How to develop more of an awake quality

Jeffrey

I always thought if I would meditate more everything would fall into place. I have pursued that task in meditation and I have meditated for every day 30 minutes for over a year.

Now I would like to get more of an awake quality to meditation rather than day dreaming. I am looking for my course booklet about meditation and am cleaning to try and find that booklet.

So now I think I need to study to improve my meditation. Actually, it's a perfect example of using studying to enhance meditation.

What do you folks do to develop a more awake quality?

Regards,
Jeffrey

Jeffrey

This thread http://newbuddhist.com/discussion/20056/if-meditation-becomes-boring#latest

has some answers, but it doesn't totally meet my wavelength because I am not bored. My daydreams are fascinating and some I even imagine are insightful.

mindatrisk

Jeffrey said:

What do you folks do to develop a more awake quality?

I just wrote a blog entry which basically answers this here...

http://justchanging-theworld.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/how-you-can-change-world.html

In summary... Raw veganism, celibacy, fasting, ayahuasca, exercise, cold showers, service (volunteering), earthing.

Jeffrey

Thanks mindatrisk. I do some of those other than raw vegetarianism. I was a veggie guy for 2 years but then I ate some bacon, because my family feasted on wonderful cooking for a week while I was spending time with them at my Dad's cottage. So temptation got the better of me. I don't know what ayahuasca is. (i'll look it up). But all the other ones. Fasting I would only include because I don't eat breakfast or lunch and only eat dinner as one meal and then snacks on left overs. (incidentally by letting go of food as a neurotic sense pleasure I have lost 45 pounds slowly over 7 years.

Jeffrey

ayahuasca, I looked it up and it is a mixture of psychedelic drugs including DMT. I am schizophrenic and so I shouldn't try it because schizophrenia is related to psychedelics and DMT is overly produced in the brain. Thanks for the suggestion though. I am trying to avoid mind active drugs (any more other than my medication).

Nevermind

Try to pay attention, simply.

fivebells

Jeffrey said:

What do you folks do to develop a more awake quality?

Try the instructions in With Each and Every Breath.

Jeffrey

Thanks, fivebells. I am always daunted by long texts, but I am assimilating it page by page.

Hamsaka

@Jeffrey, explain more what you mean by 'more awake quality'?

Gassho

Jeffrey

@Hamsaka, I mean almost the whole session daydream. It's one thing if that happens time to time, but another if it happens for months or even years.

Hamsaka

Ah. "Daydream". I know what *I* mean when I use the word 'daydream', but may not understand what *you* mean by it. Maybe we are both daydreaming, maybe we are ALL daydreaming, maybe the Buddha did a lot of daydreaming and it is described in the suttas as a meditation technique he highly recommends.

Of course you are dissatisfied with it, and that means something!

In my sitting, I could call it 'daydreaming' if I lose focus and go riding off on a thought or emotion or memory for a while.

One thing that occurred to me recently is to "follow" the ill-focused riding off with the thought/emotion, rise up and 'witness' it rather than be immersed in it. For instance, I have some extremely sticky, painful themes where I deeply blame myself for the loss of my previous farm. Intellectually, I know the farm was doomed because the marriage I was in was to a disturbed, drug addled sociopathic man who had me and everyone fooled into thinking he was brilliant and good. The layers of self-blame (self loathing, really) are deep and I'm still digging them up seven years later . Compared to the suffering possible in this world, it's small potatos, but here I am living in the good ole USA where a bad hair day is a disaster, but anyway . . .

When those emotions or thoughts rise up (as they OFTEN do), they are sticky and charged and I get carried away. I suppose that is a kind of daydreaming, which ends when Awareness pokes me and reminds me I am "in it" rather than "observing it".

So, I've a third option; observe it, get carried away by it, or 'follow' it where it goes with mindfulness ("I am watching this emotion/thought unfold and go where it will").

Perhaps when you are sitting and you realize you are daydreaming, think the word "daydreaming' and pull back and watch where the daydream goes. No judgment; check out your body and see if there is any sensations in your body that arise with the daydream.

