocated in buddhism and various mystical traditions, such as the subtle way of understanding emotions you are hinting at, as self-observation. 

My diet tends to fluctuate for various reasons and because of these fluctuations I am seeing over and over how reducing carbohydrates (not to keto levels but somewhere around 30-40% of total calories) makes a big improvement in meditation and mindfulness. It can take a couple of days for the effect to take hold. Not everyone is the same so while some people might get the same results, others might not. I've known about this effect for a long time but I am beginning to think of diet as equal in importance to sitting meditation, mindfulness in daily life, samatha, vipassana, virtue. Diet is just as important for me.

If you watch the activity of your mind, you might notice a correlation between mental chatter and stress. Mental chatter often produces stress by touching on stressful or unpleasant topics.

The antidote for mental chatter is mindfulness.

When you are in the present moment, for example noticing your breath, or practicing noting, or practicing some mindfulness technique in daily life, or just being aware of what you are doing as you are doing it, you are not engaged in mental chatter.

Mindfulness, when done in a relaxing way (without suppressing thoughts and emotions), can help one to be relaxed.

Noticing how you feel when your mind is chattering (more stressed) and comparing that to how you feel when you are practicing some form of mindfulness (more relaxed) can provide positive reinforcement to encourage you to practice mindfulness.

If you want to have less stress, less dukkha, more relaxation in life, mindfulness can help.

We think of the self as a unified entity, our ego is based on this concept of self.

But the body, thoughts, emotions, impulses, all those things we think of as characteristics of the self, are produced by separate sets of unconscious processes. Emotions are influenced by various neurotransmitters and chemical hormones, different regions of the brain are responsible for different types of intellectual capacities. Sometimes people have opposing goals like when someone is afraid of the consequences of success and they unconsciously undermine their efforts to achieve a goal. The unconscious processes that produce the body, thoughts, emotions, and impulses are not unified, they are not one individual thing.

The aggregates are like pixels that produce an image, we think we see a self, but what really exists are distinct, unrelated, pixels, little dots that are not of the substance of that which is portrayed in the image they produce.

Most people understand a lot about anatta.

Most people recognize they don't control their emotions - they have unwanted emotions.

Most people recognize their mind wanders with them intending it, especially meditators know this,  people know they don't control their thoughts.

Similarly with impulses.

People realize their body suffers from disease, and aging, they get weaker as they get old, the various faculties of the body degrade as they get old - people know they can't control their body.

Although most people recognize these aspects of anatta, very few consider them together and understand that the self isn't an actual thing - that the elements they consider to be characteristics of the self are independent elements that are not under any unified control.

But when you do connect the dots, when you understand these elements are not you, and you don't control them, then you become disenchanged. You are much less attached. You are less attached to thoughts that arise, you are less attached or averse to emotions that arise, less attached to your actions, less attached to your body.

When you are less attached, you suffer less.

It can help to remind yourself during meditation or daily life as you observe the activity of your mind to remind yourself that distracting or unpleasant thoughts that arise are not me or mine, unpleasant emotions and cravings that arise are not me or mine, the body is not me or mine, etc.

Physical relaxation exercises, like tai-chi, qigong, or yoga can help you learn to breathe mindfully and move mindfully in a relaxed way.

They teach skills you can bring into daily life so that each minful breath in daily life can be an opportunity to relax.

And each mindful movement in daily life can be an opportunity to realx.

I recommend this way of practicing...

Work through these practices every day.

1. Relaxation - When I am fully relaxed, nothing is bothering me.
2. Concentration
3. Mindfulness in daily life.
4. Emotional Clarity (this helps to let go of strong emotions) / Observe the Mind (this helps you to understand the three characteristics and dependent origination)

Depending on your level of ability, experience, dedication, and lifestyle you might get more or less done each day. Don't worry. Relaxation is enough. The relaxation exercises produce concentration. Mindfulness is something you do in daily life - you just need to remember to do it. Emotional clarity and observing the mind - can be done during meditation and daily life.

