Settling

By George Draffan:

Sitting Easy, Resting in Attention

Short Meditation

 Short Meditation (from SUS07: Sutra Session (questions) 00:04:17.80 - 00:08:40.50)

(download into iTunes)

Very short periods of meditation. And I want to put the emphasis on very short. So what does this look like? One breath meditation, that's about as short as you can get, right?.

Then you stop. And you check, "Oh am I still sitting upright, have I gone to sleep. No. OK, that’s good. Let’s do another session of meditation."

And start. OK. So far, so good. And you do that and you may think I’m completely nuts here, but you actually do it this way so that you have the experience of being completely awake and in attention for that one breath. Okay.

Then you do that 10, 15, 20, 30, 50 times--it’s up to you--but do it more rather than less. This can also help you. Then, when you really feel that you can do one breath, you do two breaths.

Then you stop. You don’t have to get up or anything. You just stop, look around, refresh your body and then you do two breaths again. And you gradually build up.

And the point here is, you never give yourself a chance to fall asleep. Because when we do that repeatedly in our meditation, what we’re actually practicing is not meditating--we’re practicing being dull. And that is just as problematic as being carried away by your thoughts—the other sign of the coin. But we actually have to practice this.

I was hearing about this young NBA basketball player. I can’t remember his name. Plays for Oklahoma. He’s one of the top draft picks, but he’s playing in the bottom of the league because that’s how it works. But he’s working really hard--this is his rookie year

And after practice his coach came in and he saw this guy shooting hoops. And he would be standing on one place on the floor and shooting hoops. And he would just shoot from that one position until he could sink every one. And then he would move six inches to the right and do the same thing.

And what he was doing was making sure that his body knew how to shoot from every conceivable point on the floor. He was really working at his game and he’s already a really, really good basketball player. Okay.

That’s what it takes. If we want to practice meditation, it isn’t just sitting down and having a nice thing like that. It’s actually practicing attention. So you practice it. And it’s not enough simply to put in the time. Putting in the time’s very important but in addition to putting in the time we have to be getting the feedback.

Now for the basketball player it’s very easy to get feedback--did the ball go in the hoop or not--very easy. Meditation--it’s a little more difficult getting feedback. That’s why we have to do it very, very short so that "Okay, yes I was there." And then we do it again.

And people think, “Why would I do this?” So that’s my question for you. Why would you do this?

NOTE:  More on one breath meditation here

Meditation

Resting - Listening

A feedback loop: a self-referencing system

From Janet Hathaway:

I found Ken's Monsters Under the Bed retreat (especially the first podcast) had excellent advice on meditation. It was extremely helpful for me. If you get a chance, you might enjoy listening to it, as it speaks to all of your questions, in detailed ways.


Meditation (from MUB01: Monsters Under The Bed (retreat) 00:35:07.00 - 00:48:10.00)

(download into iTunes)

Ken: Within what Claudia and George were both saying are two qualities which are extremely important in meditation. And actually in our lives, but we first begin to form a relationship with them, or many of us do, in meditation.

The first quality is resting. Claudia talked about resting in the experience of breathing. We just tried that for a few minutes. And some of you noticed that you barely start resting in the experience of breathing and the horse kicks you off its back. Just like that. What’s your your name?

Cathy: Cathy.

Ken: Cathy. I thought you were one of the Cathys! Yes, you’re the C, right? Ah. Okay.

So, you notice how what you say is your mind—I’m not quite sure what that is, so I may ask for some elaboration on this—but some thing jumps in and starts trying to control the whole process, telling you what to do. “Well, do this. Stand up. Sit down. Lean to the left. Lean to the right. Breathe a little more deeply.” And all of that stuff. How many of you in your meditation practice have this little commentary that goes on the background, “Okay, hey you’re not doing badly right now.” [Laughter]

“Now, just ease up a little bit there—you’re getting a little bit tense. Oh, cool, cool—that’s it! Just—oooh, nice move! Ah, a little dullness here, better sharpen it up. Oh, come on, you got lost in a thought! What kind of an idiot are you?” Anybody else have this?

I suppose that’s what you’re referring to as your mind. Ah, okay. Well, so you start resting in the experience of breathing, and most of us get caught up in thoughts immediately. This is where what George is saying comes in It’s very important.