Really, what I've read/heard is we are to be students of our own mind first, then that becomes students of THE human mind. There is no good or bad (not that I'm great about remembering that, see my thread for proof!).

What did the Buddha say . . . the most persistent themes of thought/emotion we have are what creates (are the conditions which give rise to) our 'reality' (karma).

If one is anxious and miserable, one can be assured the mind is marinating in sadness, fear and self-loathing thoughts and emotions. What are the conditions giving rise to such a stew of sadness, fear and self-loathing? That is what I understand meditation can help us SEE, for starters, and then realize the delusion and then emptiness of them.

There I go again, once I start typing it's hard to stop :skeptic:

Hopefully something in there resonates

Gassho

Namada

Maybe this video can help, its 37 practices for a bodhisattva, maybe this can be a guideline to devolpe more of an awake quality (not only for you, but everyone), and also devolpe motivation and right effort...its for sure not only a meditation aspect with this practice.

BTW, how did it go with this job interview? Did you speak with the manager?

Sorry iam just curious (no need to answer if its to private!)

Jeffrey

BTW, how did it go with this job interview? Did you speak with the manager?

Sorry iam just curious (no need to answer if its to private!)

I didn't get an interview. I am going to check back after x-mas. I will also try another goodwill in my city that has more turn over. Glad you asked.

Jeffrey

I am finding that it is powerful just to realize you have a choice for just an instant to not go into thought realms of day dreams. Or if you go into them there is a natural motion back into mindfulness of meditation on the breath.

Namada

I didn't get an interview. I am going to check back after x-mas. I will also try another goodwill in my city that has more turn over. Glad you asked.
---

Ok, good luck

Jeffrey

Here is something my teacher said in our meditation packet.

Noticing thought itself rather than content.

When a thought arises, try to be as fully present with what that thought is in itself. The content of thought does not matter, even though this is hard to believe sometimes.

We tend to judge our thoughts quite strongly. If in our meditation we have lots of good thoughts we think, 'Oh, that meditation was good'. If we have lots of bad thoughts we think, 'Oh, that meditation was bad'. Actually, if we are judging our meditation in this way, we have missed the point. The meditation is not about whether the thought content is good or bad. The meditation is about recognising the true nature of thought in itself, regardless of whether we believe the content to be good or bad.

Bad meditation, I would say, is believing in good and bad thoughts as real, as being what we are. Good meditation would be equanimity, where we recognise thinking as thinking and let all the thoughts be as they are in the space of awareness.

The instruction to label thinking as 'thinking' is a good way of learning this kind of equanimity. It is a way of learning to recognise all experiences, feelings, and thoughts simply experiences and essentially equal in status. Whatever they are, whether the content seems good or bad, in essence they are all simply thought, not other than the awareness in which they occur. This is very mysterious!

It would not be helpful to try to label every thought as thinking. Most thoughts come and go in the space of awareness without the need to say 'thinking' to ourselves. However, from time to time, when you notice you have got caught up in a train of thought and completely forgotten about meditation, it can be very helpful to say to yourself, 'thinking'. It is sometimes quite a shock to realise that it is, indeed, thinking and not the real world.

We often take our thought worlds so seriously that it is wrenching to bring ourselves out of them and recognise them for what they are. Sometimes we are so identified with our thoughts that the possibility of letting them go can feel like facing death itself. We might find ourselves thinking, 'How could all that be thinking? Isn't it my whole life? My whole past? My whole future? If I let all that go, how would I be able to live?'

When this kind of reaction comes up, it is good to notice that it is thinking, too. It can all be let go of as thinking in the space of awareness. That can be a very liberating experience.

The instruction to 'label thoughts as thinking' is a way to learn to step out of thought-worlds and subtly change one's perspective on them. For example, maybe we are in the middle of this lively self-justifying argument when up pops this observation 'thinking'. We do not actually have to carry on and prove our point. We can gently acknowledge that this is merely thinking and regardless of what it was about, return to letting go into the space on the out-breath.

If you find that you are anxiously watching yourself and trying to stop thoughts, recognize that also as 'thinking' and let the anxiety go. Let it be in the space of awareness. The irony is that all our anxiety and effort to control the mind isn't stopping thinking at all. It is increasing it!