My view is that you should practice each day for the benefits you get each day. Over the long term benefits will also accumulate. But this way of practicing should help someone feel more relaxed and serene after the first session. Though it might release suppressed emotions and reveal unpleasant aspects of yourself, so be aware of that and slow down if it gets too intense. There is no hurry.

Ask yourself why you practice meditation.

Look deeply.

Find the reason behind the reason behind the reason.

Recognize that desire as an attachment or aversion you need to let go of.

(Very often, resisting an emotion causes more suffering than the emotion one is resisting.)

I find it odd that I can know something but not know I know it. For example I've been wondering if there is a mental analog to the physical state of being relaxed. Physically, relaxed means not having muscle tension. Mentally, I somehow couldn't say exactly what "relaxed" meant. But for some reason I eventually recognized it. Being mentally or psychologically relaxed means you are not worried about something, or anxious, or feeling hurried, or upset, or taking things too seriously, or tense, or have something you have to do that might be causing tension, etc. etc. A lot of times mental tension can be unconscious - someone can be mentally tense but not aware of it. At one point I was feeling mentally relaxed (something probably familiar to most people although it might not happen very often to busy people), and I realized this is what I was trying to identify.

The point is that if you can recognize that such a state exists, and you know what it feels like, you can tell if you are experiencing it or not even if you might not realize what is causing the mental tension. And if you are not mentally relaxed, you can try to understand what is making you tense so that you can try to let go of that particular attachment or aversion. So, first you have to recognize you are mentally tense, then you have to identify the situation or event that triggered or is triggering the tension, then you have to identify the attachment or aversion or psychological reason it makes you tense. The last part can involve multiple layers that you have to dig through to get to the underlying psychological cause.

It can be helpful to recognize when the situation is not the problem, the problem is your reaction to the situation.

​​​​​​​(Sometimes the answer to what is making you tense might be something biological that you can't solve by letting go (for example, you drank too much caffeine, or your body makes too much stress hormones) - in that case, it is still useful to understand the situation and try to let go of any related atachments and aversions to being mentally tense.)

Surrender - accepting, not resisting at an emotional level, is one level of non-attachment.

But at a deeper level, if you observe the activity of your mind, you may see that the stream of consciousness is simply a sequence of cause and effect. There isn't a unifying entity to be found in the various independent unconscious processes that produce the stream of consciousness (thoughts, emotions, impulses, sensory experiences, feelings of self and no self). And you may also see how the ego, (the idea of that entity which can't be found generated by those unconscious processes) is involved in most suffering - you understand how suffering arises in your mind - it arises from impersonal processes, you do not choose it or ask for it, it isn't you or yours. When you see it this way, there can be a perceptual shift, and you see there isn't anyone in a position of responsibility that could be identified to surrender, accept, or not resist. 

After the perceptual shift, you don't feel like there is anything that needs to be accepted because it isn't on you, and the premises on which suffering is based are undermined. 

You suffer less because you see that the old way of thinking, the thinking that produced the suffering, was based on a misunderstanding of the cause of suffering and on a misunderstanding of what the self is.

You realize you suffered because you felt some responsibility for something. But when you recognize that feeling was based on misunderstandings, you suffer less.

nice!

As you experience various situations in daily life, you will tend to think about how the situation affects you, and about how you relate to the situation. This creates a story about you, a story where you are the main character, the victim or the hero. Most people are constantly making stories about themselves. This perspective on reality is what causes suffering.

If you observe the activity of your mind, the stream of consciousness, during meditation and daily life, you will see this happening, you will see how you make yourself suffer by making everything about you. When you understand how you make yourself suffer, you will also understand how to stop it.

You will see that when you stop making the stories about you, when you stop taking everything personally, when you stop focusing on yourself, when you stop thinking "I don't like this", "I don't want that", "I want this", I like that", when you stop making yourself the central character in everything that happens, you stop making yourself suffer. But you need to experience it from inside your mind, you need to feel how one way of thinking is suffering and how a different way of thinking doesn't make you suffer.