We may not notice this at this point, but every one of those thoughts is actually a reaction to a physical sensation. People are looking like, “What?” It’s a physical sensation with an emotional charge, and we don’t want to touch it so what we do is we start thinking. This is why I said last night, and George reiterated this this morning, that the most reliable way to cut through the thinking process is to bring your attention to what you are experiencing in the body. And you say “Well, I came here to meditate. I came here to be quiet and peaceful. I didn’t come here to feel all the aches and pains and little stuff, you know, I just want to sit and just have a really quiet mind.” But it doesn’t work that way.

George also talked gave us some very, very useful pointers on sitting. I want to take it step further here. I said there are two important components to meditation. First is resting. The second one now comes in—listening. And this was implicit in what both Claudia and George talked about: You listen. Your body knows how to breathe. Can you listen to your body and let it breathe the way that it knows how? Or do you have some half-ass idea about how it should all be done. And you just go ahead and breathe that way?

You know the most difficult people I find to teach? Yoga teachers. Not all of them. But a good number of them have got so used to controlling their breath that they can’t actually let the body breathe. And it’s fair enough because in Hinduism/Yoga, it’s a different approach. And you learn to generate experiences through working with the body and working with the breath in ways. But they come to Buddhist practice and they sometimes find it very, very difficult because they can’t actually just rest and let the body breathe. It feels like everything’s going out of control.

Now, in that sensation of everything going out of control, there are a whole bunch of physical sensations. And that’s where you start in your practice. Okay, so, I feel like things are out of control, what am I experiencing physically? I feel like I am going to sleep, what am I experiencing physically? I’m feeling angry and upset, what am I experiencing physically? We do this over and over again.

In other words, you listen to the breath. You listen to the body.Your body will tell you how to sit. It will tell you when you are straining too much. It will tell you when you are slumping too much. It will tell you what it can do. It will tell you what it can’t do.

As you sit with the body, then you’ll find all of these different sensations. You listen to them very deeply, you will know how to sit. You listen to your breath and your breath will tell you when it’s out of sync with the body. And you will know, or your body will know, how to breathe. As you listen to all of that, you’ll find that you will know how to rest.

Resting in this way may feel a little different, because as Claudia said in her comments, there isn’t this sense of control that many of us are used to. And so, the moment we start actually resting, our emotional reactions to the lack of control start to arise, and now we just go through the same cycle again. What do I experience in my body?

And so meditation practice in this way of resting and listening is a dynamic process of adjustments in our posture, in our breath, in how we’re placing our attention. But the net result of all of those adjustments is an increasing sense of both rest and balance. That’s what we mean by such terms as shamatha. It’s not a case of just holding everything still. That just produces suppression and that generates other problems.

Rather, when sitting this way, practicing this way, we’re listening to our whole experience and finding a place of balance in it and resting there. Now, as we rest there, the place of balance will naturally shift because of all of the movements that George was describing. And so we find ourselves resting in a constantly moving balance.

Now as time goes on and we gain more experience and understanding, that becomes more and more subtle. So, from the outside, it will look like we’re doing nothing. But inside, we will sense this constant movement out of balance and then the adjustment to move back towards balance. And I’ve said on other occasions, it’s a bit like riding a bicycle. It doesn’t matter how fast you’re going on a bicycle, the bicycle is always moving a little bit from side to side. And you’ll find the same thing in meditation: It’s always moving a little bit. And the moment you try to hold it still, you actually stop the process. But if you just rest in this movement and keep listening and listening, you’ll find that the adjustments become smaller and smaller and you rest more and more completely.

Now, if you’re like most people, you’ll want to rest on something. And I ask you to remember, it’s turtles all the way down! [Laughter]

The Basics

Meditation / Practice

Motivation (Willingness)

• Practice (3:04)
• How To Change Things (16:43)
• Primary Practice Benefits (15:33)
• Practice Daily (0:56)
• Mantra (0:33)
• Repetition (10:29)
• Confident Faith (3:50)
• Completing the Process (2:59)
• The Breath (4:48)

Resting (Breathing)

• Basic Skills (4:43)
• Short Meditation (4:23)
• Resting (20:46)Body like a mountain,
  breath like the wind,
  mind like the sky.
  Don't pursue the past,
  don't entertain the future,
  don't think about the present,
  just rest.
• Meditation Walkthrough (16:34)
• Meditation (13:03)

The Body

• The Body (4:46)
• The Full Body Experience (19:01)

The Central Practice

• To Be In One Thing (1:58)
• The Central Practice (17:38 + 8:30)
• The Primary Practice (7:25 + 7:38)

Meditation Walkthrough

First hand experience from Ken of what goes on in him when he is meditating. Describes also the basic technique of counting the breath to ten.

