Practice Technique Companion to "Emptiness Almost Within Reach"

Hi, so I want to share few practice technique notes, as an addendum to my more general thread.

These are some techniques I've used on retreat and in daily life that I've found to be very helpful as engines to rev up the dis-identifying process. Some are versions of a noting practice, and the last two are ones I've been trying out lately as my own inventions (as far as I know). These have some flaws, but might also be useful...I can't quite tell yet. So, you might not want to try those ones, but then again maybe you'll find that they work! Please let me know if you do. : )

1) 'Bare attention' noting of sense doors. For example, walking at a rather normal pace and not noting in a detailed way as in the "lifting...moving...shifting....placing" model, but actually noting in a very fast but broad way, "seeing --> hearing --> thinking --> touching --> hearing --> thinking--> seeing --> seeing" This, for me, has the effect of crowding out a sense of self, like the sense doors are playing musical chairs, and there are only six seats (of course), and so eventually the illusion of self is the one left out, and loses the game after a while. Does that make sense? The biggest shift I found in this instance was "seeing," which had always previously been SO thoroughly and grippingly "me" that it was very hard to wear down AND also the most shocking, when a blast of non-personal seeing came through, much a more akin to the term "sense faculty." Getting to this point for me has a somewhat unpleasant feeling tone and a quality somewhat like if we said that a slide projector has a lens on the front, and thus "sees" that which it projects. (Note, I'm not saying that seen reality is completely created by the mind -- it's of course a collaborative process -- just that the impersonality of these moments was akin to a slide-projector kind of image-making operation).

Continued from above....

2) "Floating awareness" noting. This one involves centering on the breath, and then shifting to include as many sensations from mind, body and world as possible. More than any other, this technique brought about a sense of non-personal awareness, as well as a sense of something knowing that awareness. I suppose these correspond to 2nd and 3rd gear practice, but I don't feel comfortable claiming they were anything more than a very brief encounter with those perspectives, clearly there but not indirect -- like the slight arm sensation that occurs when one 's clothing brushes up against something, rather than one's arm itself.

3) Watching for the (s)khandas in walking meditation, with a mind full of dependent origination. This one is like slowing down the movie frames, and then experiencing a sensation like "sight of feet" without a sense of "my" feet.

4) This is one I invented, inspired by the game I played in childhood. It's called "not-it." Basically, I just do the 'floating awareness' practice, but instead of making any distinctions between any sensations, I just label each and every one "not-it," indicating that if I can note it I know it's not self.

5) This last one is another I developed on my own, and is probably the most flawed, because of the way volition works, but anyways, it seems to be helpful sometimes. Basically, what I do is I try to cling. I intentionally try to cling to anything that arises, trusting that it's actually impossible to do so, because everything, including all the sensations that are making that attempt, are actually impermanent and not self (not governed by a separate entity). This one creates more of a sense of dispassion than #4 does, by cutting against the grain of the satisfaction-delusion. I try to cling, after all, because I think maybe this sensation can somehow satisfy, even though not of the other ones I've ever known can do that. I've found it to be a good counter-balance to techniques that lead to a sense of passivity. It's also nice to do take ownership of the clinging action. Related to this, sometimes I try really hard to be unmindful. Or sometimes I try really hard to suffer. Maybe the best thing these kind of practices have going for them, though, is the sense of humor that they can develop in seeing these pathetically repeated failures. After all, when one tries to be unmindful, by repeatedly coming back to the present, one is actually developing mindfulness. When one tries to cling, by repeatedly forcing impermanence to reveal itself, one is actually developing non-attachment.

I've actually never written about these last two before, so please give me feedback. Especially if it's to say, "STOP! You're getting it all wrong!"

" After all, when one tries to be unmindful, by repeatedly coming back to the present, one is actually developing mindfulness. When one tries to cling, by repeatedly forcing impermanence to reveal itself, one is actually developing non-attachment.

I've actually never written about these last two before, so please give me feedback. Especially if it's to say, "STOP! You're getting it all wrong!"

"

Your 'confession' reminds me of some eccentric 'games' that have affected my own practice over the decades:
1) my brother and I are about 9 & 11, when we develop a game involving pulling our longest faces and taking turns saying, ever more pathetically, 'Poor me. Poooor me!' The suppressed hilarity always brought streams of tears. The game was to see how long we could keep it up without giving into outright laughter. I've thought about it since: who started it? Whatever prompted it? In my own case, it led to a certain-- however slight-- detachment and less-than-total belief in my misery at difficult times that has served me very well. A kind of toe in the door for later practice.

2) Maybe 40 years ago, when my brother's then girlfriend was quite inebriated, she looked around and said, 'Is THIS how we exist?' Now and again, when I have used inquiry as a practice, that has been the one I've used. Not JUST because I'm weird, but because that one has personal depths that the 'textbook' formulations lack for me.
Although I may be presuming far too much to say this-- my hypothesis is that the important characteristic of any practice is that it be something that feels intimate to the practitioner, that I will do with all my heart. The stories in various traditions about the ever-so-knowledgeable monk correcting the ignorant (but superlatively effective) practice of some untutored peasant who heard the mantra wrong, makes me think this is so.

"@Ryguy913: 5) This last one is another I developed on my own, and is probably the most flawed, because of the way volition works, but anyways, it seems to be helpful sometimes. Basically, what I do is I try to cling. I intentionally try to cling to anything that arises, trusting that it's actually impossible to do so, because everything, including all the sensations that are making that attempt, are actually impermanent and not self (not governed by a separate entity). This one creates more of a sense of dispassion than @Ryguy913: #4 does, by cutting against the grain of the satisfaction-delusion. I try to cling, after all, because I think maybe this sensation can somehow satisfy, even though not of the other ones I've ever known can do that. I've found it to be a good counter-balance to techniques that lead to a sense of passivity. It's also nice to do take ownership of the clinging action. Related to this, sometimes I try really hard to be unmindful. Or sometimes I try really hard to suffer. Maybe the best thing these kind of practices have going for them, though, is the sense of humor that they can develop in seeing these pathetically repeated failures. After all, when one tries to be unmindful, by repeatedly coming back to the present, one is actually developing mindfulness. When one tries to cling, by repeatedly forcing impermanence to reveal itself, one is actually developing non-attachment."

Brilliant.

"Your 'confession' reminds me of some eccentric 'games' that have affected my own practice over the decades:
1) my brother and I are about 9 & 11, when we develop a game involving pulling our longest faces and taking turns saying, ever more pathetically, 'Poor me. Poooor me!' The suppressed hilarity always brought streams of tears. The game was to see how long we could keep it up without giving into outright laughter. I've thought about it since: who started it? Whatever prompted it? In my own case, it led to a certain-- however slight-- detachment and less-than-total belief in my misery at difficult times that has served me very well. A kind of toe in the door for later practice."

HA! "Poooor me!" I love it.

And as for the monk and the peasant story, a little anecdote:

I have a co-worker who calls wood-chips woodchucks, and rather than correct her, I just delight in the cognitive dissonance and its power to break cycles of habit and suffering. Yes, we're spreading woodchucks onto the path! Time to load up the wheelbarrow!

How much wood
would a woodchuck chuck
if a woodchuck
could chuck
wood?

(You have to say it aloud and fast to get the whole effect.)

"Brilliant.

"

Whatever brilliance is emitted from my posts is due to the wisdom of those who have taught me. May they be blessed and revered.

Than Dhammavidu, Thanissaro Bhikkhu, Ethan Nichtern, Daniel Ingram, Cynthia Thatcher, Kenneth Folk, Bhante Rahula

....and those unnamed, and more to come! : )