Mindfulness can help people give up the habit of making themselves the main character in every story. When you are mindful, your mind is in the present moment, you are just aware of what you are doing as you are doing it. You are not imagining, your mind is not wandering, you are not carried away by thoughts, emotions, impulses, sensory experiences, etc, you are not making stories about you that cause you to suffer. Then, when dukkha arises, you can see how you have caused it by making the story about yourself. But if you change the story, let go of that plot, think about the situation without yourself as the main character in the story, you don't suffer. This requires just a tiny change in perspective, a relaxation, a letting go, (not a lot of analytical thinking, not anything mystical, not anything non-dual), and you don't have to suppress anything - just notice the difference in how you feel. The point of mindfulness is not to concentrate the mind as a means of suppressing thoughts and emotions etc, the point is to provide a contrast where dukkha is absent so that when dukkha arises, the contrast is clear and when you return to mindfulness that contrast is also clear. Meditation that is relaxing can also help provide a quiet mind that helps you to maintain mindfulness and experience the contrast.

And then, when you are not making the story about you, you can respond to situations with compassion and reason instead of selfish emotions.

Mantra of the day:

Don't make the story about you.
Don't forget to be happy.

Where is the you? Whats wrong with the story? Its just a visitor talking. Be compassionate towards the passing visitors  

So one can remember to be happy??? To recycle old knowledge and make stuff out of it, solid and real?  

Jimmy boy, ... dunno what to say to ya, but best wishes! 

Letting go of something you are attached to or have an aversion to doesn't really mean letting go of the thing.

Letting go means letting go the feeling "I don't like it" or "I want it". We become obsessed the the thing or situation but that is just a distraction. It is those feelings "I don't like it" or "I want it" (the dukkha) that you need to focus your attention on and investigate the origin and fading of (impermanence). Notice how the ego (sense of self) may be involved.
(This is a way to observe the three characteristics and dependent origination.)

The ego causes suffering. Learn to notice and to let go of those feelings "I don't like" and "I want" they are coming from the ego.

This is a way to get weaken the ego and weaken suffering.

When you figure out how to do it, you will understand the ego was an opinion not a thing. 

The ego/sense of self is a very, very deep well. There are reasons we have this sense, and not all of them should be dropped. So, likewise, letting go. I vacillate between ignoring the depth, not saying anything, and explaining the depth, at least in part. We are organisms that are bound as a practical, matter in time and space. As such, we need to know where and when we are, requiring a subject-object orientation. Likewise, we need to be able to discern likes and dislikes if only to manage mundane daily activities and make decisions around those. So as is usually the case, our meditation practice is full of nuance and gray areas.

Just sayin'

On another forum someone asked for opinions on the best way to experience nirvana (what Shinzen Young calls happiness independent of conditions. This was my reply:

...
One thing I have found that is not commonly acknowledged in Buddhist practices is that physical relaxation - muscular relaxation - is necessary to fully let go of unpleasant emotions (suffering). The mind and body are interconnected. I understand letting go as relaxing mentally and physically. The relaxing meditation technique I use is described here: https://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2020/08/preparing-for-meditation-with.html When I am fully relaxed nothing bothers me. That is also how I prepare for vipassana.

I do vipassana by watching the activity of my mind (thoughts, emotions, impulses, sensory experiences, and sense of self) in meditation and daily life and notice when dukkha arises. I try to see how the ego is involved dukkha arising. I try to be relaxed and let go of dukkha (without suppressing anything) That simple practice covers observing the three characteristics and dependent origination.