Meditation Walkthrough (from TNE02: There is No Enemy (retreat) 00:36:16.00 - 00:52:50.00)

(download into iTunes)

Primary Practice Benefits

Primary Practice Benefits (from BWM09: Buddhahood Without Meditation 00:33:28.00 - 00:49:01.00)

(download into iTunes)

It has certain practical benefits. ... So you tend to notice a lot more.

Of course, the practice Ken is talking about is this one. It has also the benefit of being very simple and easy.

P.S. Test Your Awareness: Do The Test

How To Change Things

How To Change Things (from SUS05: Sutra Session (questions) 00:25:25.00 - 00:42:07.60)

(download into iTunes)

The Primary or Central Practice

Ken presents this meditation practice in many retreat talks calling it either the primary or the central practice. You'll also find a longish version posted here, presented in the context of a workshop on the Heart Sutra.

Here's a version of the instructions for the primary practice that I like very much :).

The Primary Practice (from WS01: Warrior's Solution (retreat) (revised) 00:22:28.00 - 00:29:53.00)
(download into iTunes)


The clip has a low sound volume and a high noise level. Below is another version with a noise filter applied.  It has less noise, but a higher volume. 

The Primary Practice (from WS01: Warrior's Solution (retreat) (revised) 00:22:28.00 - 00:29:53.00)
(download into iTunes)

The awareness practice I will also introduce this evening. Many of you have had this before. It goes by the name, the primary practice and it is a method of coming into awareness. There are four steps: focus, field, internal material, presence.

So right now, pick a focus for your attention, it can be anything. It can be your breath. It can be an external object. It can be an internal sensation, it doesn't matter. It's simply a focus. And when you move into focus, you'll feel a shift in your energy.

Now, let the focus, or your attention rather, expand to the field, the whole field of sensory experience: sight, sound, touch, taste, smell, all of them. And you'll probably experience another shift in energy.

And resting in that experience, now include all of the stories, feelings, evaluations, beliefs, and perceptual frameworks in you, all of your internal material, all that you can be aware of in the moment. Just include it all.

And now, drop any sense of inside or outside, there is simply the totality of experience that arises in the moment.

And you rest there.

And when the sense of presence diminishes, return to focus, and field and internal material and dropping inside and outside.

In this work, do not try to hold states. That is a form of practice, but in a certain sense in which we live and practice, it doesn't seem to be the best form of practice.  The better form is when you feel the quality of presence or awareness fading, diminishing, being lost in confusion or cloudiness--however you experience it--then move into that experience through the primary practice, through the four steps. So there's a constant returning and resting rather than a sense of establishing and holding.

Return and rest, and then return and rest.

And return and rest.

Another version:

Primary Practice (from ATP10: A Trackless Path (retreat) 00:23:22.2 - 00:30:00.2) (download into iTunes)

Well, I think I'm going to just spend a few minutes on Pat's question to Tom to start off with, and then do something a little different this evening. I think we did this in Montreal at some point during the weekend,  what we're calling the primary practice. This is the name a very good friend of mine gives it. It's a way initially of coming into the experience of attention. As it matures it's coming into the experience of awareness, and eventually is a way of coming into the experience of presence.

The method is the same for all three essentially. And as Tom was saying we begin by opening to everything we experience through our senses. And there are a couple of different ways you can do that. One is to select a visual object and rest in the experience of that object and gradually expand the visual field until you're including everything in your visual field. And then add hearing and touch, smelling and tasting. There's no particular order there. You could also start with sound.

Another way, which I've often done, is to start with the sensation of breathing which is primarily a kinesthetic sensation. And expand from that to include all sensory sensations. That's the first step. Then one opens to all internal the material which is what Tom was referring to as all the thoughts and emotions and stuff like that. They'll be beliefs and attitudes. All kinds of things. Many of them disagreeing with each other but you don't worry about that. You just open to all of them.

And then the third step;  as you work both those steps you begin to get the sense of a field of experience, some of which we generally call internal and some of which we generally call external. But it's all experience. And there's a field of experience and so we open to that field. And then we open our hearts to everything that is experienced in that field.

And many people find the notion of opening one's heart to things a little strange. But more than once I've asked a person who says, you know, "How do you do that?" So I'll take a meditation cushion being a nice, you know, endearing object. And say, you know, "Think of your husband or your wife. Open your heart." They usually have no problem with that. If they have a problem with that then I'm in trouble. But they open that. I say "Okay, now, here's this meditation cushion. Do exactly the same thing with that." And they go, "Huh." But that's what you do.

