Direct perception mode, jhana, and insight

Kenneth mentions in his video that these are separate practices. But I have found that they can be integrated - provided one incorporates a tweak and accepts a few definitions. So this is about how I integrate these in my practice.

The tweak:

Relaxation response: When placing your attention on the energetic charge in the body, follow this up with relaxing the body - looking for tension and relaxing. Pay particular attention to the face, head, jaw, shoulders. Lightly smiling helps quite a bit. This is easy to test: just shift your attention right now to a light smile and note a sensation of lightening/brightening in the mind - relax around this - doing this breaks the pattern of tension. So the technique is that once you recognise the charge (of anxiety for example) then relax the body, face, head, etc., brighten/relax the mind with a soft smile, and then place your attention on the area where you noticed the charge while maintaining a whole body awareness.

Definitions:
Whole body awareness: This is the anchor. It helps the mind/body from contracting around the area of tension. The other reason for a whole body awareness is that it allows you to keep open to where areas of tension are in other parts of the body. They have a habit of popping up and when they do, that is where I go.

Jhana - a calm, tranquil, alert, open, spacious state where awareness is grounded in the body. As the body takes on an increasingly energetic quality, awareness is grounded in this energetic quality. The mind becomes more and more still and the stillness allows the entire process to be experienced much more clearly.

Insight: Experiential knowledge of how the mind/body contract around thoughts and tension, and the process of letting go and releasing this tension as well as the sense of relief that comes from this release. It also includes an ever subtler sense/understanding of what stress actually is.

The Practice:
As a practice, the mind will drift off and get caught up in thoughts from time to time. In my experience, this is always due to a mind/body contraction. When I get caught up in a thought there is always some bodily tension that has popped-up and gone unrecognized on the conscious level. It is as if it has been converted into thought-energy in order to makes itself known. When ever this happens it is important to cycle through the relaxation response. This breaks the sort of mind/body inertia of that tension state which allows you to then ground it more deeply.

The more you do this, the more open, relaxed, and spacious the mind and body become. This is the jhanic quality emerging. The energetic quality of the whole body becomes more apparent and this can then be used in place of the whole-body awareness - actually it slowly becomes how you experience the whole body. At this point, areas of tension arise as a sense of pooled energy. For example, there you are sitting with the whole body as energy and you come to realize you got lost in some thought - relaxing and coming back to the whole body as energy you will notice an area where there is a kind of charge or pool of energy. You can relax around this and kind of open up to it and allow it to dissipate/ground.

In the beginning, you have to keep focusing on your attention - maintaining the attention on the whole body, evaluating or scanning for where there is a sense of tension, and intentionally working with it. This is the first jhana phase of the practice. As the 'whole body as energy' begins to develop and you start becoming aware of the fluctuations of energy in the body and are able to stay with them and ground them without getting lost in thoughts then this is the second jhana emerging. In order to do this it takes close attention to the subtle sensations and seeing how this process works is the insight.

Don't dwell on states - if you are, then really investigate where the tension is and why you would ever want to hold on to them (be willing to pay the toll).

Another way of looking at this:
Resentment, anger, frustration, etc. all require an identification with a flow of thoughts. When caught up in these, there is tension and stress (hand is not on the switch). Anchoring awareness in the body, the mind is no longer able to identify with a thought stream. Attention can only attend to one mode of experience at a time. When awareness is anchored in the body, the mental component of anger or frustration for example fall away and we are left with the physical sensations (hand on the switch). When the apparently solid sensations are let go of (the relaxation response fits in here) and we are able to stay with the subtle energetic sensations (grounding) then there is a real sense of freedom and release. Subtle sensate experience always carries a range of interestingly pleasant qualities (which provide the basis for jhana). In practice, the hand will fall off the switch again and again (and one is caught up again in thoughts). Insight arises in learning why and how this happens (experientially) and learning how and why this happens is the skill that opens up the path.

Another way:
From stillness comes activity and from activity, stillness. The snow melts, 'ahh, spring time has come!'. The night brings cold and ice, you fall on your ass. It goes like this. On and on. A shovel digs into the ****. It digs in, picks up the ****, and flings it. There is release. There is stillness. Turning, see more ****, dig in, repeat. It's a deep pile. Turn away and you can't escape it. Dwell on it and you can't fling it. Flinging **** is an art form, it takes practice. **** is not actually **** - the proof is hidden in the flinging.

Sounds just like Zen.