For happiness independent of conditions, I would say the key is to learn to notice dukkha/clinging/unpleasant emotions as soon as they arise, to recognize that you should not get carried away - not become immersed in them but remain a mindful observer and try to stay relaxed or get back to a relaxed state. When you observe the mind you see thoughts emotions impulses sensory experiences sense of self are coming into the mind from unconscious processes that you really have little influence over and are sometimes contradictory and not necessarily trying to make you happy. You learn that you are happier if you don't take them too seriously. This explains more about how I practice vipassana: https://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2023/05/observing-mind.html

The relaxing meditation teaches you how to be relaxed, the vipassana shows you why it it right to be relaxed instead of letting your mind make you suffer. Then when things go crazy and your mind/body is trying to make you suffer, you have the habit of rejecting that tendency and relaxing instead. It can be extremely hard to relax when you mind/body is trying to make you upset, you have to have conviction from direct observation that the upset perspective is not "truth", and you have to have very high level of skill in relaxation from repeated practice so that you can do it easily and automatically in adverse situations. When we are stressed we get focused on what is causing the stress (like if the brakes on you car fail) and we forget everything else (like the emergency brake will work if the brake pedal doesn't). So you have to train for emergencies and understand what to do when they happen (don't get carried away by the mind and be relaxed).

This is how I define suffering: https://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2023/07/how-i-define-dukkha-suffering.html#dukkha_def_ease_def

Dukkha is nirvana.

I don't want to get too far off topic on the other thread so I'll say this here:

Every time you get distracted during meditation you see that you don't control your thoughts

Every time you have an unpleasant emotion or craving you realize you don't control your emotions.

When you get the urge to do something that you don't really think is a great idea to do, you see that you don't choose your urges.

When these facts make you feel like you are only an observer of mental activity produced by unconscious processes, you can also easily understand that that feeling is no different than any other bit of mental activity produced by those unconscious processes.

At this basic level anyone can have a glimmer of anatta from their own experience.

But when you live with this point of view continually, in meditation and daily life - every time you get distracted you understand you don't control your mind, every time you have an unpleasnt emotion or craving you understand you don't control your emotions, every time you have an impulse you understand you don't control your impulses, when this makes you feel like just an observer you understand the feeling of being an observer comes from the same unconscious processes as everythign else - when you live with this continually, gradually you become more and more non attached, you don't identify with your mind, you don't identify with the observer, you don't take your emotions seriously, you don't believe the story they are telling you that you should suffer, you are not attached to your opinions, you didn't really choose them, etc etc. You gradually lose identity view.

This way of losing identity view, doesn't have a dramatic moment that you can call "stream entry". But anyone can follow this path, they don't have to be a great meditator, or go on retreats, or attain stages or states in meditation. They just need to quiet their mind so they can have the presence of mind to observe it and they need to understand the significance of what they are observing. Everyone starts with a glimmer and they can get as much progress as they want by practicing more or less.  

When you are upset, and you look through he layers of emotions, at the bottom very often is your inner child pouting, "I don't like this" "I don't want this".

It is fundamentally an egocentric idea or feeling. The ego is source of most suffering.

But what is this "I", the observer, the experiencer, the ego, the self, the sufferer? 

It is a thought or feeling that comes from the same place all thoughts and feelings come from, it comes from unconscious processes that construct our thoughts and choose our emotions that we have little control over, that are not trying to make us happy, that often are uncoordinated working at cross purposes.

When you see it this way, that the I is not you or yours, the disliking, the not wanting, fades.

Mantra of the day:

"The sufferer is a figment of the aggregates"

All our thoughts, emotions, impulses, sensory experiences, and sesnes of self arise from the aggregates without our choosing them or seeing how they are constructed.

The sense of self, the self image, is not a real person, it is only our idea of a person, it is like a projection in a holodeck, like the projection of the virtual reality generator that our mind is, that the aggregates are.

But when we suffer, it is this person we feel for, we worry about this fictional character in our mental holodeck, poor self, poor self, how it suffers. But its not an actual person, it is just an idea of a person.

When you see it this way, the suffering goes "poof!" like a burst soap bubble.