And so there's a shift into a different kind of experience at that point because you're very explicitly including an emotional component of attention, not just an intellectual or conceptual or mental component. And you can feel that because there's a deeper level of engagement.

When you can rest in that then you pose the question, "What experiences all this?" And when you pose that question, you'll experience a shift, and that shift is into the experience of awareness itself. What a lot of people will do is try to answer that question and that just plunges them straight back into conceptual thinking. You just ask this question. Experience the shift, and rest in the shift.

Now one can work these four steps slowly, building up stability in each one. And as you practice this over a period of time, it progressively deepens because one is building a capacity in attention through this practice. And one is also transforming the energy of experience of each of these levels into attention. So there's two different things going on. It's a very simple and yet very, very effective practice. Okay?

And another: 

This Clip (from TNE07: There is No Enemy (retreat) 00:00:50.00 - 00:02:48.00) (download into iTunes)


And here's a version with a slightly different twist and excellent sound quality.

Opening Practice (from SUS05: Sutra Session (questions) 00:12:46.00 - 00:20:24.00) (download into iTunes)


And here are portions of a transcript from session 8 of the Five Elements Five Dakinis retreat where Ken talks about the initial steps of the primary practice in quite some detail: 

Audio

Last night I talked briefly about the three kinds of meditation practices: the practice of presence or direct awareness, purification practices and energy transformation practices. Up to this point, the principle way we've been working with the dakinis, is as a purification practice. That is, developing a relationship with the dakinis, as a way of transforming the reaction chains associated with each element into the experience of presence. Particular emphasis on the aspect of pristine awareness associated with each element. And yesterday we moved from working with each dakini separately, to working through all of them and touching each of the centers in the body. 

So today, I want to shift the emphasis of the practice from purification, that is undoing the reactive patterns, to transformation of energy and from there movement into practice of direct awareness. Now some of you who have worked with me before are familiar with the practice we call ecstatic practice. But I think it's probably worthwhile to go over it again, particularly for people who haven't had that opportunity. So, if you just sit for a few moments. 

Audio 

What ecstatic practice consists of is a way of opening to experience. And it can be done in a variety of ways. For today, just pick an object that's in your natural line of vision or something that's when you look straight ahead is just there. So you can pick the book besides Dick's knee. Let your attention rest on that. That step's called focus. You don't do anything with it, just let your attention rest there. 

And then, without moving your eyes, include in your awareness progressively more, expanding from that book. In my case, to include the floor, carpet, other objects around it, people, all the different clothes they wear, out to the walls and ceiling, windows, everybody in the room. So you see everything, all at once. 

When you do this you may find your attention grabbed by a particular object, maybe the color of somebody's shirt. That's equivalent of being distracted by a thought. What we do here is a little bit different. If you find yourself looking at something like that, then just begin again, expanding from that object to your whole field of vision. 

And as you become used to seeing everything in your field of vision at one time, at the same time, slowly move your head and your eyes so you can look around the room. But all the time, you're seeing everything. You're seeing both everything and every detail. So take it all in. 

Okay, relax your efforts. 

Now this is something you can practice when you're walking around. You can look at the river, see the whole river and every swirl and ripple and eddy. You can look at a tree and see every branch and leaf. You can look at a field, and see every blade of grass. And you can look at the road, and see every pebble. If you live in a city--a very good place to practice this, shopping malls. See everything. Go into a glassware store, so you see every glass and the reflection of every glass in every glass. 

Audio 

One can take this a little bit further. So again, pick an object. Let your attention rest there, that's the focus. Let your field of vision expand to include everything. But now include everything you hear also. Sound of the river, sound of birds, sound of my voice, as well as everything in your visual field. And you can also include all the sensations you experience in your body. Sitting where you do, texture of your clothes, pressure of your body against whatever you're sitting on. You may find your attention just goes to that, in that case just expand back to include all the visual, all the sound. So you sit in the totality of your sensory experience. One can also include taste and smell. There is no editing here. One just includes everything. 

And now as you rest in your sensory fields, include all the internal material. All of the emotions, all of the stories, all of the beliefs, all the values, all the memories of the past, all the anticipations of the future, everything you're concerned about right now. Include it all as you rest in the field of sensations, for all your senses. Don't move from one to the other. You stay present in the sensations and the senses and include all of the internal material.