While you are lost in thought, you are not awake. Then, suddenly you come to and remember you had intended to keep the attention on the immediate experience of the out-breath. When you wake up to the fact that you are thinking, it is a moment of waking up and you are back. But it happened spontaneously. You didn't *do* it really.

Now that you have left the thought and come back to the breath, it is important not to spoil the simplicity of that moment by thinking, even ever so slightly, 'Damn, I wandered'. Instead, be as gentle as you can and as aware as you can be of the movement from being lost in thinking to waking up, noticing the essential nature of thought, connecting to the heart, returning to being fully present with the breath, and opening into space.

lobster

Jeffrey said:

What do you folks do to develop a more awake quality?

How awake and why awake?
For example changing diet to eat less, sleeping less will increase vitality and the senses will be more 'awake'?
However the SAS in training are not necessarily more awake in a spiritual sense . . .

Jeffrey said:

Now I would like to get more of an awake quality to meditation rather than day dreaming.

I feel your booklet when you find it will help. Meditation is just a grounding. You could try a focus such as vipassana breath counting or something your teacher suggests.
My inclination would be to 'will myself' into the present moment in as relaxed a manner as possible, whenever and as often as possible.

Not too tight. Not too loose. Disciplined in more areas of being until habit.

:wave:

sova

meditate in the morning

DairyLama

Jeffrey said:

@Hamsaka, I mean almost the whole session daydream. It's one thing if that happens time to time, but another if it happens for months or even years.

Are you using a meditation object like the breath as an "anchor"?

anando

Hello,
the problem is that i don´t know what kind of meditation you´ve already practiced.
What i´d like to recommend is the Eightfold Path, that is from Gotamo Buddho.
For Theorie you can study the Dighanikayo, the longer Collection, of the Pali-Canon.
Pratice and read the Thorie will interact and lead you to higher levels.

sakko

Jeffrey

SpinyNorman said:

Jeffrey said:

@Hamsaka, I mean almost the whole session daydream. It's one thing if that happens time to time, but another if it happens for months or even years.

Are you using a meditation object like the breath as an "anchor"?

Yes I am using the breath as an anchor, @SpinyNorman.

Jeffrey

Thanks, @anando. So much on my reading list, :buck: It will be a miracle if I can keep up. I have like over 10 books I bought but never read!

Jeffrey

@SpinyNorman,

Here is the teaching on the breath in my sangha:

Once you have set yourself up for meditation and you are beginning to settle down and come into the present it is time to begin the main part of the meditation. The main instruction at this point is to 'let go into space on the out-breath'. The following section is to help you explore what these words might be pointing to in terms of your own experience.

When you are using the out-breath to link that 'letting go into space' movement, follow the breath out until it fades, then 'let be' in the space until the next out-breath. This instruction intuitively makes sesne when you are experiencing the out-breath as slightly stronger, longer, and more relaxed than the in-breath. If you are finding that your in-breath is actually stronger, longer, and more relaxing, then go with that. Let go into space with the in-breath if that feels intuitively right. It comes down to the same thing.

This particular instruction on how to use the breath in meditation emphasizes letting go into space. In some meditation methods the main emphasis is put on the breath, but here we use the breath as a gentle reminder and inspiration and the main emphasis is on the space of awareness. Rather than a more detailed instructions about how to focus on the breath, we are told to get in a general sense of the movement of the breath as it happens in space.

Not all one's attention is focused on the breath. At least half again is focused on the space of awareness in which it is happening and the simple movement of opening and relaxing into that space. That movement is actually within awareness itself. That is why you don't have to focus on the breath to focus on that movement. However, since the out-breath is quite literally going out into space, focusing on the out-breath is naturally evocative of the kind of movement in awareness that we are talking about.

Because 'letting go' is simply a pointer and suggests different things to different people, it's important not to let the words get in the way of experience. Use turns of phrase that bring you back to your immediate experience. It is important when we say to ourselves, 'let go into space', that we get a sense of relaxation. If that particular phrase has the wrong effect, then look for a better way of telling yourself what is needed.