I often say that during meditation and in daily life it is helpful to notice dukkha arising and to notice how the ego is involved. I think it's also helpful to see how the need to control or the need to do something is also involved in dukkha arising. To let go of something you first have to be conscious of it. Letting go of the the need to control or do something about a situation can help eliminate a lot of suffering. Not that you should ignore situations, but so you will be better able to respond with compassion and reason instead of selfish emotions.

https://www.accesstoinsight.org/ptf/dhamma/sacca/sacca1/dukkha.html

https://www.accesstoinsight.org/ptf/dhamma/sacca/sacca4/index.html


This looks like a contradiction, aging and death are dukkha, and the eightfold path ends dukkha.

Does the eightfold path end aging? Does it end death?

No. It ends the mental anguish associated with aging and death.

In the context of the end of suffering the Buddhism can provide, ending dukkha means ending the emotions we feel in reaction to things like aging, death,  pain etc.

I use the term reactive emotions to distinguish the kind of suffering Buddhist practice can end to distinguish it from physical pain and emotions that can't be helped by meditation and mindfulness practices such as emotions that have a purely biological cause for example some kinds of anxiety and depression. Meditation can't change your hair color and it can't change your genetics or developmental processes that are irreversable.

https://www.hillsidehermitage.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/70hh-The-Stream-Entry-of-Ajahn-Chah-1.pdf

Some are seeking a non-dual experience and consider that to be awakening.
There's no Pope of Buddhism so they are free to do that if they want to. 

But it is not the only belief. The eightfold path is the path to the end of suffering not the path to nonduality.  

https://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/bodhi/bps-essay_27.html

Ending identity view is not necessarily a non-dual experience, it doesn't necessarily mean you feel like you don't have a self. 

You can end identity view and feel the way you always did, except you have lost a lot of egotistical attachments.

https://www.accesstoinsight.org/glossary.html#sThe term is translated identity-view or identity-belief, not identity-feel. When you understand the only self you can conceive is a projection by the aggregates because you can only think thoughts that come from the aggretates, and therefore the only self you can think of is always exactly the same as the self image, then you understad that egocentric attachments are illusions and their force fades. You don't feel like there is no self, you just lose the attachment to the self-image you know is just an image not really you and is coming from a source that is not you -  a source that you are disenchanted with because it is also the source of emotions you don't want, impulses that are sometime not helpful, thoughts that can be incorrect, and produces these mental experiences sometimes working at cross purposes or undermining our goals.

But just understanding this is not enough you have to understand your mind, understand dukkha and see how attachment to the ego, the self-image, is the cause of dukkha. This is not hard, but you have to make it a habit, you have to practice in daily life to make it part of how your mind works.

As Shinzen Young says:

https://www.lionsroar.com/on-enlightenment-an-interview-with-shinzen-young/

https://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/p/meditation.html

https://www.accesstoinsight.org/ptf/dhamma/sacca/sacca1/dukkha.html

If dukkha can be translated as "stress", then ending dukkha can be translated as "relaxation".

Over on the Shinzen Young facebook group, I translated this into Shinzen terminology:


Shizen describes untangling see hear feel in a "complete moment" this way:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IH-BopkX53Q

Jim, you might like Gudo Wafu Nishijima's writings. He was big on translating aspects of the dukka/nibbana as stress/relaxation or sympathetic/parasympathetic nervous system: Gudō Wafu Nishijima - Wikipedia "Nishijima stated that "Buddhism is just Humanism" and he explains Dogen's teaching on zazen in terms of balancing the autonomic nervous system"

​​​​​​​EDIT, adding on: Nishijima Roshi's Philosophy (youtube.com)   Handbook of Authentic Buddhism.pdf - Google Drive

Thank you!

I am going to propose a theory to explain why some people have gradual awakenings.

Different people, for whatever reason, brain wiring, brain chemistry, etc, experience certain phenomena at different levels of intensity.