And there may be stuff pulling here and pulling there. Whenever you feel any of those tugs, expand from there to include everything. And we usually begin with the sense of inside and outside. Sensory sensations are out there, internal material is in here. But all of it's just experience, so drop any sense of inside or outside. There's just experience. 

As you include more and more, you may find your body tenses a bit. If you find that, just include the sensations of the tension. Maybe it relaxes, maybe it doesn't. But just include those sensations. Maybe there's fear or relief--other feelings come. Just include those. No inside, no outside. Just experience. 

And then pose this question, but don't try to answer it. Just experience the shift and ask, "What experiences all this?" There is a shift. Rest in the shift, including everything. 

Audio

The version I just gave you here is sometimes known as the primary practice. Because it actually works from the ecstatic practice but it actually includes the essential points of both mahamudra and dzogchen all in one very simple practice. 

Full transcript


And from session 2 of  A Trackless Path:

Now, the steps in the primary practice are four just to make it nice. The first one is, open to the experience of all sensory sensations. What we see, and the experience of seeing; what we hear, and the experience of hearing; what we touch, and the experience of touching. One can include smell and taste but those are usually fairly ephemeral. So unless one's sitting beside a garbage dump or a flower bed or something like that, then it would become quite vivid. That's the first step. And there are a couple of different ways of doing that, which I'll come back to in a moment.

The second step is to open to all of the emotions, all of the internal material: emotions, feelings and so forth. Stories, as well.

The third step is to open your heart to everything you're experiencing. Now it's very interesting--a little digression here--frequently when I say that people go, "Huh? How do you open your heart to experience?" And rather than give a long-winded explanation I usually ask them if they're in a relationship. And they say, "Yes." So can you open your heart to partner, your husband, spouse, whomever? They say, "Yes." I say, "Do that." And they go, "Okay." So now you see that cushion there, do the same thing. And almost everybody gets it. There is a way of just opening--and I'm not quite sure how to put it into words--emotionally, heartfelt way or something like that. But it isn't actually dependent on the object though ordinarily we think it's dependent on the object. You follow?

So people get that quite quickly. What this reminds me of is a passage I read in a book called Against Essentialism, which is a 200 pages of high level sociological theory, which is a sustained argument for non-self. And one of the things he [Stephan Fuchs] points out--and I just love this--we ordinarily think, you know, this is a thing. And it's glass or this gong or book and you are people. But what he points out is that peopleness and thingness doesn't reside in the object, it resides in the relationship.

How many of you know people who relate to, say, a flower or a garden or a car or even a rock possibly, as a person? You all know people like that? And how many of you have been treated by someone or other as a thing. So it's actually the quality in the relationship that determines peopleness and thingness. And this applies very much to this business of opening our heart to what we experience. Ordinarily we say, okay, we open our heart to people. Maybe pets too. But beyond that we don't go. But it's actually possible to open our heart to everything we experience. And it changes things. So that's the third step.

And the fourth step is to open to the experience of awareness itself. That is usually done by asking the question, "What experiences this?" When that question is asked a shift takes place and one rests in the shift. One doesn't seek to answer the question. One simply rests in the shift.

Among all these different versions of instructions for this practice, I hope you'll find one that speaks to you, as this is one of Ken's tried and true work horse practices for building capacity in attention.

Mantra

Mantra (from FI 01: The Four Immeasurables 01:18:42.10 - 01:19:15.00)

(download into iTunes)

... It's great to work with these in your daily life, thank you for raising that up, yeah. If you memorize these and just go around saying them all the time, thank you very much for bringing that point up, and just learn them by heart, that's really good. And, so that way you keep the practice going through the day. Yeah.

Practice

Practice, practice, practice...

Practice (from Relationships and Emotional Reactions (talk) 00:16:25.70 - 00:19:29.50)

(download into iTunes)

...

And if you want to give a sports analogy, this is like going out and hitting tennis balls against the wall. Plop, plop, plop... And that's what you do, just breathe, breathe, breathe - same thing. And that's practice. It's really helpful.

...

Resting

This is an important one, for the basics. Not only does it go in detail into how to sit and breathe, but it has actually three different methods (including the one focusing on the breath). So you can alternate or choose what is easiest for you, or bring some variety into the game (and it is also interesting to compare and experience how they work differently (or not) and what kind of result they each yield). If you are interested in any of this, but it still seems to be too difficult at first, you might actually begin with this even more basic method.