It is all right to use different words or phrases, so play with the instruction a bit and when you have found a phrase that works for you in terms of getting you to a place that feels more relaxed, open and spacious, and use that as your key instruction. You may find that in some moods one phrase works better than another. You can always change it.

As you practice, you will become increasingly familiar with this relaxing movement in your awareness. In the end you will hardly need a word for it at all.

DairyLama

Jeffrey said:

@SpinyNorman,

Here is the teaching on the breath in my sangha:

The main instruction at this point is to 'let go into space on the out-breath'.

That's an interesting approach, Jeffrey, though it looks quite challenging. It's somewhat reminiscent of the shamatha I did with Rigpa where the emphasis is on developing "spaciousness".
A couple of questions:
1. How do approach this in practice - "letting to into space"?
2. What is the purpose of this technique? Is it basically a style of shamatha?

Jeffrey

1. How do approach this in practice - "letting to into space"?
2. What is the purpose of this technique? Is it basically a style of shamatha?

My teacher says that this (below) is what the Buddha did under the bodhi tree. Or at least it is leading up to it. Mahayana doesn't believe Buddha's meditation to reach enlightenment was jhana. Below is how it's practiced. It is again from my post ^^^ (up). It isn't dzogchen, she says, but it is opening outwards to dzogchen. It is shamata vipashnaya.

When you are using the out-breath to link that 'letting go into space' movement, follow the breath out until it fades, then 'let be' in the space until the next out-breath. This instruction intuitively makes sesne when you are experiencing the out-breath as slightly stronger, longer, and more relaxed than the in-breath. If you are finding that your in-breath is actually stronger, longer, and more relaxing, then go with that. Let go into space with the in-breath if that feels intuitively right. It comes down to the same thing.

Not all one's attention is focused on the breath. At least half again is focused on the space of awareness in which it is happening and the simple movement of opening and relaxing into that space. That movement is actually within awareness itself. That is why you don't have to focus on the breath to focus on that movement. However, since the out-breath is quite literally going out into space, focusing on the out-breath is naturally evocative of the kind of movement in awareness that we are talking about.

Because 'letting go' is simply a pointer and suggests different things to different people, it's important not to let the words get in the way of experience. Use turns of phrase that bring you back to your immediate experience. It is important when we say to ourselves, 'let go into space', that we get a sense of relaxation. If that particular phrase has the wrong effect, then look for a better way of telling yourself what is needed.

Dennis1

awake is awareness without an object.

fivebells

To be clear, no one believes that the Buddha reached enlightenment through jhana alone. A jhana is a becoming. So is the meditation @Jeffrey describes, in fact it's pushing towards a light 6th jhana.

Jeffrey

@fivebells, not according to my teacher. Spacious as a quality of awareness that is ALWAYS present is different from a particular absorption, 6th jhana, that is also associated with 'space'.

DairyLama

Jeffrey said:

@fivebells, not according to my teacher. Spacious as a quality of awareness that is ALWAYS present is different from a particular absorption, 6th jhana, that is also associated with 'space'.

Yes, I think you could say the 1st formless jhana is a strong experience of spaciousness. But do you mean spaciousness is always present, or do you mean that it's a quality to be developed in meditation?

fivebells

@Jeffrey, why does your teacher believe that is not a jhanic meditation?

DairyLama

fivebells said:

@Jeffrey, why does your teacher believe that is not a jhanic meditation?

Because it's a different tradition?

Jeffrey

Openness is not a jhana. Openness is a quality to ALL awareness. Re-orient yourself. Perhaps it is smirti of the five indiryas. It's also called 'clear', 'luminous', and 'unimpeded'.

SpinyNorman said:

Jeffrey said:

@fivebells, not according to my teacher. Spacious as a quality of awareness that is ALWAYS present is different from a particular absorption, 6th jhana, that is also associated with 'space'.

Yes, I think you could say the 1st formless jhana is a strong experience of spaciousness. But do you mean spaciousness is always present, or do you mean that it's a quality to be developed in meditation?

Openness is always present.

fivebells

Yes, but awareness is not the end goal. 6th jhana is precisely absorption in awareness.