For example, some people have the empty house experience (see below) and think, "This is enlightenment, now I know what it is". And other people have the same experience but it is not very intense and they don't think it is really important. Based on the description I've had this experience many times I call it feeling like you are in a movie. But is not really intense, it is kind of fun. I would never think it was awakening if I hadn't read that web article.

And I think the same thing is true of fruition. Some people like Ron Crouch (see below) have an intense experience and recognize it as awakening. Other people have fruition and enjoy the afterglow but don't see anything about anatta in it. Other people don't even notice fruition, they just notice an afterglow sometimes after a particularly good meditation session. It took me a long time after I learned about fruition to figure out that I was having them, and then I couldn't see why anyone would think that was awakening.

The people who don't experience these things intensely,  keep meditating and over time they as Shinzen says (below) work throught he mula kleshas and lose their attachment to their self-image gradually. This also can happen for people who had an intense awakening experience as they deepen their enlightenment. 


That's my theory, I think it explains a lot.

​​​​​​​
Here is the empty house experience:
https://theconversation.org/what-is-enlightenment-no-i-mean-really-like-what-is-it/

Here is Ron Crouch's experience of fruition:
https://web.archive.org/web/20150315043206/http://alohadharma.com/2011/06/29/cessation/


Here is how Shinzen Young describes gradual awakening:
https://www.lionsroar.com/on-enlightenment-an-interview-with-shinzen-young/

My views on awakening have crystalized to the extent that I am ready to say what I think awakening is and how it should be defined.

In my opinion, Buddhism is explained at the most basic level by the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path which explain the cause of suffering and the end of suffering. So in Buddhism, awakening has to be about lessening suffering. Most suffering, in my opinion is caused by attachment to the self-image and to diminish suffering those attachments have to be diminished. The fetter model of awakening in the Pali canon says that at stream entry one loses identity view. Exactly what losing identity view means is subject to different opinions. In my opinion, losing identity view should be understood to mean losing attachments to the self-image to the extent that there is a substantial reduction of suffering. I don't know if it is possible to lose those attachments 100% and I don't know that it is impossible either. But in my opinion awakening should be measured by the loss of attachments to the self image that result in lessened suffering.

Some people define awakening based on experiences that happen during meditation or by some type of non-dual or spiritual experience. There is no pope in Buddhism, different people have different interests so I don't have any real objection to other opinions. I can only say I have my own opinion.  In my opinion, experiences only cause awakening if they also cause the loss of attachment to the self-image. Just the experience by itself, without the loss of attachment to self-image, would not constitute awakening. The experiences by themselves are not necessary or in every case sufficient to cause awakening. 

If anyone reading this considers himself awakened because of some experience and is offended by my calling into doubt their awakened status, they ought to ask themselves why they are so attached to their self image that a different opinion upsets them.

Since I would measure awakening by loss of attachment to self image and not by any particular experience, there is not a good way to identify a moment to call stream-entry. Actually, I would define stream entry as when you understand from examining your own mind that the self-image is just an image and not a thing. But that can happen without causing much loss to attachments to the self image. So for these two reasons I would not encourage people to seek or view stream-entry as the first stage of awakening.

My view is that enlightenment, for most people, is a gradual process independent of exceptional experiences. Not every one has exceptional experiences and some people who have an exceptional experience don't lose attachment to self-image from it. Shinzen Young says most of his students awaken gradually and I think that is true for most people. Awakening is said to be gradual in the Pali canon. I also believe everyone, even non-meditators, have some level of awakening. Most people understand when they get distracted by stray thoughts that they don't control their thoughts. Most people understand they don't control their emotions and they sometimes have impulses that are not helpful. Most people realize that their egotistical tendencies can cause problems (suffering) for themselves. Everyone has some understanding of anatta and that they would be better off being less egocentric. Some people understand this better than others but I think everyone has some glimmer of some part of this. And whatever amount of enlightenment a person has, they can gradually increase it by practicing meditation and mindfulness and work through the mula kleshas (see my previous post) and develop insight into the cause of suffering in their own mind and begin to lose their attachments to the self image. 