Resting (from MAH01: Mahamudra 01:12:35.00 - 01:33:21.00) (download into iTunes)

On a personal note, I have always found meditation practice extremely difficult. And, Kalu Rinpoche, my teacher, always encouraged us to go right to the heart of the matter. He was not interested in getting lost in some of the complexities of meditation practice, or different kinds of meditation practice. He always just went straight for the heart, straight for the essence.

But, I wasn't able to do that. And part of me really wanted to meditate resting on the breath. Whenever I asked Rinpoche, if I could just meditate resting on the breath. He would always say to me: There is no breath in the bardo. There is no breath after you die. So why are you waisting your time? And he was quite right.

But, in all honesty, it wasn't the most helpful thing to me. Because I did not have the capacity. So I meditated on the breath anyway. Felt terribly guilty in doing so. Because it was all I could do. I had my own difficulties. It was all I could do.

So, do what you actually can do.

...

Pith instructions:

Don't pursue the past,
don't entertain the future,
dont think about the present,
just rest.

And:

Body like a mountain,
breath like the wind,
mind like the sky.

Practice Daily

Practice Daily (from TAN01: Then and Now (class) 00:06:34.90 - 00:07:31.10)

(download into iTunes)

Practice is basically your responsibility. I suggest that you practice at least half an hour a day. Better, 40 minutes to an hour, but half an hour is really the minimum. Whatever form your practice takes, it is going to help you very significantly in absorbing and being able to make use of the material because it is through practice that we get a somewhat quiet mind, and the quiet mind is one which understands things... becomes naturally clear, and that clear, quiet mind naturally understands things much more than the busy intellectual, thinking mind. In some ways it’s a different kind of understanding, an understanding that a lot of people in this culture are not used to; but it’s a far stronger, far deeper, far more vibrant understanding.

Note: Please compare this with later comments by Ken on developing Basic Skills, in case you are just about to start out and feel a little bit intimidated about the half an hour plus "requirement":-).

To Be In One Thing

To Be In One Thing (WS01) (from WS01: Warrior's Solution (retreat) (revised) 00.20.30.00 - 00.22.28.00)

(download into iTunes)

In terms of exercise, from this moment on, form the intention to be in one thing, whatever you are doing.

So, if you are walking from here to your room, form the intention to be in the experience of walking. If you are brushing your teeth, form the intention to be in the experience of brushing your teeth and do it. If you are going to sleep, form the intention of going to sleep. And go to sleep.

So this is being in one thing completely.

So that's your exercise!

Repetition

Repetition (from MMT06: Mahayana Mind Training (retreat) 00:17:51.00 - 00:28:20.00)

(download into iTunes)

This clip was pointed out and located by Valerie. Thanks.

Basic skills

Basic Skills (from DFF06: Death: Friend or Foe (retreat) 00:46:20.20 - 00:51:03.00)

(download into iTunes)

Ken: This morning—during the breakfast break—I was thinking, “You know, I really haven’t done a very good job teaching people.” I realized if I was going to start all over again, I’d do it very, very differently. So, now I’m going to tell you the right way. [Laughs]

Jean: Oh boy!

Ken: Finally! Well—pardon?

Student: This just came over breakfast?

Ken: This just came over breakfast, yes. You have to do something to fill the time, you know.

So, the first things one needs if you’re going to learn to do anything well are the basic skills. For instance, how do you learn how to write? You make the shapes of the letters over and over again. How do you learn arithmetic? Well, you practice addition and subtraction. So, it seemed to me, that probably the first thing you should learn when you’re meditating is how to pay attention to one breath. So, screw this 30 minutes of practice every day.

I’ve got a new client who wants to learn to meditate, so I think I’m going to try this on him. Say—[Laughter] “Poor guy,” says Jim, but maybe he’s lucky! So, forget about meditating for half an hour at a time. The first thing you do is--every morning--you get up and you practice a hundred one-breath meditations.

[Ken models doing one breath.] Finished. [Ken models another one-breath meditation.] Basic skill, right? Being present with one breath.

So, move onto death and impermanence. Same kind of thing. You really want to learn this stuff? Practice it. Take in one thing that changes every day. Doesn’t really matter what. It may be the movement of shadow as the sun goes. You go, “Oh.” And what this is going to do is bring attention to some minutiae in your life, and you see change. And you’re practicing exposing yourself to change. Basic skills. I don’t have all of the levels worked out, but you get the idea.