Jeffrey

Awareness is always here. Whether absorbed or not. Openness is a quality of awareness which is always here. Are you saying we are ALWAYS in the 6th jhana?

Jeffrey

If you are interested in following up on this, @fivebells, I can recommend you a books or even books.

fivebells

I know all the major ideas from your tradition, @Jeffrey. I started learning from someone in a very closely related lineage, and I've read a tonne of Trungpa.

What I'm taking issue with is that you said (1) the practice your teacher recommends is what the Buddha did to achieve awakening, (2) it is not jhana, and (3) the Buddha did not use jhana as a foundational skill during his awakening. But according to the Pali canon that practice is (1) only part of what the Buddha did to achieve awakening (2) an establishment of absorption in awareness and therefore a form of jhana, and (3) not necessary to awakening, because 1st jhana is sufficient for that.

In terms of the pragmatic question you started with -- how to be more awake -- the assertions about "openess as a quality of awareness" and "openess as always" are to some extent red herrings. Contemplating those "facts" can release some forms of stress, but not all of them, so a more flexible approach is needed.

Jeffrey

1 yes it's only part. But it is the core practice to rely on the nature of mind.
2 it is not jhana
3 Buddha did use jhana but he couldn't have done it with that alone


It is not a jhana because it is always there. Again I can recommend readings if you want to clarify the 2 second point.

Jeffrey

Openness, clarity, and sensitivity by Rigdzin Shikpo is the book I would recommend. http://www.amazon.com/Openness-Clarity-Sensitivity-Rigdzin-Shikpo/dp/0951147730

131 pages

review:
I discovered this book after reading "Never Turn Away" by the same author, and found the same humor, directness, and valuable advice for practice. Section 1 points out the nature of mind "in terms of three inseparable qualities: openness (which could also be called spaciousness), clarity (which could also be called awareness) and sensitivity (which could also be called responsiveness or well-being)." Section 2, on meditation, includes several excellent chapters that explain the 5 indriya (faculties), and discuss how to balance them as a means of resolving obstacles to practice. But, you can find all the meditation instruction you'll need in "Never Turn Away" as well. Section 3 has lots of great advice on how to practice in daily life, as well as a helpful discussion of the four foundations of mindfulness. If "Never Turn Away" resonates with you, I think you'll find this book well worth studying and I hope you can get a reasonably-priced copy.

fivebells

I've already investigated to him. He's just regurgitating Trungpa. Nothing wrong with that, Trungpa was brilliant. But I don't need to investigate him further.

Jeffrey

So you must have recognized that spaciousness refers to all experience rather than be a jhana.

fivebells

I don't consider it it be a relevant issue for practice.

Jeffrey

The nature of the mind is not relevant for you?

Jeffrey

Here is from the vipashyana side of my meditation:



What is Vipashyana Meditation Exactly?

You may be thinking that you have no idea what all this space of awareness stuff is about. On the other hand, you might have an intuitive sense of the space of awareness right from the start. Either way, we all need to look again and again at the nature of our experience to realise what it is we are really intuiting and what the significance of that is. Actually, the path of Awakening is about recognising the significance of very simple and obvious things. Wondering about what this space of awareness is and what thoughts are and so on is a much more profound way of practising than merely letting go of thinking and coming back to the breath.

To start with, the things that we notice and let go of are distracting thoughts about the past and future, our hopes and fears, ourselves and others, and so on. We might be fantasizing, daydreaming, planning, imagining best and worst scenarios, problem-solving, puzzling over strong emotions or strange sensations, and so on.

By simply noticing and letting go of the thoughts floating through our mind, we can arrive at a state of relative calmness and stability, which is called Shamatha. As mentioned in the introduction, although this stability is a welcome relief and can even be blissful, it is not the goal of Buddhist meditation because it does not cut to the root of suffering, the misunderstanding of our being that is at the root of all our problems. We are still trapped and locked into a false view of reality that makes us vulnerable to suffering at every turn. To find the happiness we long for in our heart of hearts, we have to go deeper than a temporary state of peace.