The reason I use the term self-image instead of self is because all of our thoughts arise into consciousness from unconscious processes, we never see how thoughts are constructed they just pop into awareness, and any thought of self that rises from unconscious process is not the self it is the self-image, it is an image projected by unconscious processes into consciousness. We are not able to conceive of the self we only know the self image.

(hey Jim, 

FYI two sort of interesting papers around the whole self-loss thing:

Lindahl, J. R., & Britton, W. B. (2019). “I have this feeling of not really being here”: Buddhist meditation and changes in sense of self. Journal of Consciousness Studies, 26(7–8), 157–183. https://www.imprint.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Lindahl_Open_Access.pdf

Millière, R., Carhart-Harris, R. L., Roseman, L., Trautwein, F.-M., & Berkovich-Ohana, A. (2018). Psychedelics, Meditation, and Self-Consciousness. Frontiers in Psychology, 9, 29. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01475

)

Shodo Harada Roshi expalins what he means by the term ego filter in this quote:

https://enlightenmentward.wordpress.com/2010/03/22/man-on-cloud-mountain-shodo-harada-roshi-segment-4-of-7-transcript/


When you are being mindful, being in the present moment, you are not using your ego filter. But without a lot of pracice your mind will draw you out of the present moment when situations cause dukkha to arise.

So it is helpful to observe your mind in meditation and daily life and try to notice when dukkha arises. Try to see how the ego, the self image is involved. Then you will understand dukkha arises because you are viewing reality through your ego filter.

If you can understand that, then you can imagine what it would be like to not be using your ego-filter, you wouldn't care about your self-image being threatened, you wouldn't judge things based on how they impinge on your self image, you would not react to situations with unpleasant emotions and cravings.

If you can imaging that, you can imagine how it would feel. You would not get upset over things, you would feel free. And imagining how you would feel is how you begin to practice it, how you learn, with practice, to let go of attachments to the self image, to change how you react to situations.

When you notice dukkha arising, try to see how your ego or self-image is involved, recognize it is because of your "ego-filter", and try to imagine what it would be like (liberating) if you weren't using your ego to interpret events. Making that a habit to the point where it is automatic so you don't even have to think about it ought to greatly lessen suffering.

"Making that a habit to the point where it is automatic so you don't even have to think about it ought to greatly lessen suffering."

Im not sure why but I keep seeing you as pre SE, A&P. And yet to plunge into further insight stages. 

Again and again I keep recognising in your writing my path pre-SE, A&P. Before I got blessed by the further DN stages and stuff got rolling from there. 

I might be wrong of course. What know I after all  

Best wishes Jim! 

I am incorporating the feeling of no-self into my meditation and mindfulness practice.

My main objective for the practice is to ease suffering. It is not to find my true self, or have a non-dual experience, or have an experience of oneness and I am not discussing those phenomena here.

I'm not really sure if other people have the same kind of experiences, but what I am writing here reflects my experiences.
And readers should understand the subjects of identity-view, stream-entry and awakening are outside the scope of this post. 

The feeling of self is something that you notice more by its absence than by its presence. The feeling of being/having a self is normal and you live with it all your life so most people don't notice it most of the time, and if they do notice it, it is usually somewhat vague.

But when the feeling of self is absent, you notice something is different. Sometimes people call that a no-self experience. I call it "the feeling of no-self".

I call it "the feeling of no-self" because the self doesn't really go away. The self, is in a sense, the aggregates of clinging:

https://www.hillsidehermitage.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/70hh-The-Stream-Entry-of-Ajahn-Chah-1.pdf
I think of the aggregates as the unconscious processes that produce thoughts, emotions, impulses, sensory experiences and senses of self and senses of no-self.  That ("which was taken as") self (the aggregates) doesn't go away. The feeling of self is, just like everything we experience, produced by the aggregates. A no-self experience occurs when the aggregates are not producing a feeling of self.