Just for interest, what would it be like if you’d learned meditation that way? Really basic skills. So, I’m gonna try that. I’ll let you know how it goes.

So, this is not theoretical stuff. This is not philosophy. This is learning, practicing, doing. And they can be broken down into really basic skills that we can learn. So that’s something I encourage you to do is, “Look, okay, how can I really take this in?” And don’t deal with the abstract; don’t deal with the philosophical. “How can I really take this in?”

Another practice that I’ve sometimes given people when they’re doing death and impermanence meditation is that every day—all the time they’re doing meditation—they have to buy a cut flower and put it in a vase where they meditate and not give it any water. So every day they sit down, they see the plants change. And eventually it shrivels up and dies, and then they get another flower and do the same thing. It’s like, “There is change.”

The Breath

From Claudia Hansson:

The Breath (from MUB01: Monsters Under The Bed (retreat) 00:00:00.00 - 00:04:48.50)

(download into iTunes)

Claudia: I’m going to start by talking about the breath. Everything that you read about meditation, certainly in all the Buddhist literature, you see the focus on the breath, and for shamatha practice this is what we’re doing. We are moving into the experience of breathing. The breath can seem like a very ordinary process. It’s something that, if we don’t direct our attention to it, the body does it anyway. The body knows how to breathe. We don’t have to control it. We don’t have to regulate it. And if we let ourselves just move into that very deep experience of just feeling the breath, everything else tends to follow along.

Sometimes, I know I’ve gone there myself, we sit for a while, and we think, “This is kind of a boring thing, paying attention to my breath, what’s the big deal about this?” But I think if you reflect on it a little bit, you can move into an experience where breath is pretty amazing.

Any of you have children, in the room? Okay, I wonder if you can remember what that experience was like when you first heard your child take that breath. Anybody want to share what that felt like?

Student: One second.

Student: The interesting thing for me is that I kept waking up at night and checking on him to make sure that he was still breathing.

Claudia: Yes.

Student: And then later when I talked to other mothers, they had all had similar experiences with their children.

Claudia: And monitors make it even worse now because they’re sitting right there, and every breath is coming at you. Anyone else?

I remember it very, very clearly, and very distinctly. I don’t remember much about the pain. I don’t remember much about the process. It’s kind of faded over the years, but I don’t think I will ever forget those first breaths that my children took.

About a year and a half ago, my father passed away. He was 86, and he was out hiking. He simply collapsed in the mountains. Fortunately I happened to be on an airplane, on my way to San Diego, to go and visit him so I was there when he was airlifted to the hospital.

When I got there, he was on a respirator, which they removed later. I had the deep honor and privilege of sitting with him while he took those last breaths. I will tell you that it moved me so deeply that it actually shifted my practice when I was resting with the breath, because the breath is our life. It means we’re here. It means we’re alive. We have this wonderful opportunity to practice.

The thing about the breath is, to be in that experience, not to be trying to control it or move it or change it. As the breath settles, the entire physiology of the body also starts to change. George is going to be talking about the body when we sit, but everything is carried with the breath.

The Central Practice

The Central Practice (from HSW01: Heart Sutra Workshop 00:18:10.60 - 00:35:49.00)

(download into iTunes)

I bow to Lady Perfection of Wisdom.
Thus I have heard.

At one time, Lord Buddha was staying at Vulture Peak Mountain in Rajagriha, with a great gathering of the monastic sangha and the bodhisattva sangha. 

At that time, Lord Buddha entered an absorption, called Profound Radiance, in which all elements of experience are present. 

I think we have to stop right here. Jess, you can put down the book for a moment.  So, here's Buddha. He's meditating. And you notice the situation, they're perched on top of a mountain top which is a place that exactly exists in India. I've been there. And he's surrounded by monastics and bodhisattvas. We'll talk a bit more about that in a few minutes. And he entered an absorption, called Profound Illumination or Profound Radiance--it's translated in different ways--in which all elements of experience are present. How many of you know this absorption? How many of you would like to know this absorption? Oh, you know this absorption, do you? Oh, good. So, let's spend a few minutes.

Now, if you're going to have all elements of experience, it's probably better if you have your eyes open, so you aren't shutting things out. So, start just by sitting and resting with something we all know, resting in the experience of breathing. Now, generally when we rest in the experience of breathing, the first thing we become aware of is the sensation of the breath through the nostrils. But that's only part of the experience of breathing. You may also notice that the breath flows through one or either of the nostrils more than the other. Maybe the temperature is slightly different. You may also notice a sensation, a cool sensation at the back of your throat when you breathe in. Movement of the lungs and the chest. Movement in the diaphragm and stomach. So, just experience all of that. 