This is not to say that Shamata is not useful and important in the development of insight. Indeed, it is the foundation for it. We have to have enough stability to focus on the immediacy of our experience in an insightful way. The insight allows us to spot false views that we take as a given, such as our underlying assumptions about the nature of space and time, self and other, our lives and this world. These all form our background worldview and they are how we think the world actually is. As we practise more and more we gradually notice how al we took for granted or as given is just a kind of background thinking. This includes the 'me' that is watching and commenting on all this. It is 'thinking' too.

It is a bit of a shock to realise that so much of what we take to be ourselves, all that stuff that somehow carries the flavor of 'me', is actually thinking. The interesting thing is what happens when you turn towards all that as 'thinking' and open to what lies beyond it. That is a much deeper form of letting go and is Vipashyana, since it involves actual insight.

This process of constantly wondering about our experience, appreciating it, being interested in it, and investigating it, are what allows insight and understanding to emerge. It is strange and could even be scary to find ourselves completely puzzled about things we have always taken for granted, to suddenly realise that we do not understand our experience. Actually, those moments where we realise that we have been wrong in our previous assumptions are moments of clarity; they are nearer to Vipashyana than to confusion.

Vipashyana uncovers the fundamental thinking process that shape our whole existence. This uncovering is what penetrating insight or understanding is. As we let go more and more, we become aware of ever subtler and more fundamental ways of thinking that lurk in the background of our awareness. The subtler they are, the more fundamental and imprisoning they are. The longer we practise the more aware of these we become and this is how we learn to let things go.

pegembara

This thread http://newbuddhist.com/discussion/20056/if-meditation-becomes-boring#latest

has some answers, but it doesn't totally meet my wavelength because I am not bored. My daydreams are fascinating and some I even imagine are insightful.

Mind the gap. Pay more attention to the spaces between the thoughts rather than the content of the thoughts themselves. You are observing how images are created rather than following the script of the mental show.

If you go to the movies, you get totally caught up in the story of the movie. And it could be the movie of a monk in a cave or it could be the movie of somebody enjoying life fully, but then you look up and see the beam of light going through the theater and landing on the screen, and you realize nothing is happening! There's nothing happening on the screen. It's all an appearance. I think that if we get too caught up in which appearance is the right appearance or which appearance is more spiritual, it completely misses the point that freedom is not about which movie is playing; it's in the mind being free of clinging, whatever the form.
J. Goldstein

fivebells

Wondering about what this space of awareness is and what thoughts are and so on is a much more profound way of practising than merely letting go of thinking and coming back to the breath.

Depends how you're wondering, I suppose, but as written in that context, that is such terrible advice.

Jeffrey

fivebells said:

Wondering about what this space of awareness is and what thoughts are and so on is a much more profound way of practising than merely letting go of thinking and coming back to the breath.

Depends how you're wondering, I suppose, but as written in that context, that is such terrible advice.

If you say so, but I disagree. I am doing well with my teacher.
For better or worse it is my karma to be with my teacher.

DairyLama

Jeffrey said:

So you must have recognized that spaciousness refers to all experience rather than be a jhana.

I've found that spaciousness is a quality that can be developed in meditation, and it can be seen as an aspect of jhana.

lobster

I am doing well with my teacher.

I would say so. The quotes and insight into your correspondence and your own faith and assessment of the value is present. Vajrayana relies on this connection. It is also of value to listen to others, who mean well, maybe further along the path, sheep in wolves clothing or just dharma babes. If it connects, good. If not we move along . . .

Jeffrey

It's an aspect of all experience, @SpinyNorman.

fivebells

Enlightenment is not a Hot Dog. There's more than one way to meditate, and it's good to know multiple ways, because different techniques are appropriate for different disturbances.

You started by expressing dissatisfaction with the results of your meditation. Something ought to change... we are trying to point you at a potential direction to change in.

Jeffrey

fivebells said:

You started by expressing dissatisfaction with the results of your meditation. Something ought to change... we are trying to point you at a potential direction to change in.

My teacher referred me to my meditation booklet. That has immensely helped my meditation. My meditation feels like it caught fire again so to speak. Thanks for trying to help me.