I have had a number of different types of no-self experiences and they never made a big impression on me. That is why I haven't incorporated it as a regular part of my practice before. So while I would expect most people to react to this method (below) of producing a no-self experience the same way I did (it's pleasant, mildly amusing, and helps keep the ego disengaged), I can't guarantee it won't turn your world view upside down and shake you up. Proceed at our own risk.

The easiest way I know to produce a feeling of no-self is as follows:

• Prepare by quieting the mind with meditation.

• Try to bring your mind into the present moment by observing your environment, look and listen to what is going on around you.

• As you do that, watch your mind for mental chatter, Usually when you give your mind a task to do, it requires attention and other conscious mental activity stops. So watching your mind for mental chatter will actually stop the mental chatter. As you watch the mind, notice the absence of mental chatter. (If your mind won't be quiet, try this, and this)

• Awareness of the absence of mental chatter may produce a feeling that something is missing. That chatter normally creates the sense of a person, yourself, that you talk to in your mind. The absence of that aspect of mental activity may create the feeling that something is missing, an emptiness, a feeling of not having a self. I call this feeling like a doughnut, like there is a hole in the middle. It may seem like if someone said something nasty, there would be no one to get offended. It might take some practice to experience it , but when it is happening correctly, it is very noticeable, unmistakable. 

Be aware that there are other different phenomenon that also give you a feeling like you don't have a self, and some interpretations of realizing anatta / losing identity-view don't involve a feeling of no-self at all. I am not making any implications about the meaning of this experience.

So why is this particular type of experience useful?

At first it seemed to be just something interesting to do with your mind, somewhat fun, better than recreational drugs because it's legal and doesn't cause vomiting the way some entheogens do. But later I began to understand it also keeps your mind quiet in the present moment, and a quiet mind does not produce suffering.

Most suffering has involvement of the ego. When the mind is quiet and in the present moment, and you are feeling like you don't have a self, you are not thinking in ways that will produce suffering. You are not thinking a normal stream of consciousness in which most thoughts are about how things relate to you or affect you. Your ego is not involved.

• The feeling of no-self is useful because it is a biofeedback signal telling you that you are not engaging your ego.

When you are more accomplished at noticing the feeling of no-self, you may recognize that mindfulness itself is a no-self experience. Being in the present moment, interrupts dependent origination and prevents suffering from arising by keeping the ego disengaged. You can pay attention to either aspect, the aspect of ending suffering, or the feeling of no-self, or both. But the effect is the same.

• Therefore, if you can produce the feeling of no-self, then you will probably feel pretty good since your ego won't be making you suffer during that time.

• And because it is somewhat amusing and fun, it provides positive reinforcement that will encourage you to practice mindfulness during daily life.

• And during daily life if you find something upsets you, you can use this skill to disengage your ego and that should cause the upset to fade. It feels like you are dissolving your self, but you are only disengaging your ego.

But simply keeping the mind quiet, focused on a feeling of no-self is not a complete solution to suffering - in my opinion. You will get additional relief from suffering if you learn to observe how emotions arise, and to work through layers, and to let go of them by relaxing. But feeling like you don't have a self can be part of the solution.

Other things you can do to help reinforce or produce a feeling of no-self:

• Notice "automaticity" as you go about tasks in daily life. Notice that you do things automatically without being conscoiusly in control. For example when you walk you don't think about how to move, you just walk. Sometimes if your mind is distracted you walk without paying any attention to it at all.

• Notice that the stream of consciousness is a sequence of cause and effect without any one controlling it. 

• Observe the observer, the experiencer, the sufferer. Try to see how  your sense of self is just another projection into conscousness from the aggregates. Notice how the sense of self is constantly changing.

More here.

And here: https://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/p/meditation.html

https://enlightenmentward.wordpress.com/2010/03/22/man-on-cloud-mountain-shodo-harada-roshi-segment-4-of-7-transcript/

Mantra of the day:

"The aggregates are attached to the self-image."