You may also experience your back moving, a little bit. When you breathe in, the body straightens up, a little bit. When you breathe out, it bends forward, a little bit. It may only be a couple of millimeters. You may notice that your head moves accordingly, the chin moves very slightly up and down. Whoever said that meditation was actually sitting still? There may be other sensations taking place in your body connected with breathing, experience all of them. You may find your attention moving from one sensation to the other. You don't need to do that, you can experience them all at the same time.  

So experience all the tactile and kinesthetic sensations associated with breathing. Then include a bit more: all of the tactile and kinesthetic sensations associated with your body. Sensation of clothes touching your body, the sensation of your body sitting, sensation of your hands and feet touching or interacting with each other. In addition to that, all the sensations connected with breathing. Just experience all of it. All at the same time. You may find that your attention collapses down on one or other thing, and as soon as you notice that, just expand from that thing that you are focusing on to include everything connected with breathing and your body. Just sit there for a few moments, in the experience of breathing. 

But our sense of the organ of the body is only one of the five senses. There is also sight. So, as you sit there in the experience of breathing, you could also include everything that is in your field of vision. From where I sit, that's the faces and bodies and clothes of all of you. All of the details of the thangkas and the glittering of the brocade that frames the thangkas, the lights, the ceiling, the floor, the windows, the walls. That's all part of the experience of breathing, it's all part of what we experience right now. Also include the sound of my voice and the sound of the traffic, just include everything. The feelings of your body when you breathe and all of the other sensations that arise in any of the senses.  

You sit in a field of sensory experience. And you may notice, as you sit in this field, that there are other elements of experience. Maybe some thoughts arise because of the honking outside, saying, "I wish it would go away." And there's feelings of dislike or displeasure. Maybe there are other thoughts, other emotions. In other words, there is all this internal stuff that goes on, too. So, just include that: the sensations of the body, all the other senses, thoughts, feelings, sensory sensations, emotional sensations, cognitive sensations, we call those thoughts. Don't push any of it away, don't try to organize or understand any of it, just experience it all. And whenever you find yourself collapsing down on one thing, just expand back and include everything. You don't have to actually sit still to do this, you can let your eyes move gently and slowly around the room, taking in all the visuals, but including the body sensations that are involved in that.

So, here we are in a field of experience: sensations, thoughts and feelings. You sit in this way long enough and you begin to wonder what outside and inside mean. So, maybe we could just let those go and have this field of experience. Now, open your heart to this field of experience. Some of you may say, what does that mean? But you know what it is to open your heart to your spouse, or your partner or your child. So, you just do the same thing with what you are experiencing: just open your heart. 

So you have all of the physical sensations and all of the sensory sensations and all of the internal material, the thoughts and feelings and so forth, and you have an open heart. Now, in a moment, I am going to suggest a question. I don't want you to answer the question. I simply want you to pose the question to yourself. When you do this, you'll probably experience some kind of shift. When you experience that shift, just include that experience, too, with everything else. So, physical sensations are breathing, all the sensation with the body, all the other sensory sensations: sight and sound, taste and smell. All the mental and emotional sensations: thoughts and feelings. The whole field of experience which we experience with an open heart. The question is, "What experiences all this?" As I say, don't try to answer the question, just experience the shift and then include the experience of the shift with everything else. What experiences all this?

[Silence, Gong]

So that's what Buddha was doing. 

How was this for you?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Central Practice Comment (from HSW01: Heart Sutra Workshop 00:42:05.50 - 00:50:36.00)

(download into iTunes)

This is how you experience everything. All elements of experience are present. You see, things are much simpler than they are often presented to us. There are only three things we experience: thoughts, feelings, and sensations. Everything else is a construct, or an abstraction from that.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

2010-03-06

I originally titled this post Absorption Meditation.  It's is a much longer version of The Primary Practice, which Ken uses and introduces in many retreats and classes.

Early this week Ken suggested renaming it to The Central Practice:

"Very good to have this up and available. And, yes, the title could be better. The friend who developed it calls it "The primary practice" but I've never liked this term.

If it's not too late, perhaps change the name to "the central practice". And I'll start to use this terminology in my talks."

Renaming done.

Clemens