Thanks, Chuck!

This is great, Chuck, thanks for posting it.

*A point of clarification before everyone gets confused and goes crazy with speculation: as Chuck stated in his opening, he is defining "jhana" and "insight" in a particular way, very differently from the way we often use those words here. He is allowed to do that and his definitions are as good as anyone else's, but we are on slippery ground when we use the same word to describe different things. Just be clear to accept his definitions while doing his suggested practice (yes, I recommend doing it) and don't imagine that just because two people say "jhana" they are referring to the same phenomenon. As I understand it, he is not talking about the 8 (or 13) traditional jhanas of Theravada Buddhism and the insight he is talking about does not refer to moving sequentially through the 16 Insight Knowledges from the Vissudhimagga. Look at his definitions again in post #1: they are very clear, so please don't confuse Theravada jhana and insight with Chuck's use of those same words.

Chuck, am I right in thinking that you are pointing to what I have been calling "direct perception mode?

The pile of sh*t that never ends. This is familiar. Digging the shovel in, picking it up, this is familiar. Focusing on the release..... Aha!

Nice.

Sounds like the Anapanasati Sutta

www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.118.than.html

"[1] Breathing in long, he discerns, 'I am breathing in long'; or breathing out long, he discerns, 'I am breathing out long.' [2] Or breathing in short, he discerns, 'I am breathing in short'; or breathing out short, he discerns, 'I am breathing out short.' [3] He trains himself, 'I will breathe in sensitive to the entire body.'[2] He trains himself, 'I will breathe out sensitive to the entire body.' [4] He trains himself, 'I will breathe in calming bodily fabrication.'[3] He trains himself, 'I will breathe out calming bodily fabrication.'

"[5] He trains himself, 'I will breathe in sensitive to rapture.' He trains himself, 'I will breathe out sensitive to rapture.' [6] He trains himself, 'I will breathe in sensitive to pleasure.' He trains himself, 'I will breathe out sensitive to pleasure.' [7] He trains himself, 'I will breathe in sensitive to mental fabrication.'[4] He trains himself, 'I will breathe out sensitive to mental fabrication.' [8] He trains himself, 'I will breathe in calming mental fabrication.' He trains himself, 'I will breathe out calming mental fabrication.'

"[9] He trains himself, 'I will breathe in sensitive to the mind.' He trains himself, 'I will breathe out sensitive to the mind.' [10] He trains himself, 'I will breathe in satisfying the mind.' He trains himself, 'I will breathe out satisfying the mind.' [11] He trains himself, 'I will breathe in steadying the mind.' He trains himself, 'I will breathe out steadying the mind.' [12] He trains himself, 'I will breathe in releasing the mind.' He trains himself, 'I will breathe out releasing the mind.'
...

Noting Practices for 100, Gene...

"Chuck, am I right in thinking that you are pointing to what I have been calling "direct perception mode?"

Yes, a way of practicing this mode. There are probably others. It is worth investigating. Shifting the view more toward noticing the tension and release experience (how that comes about and how to sustain it). a calm abiding in the here and now - a step in that direction.

@cmarti: Yes, the 'aha' part makes things much more enjoyable. With the grounding there is the happiness which comes with it - insight for free. moment to moment on a certain level and permanently at another.

@mumuwu: Yes, a bit similar I suppose

This appears not to be so much a sitting practice (though it can be done while sitting, for sure). Better done while living, methinks.

"... don't imagine that just because two people say "jhana" they are referring to the same phenomenon. As I understand it, he is not talking about the 8 (or 13) traditional jhanas of Theravada Buddhism and the insight he is talking about does not refer to moving sequentially through the 16 Insight Knowledges from the Vissudhimagga..." -- Kenneth

"Maybe if Theravadans and Tibetans were looking at a parking lot the Theravada would say 'There are lines!' and the Tibetan would say 'There are Spaces!'" -- Chelek

Thank you so much for describing this practice Chuck. If this was one's only practice, and it was practiced diligently and whole heartedly 4-6 hours/day (combined sitting, walking, normal activities) would you say it would lead to stream entry?

Good question. A long time ago, Hokai Sobol posted on the Dharma Overground the importance of view and aspiration. I think if you have these, then any practice will probably work. And if you don't have these, maybe nothing will work.

Aspiration provides the energy and view provides the direction?

Yes, I feel that this is a complete practice - one that can be used where every you are. I think about the sufis and christians - all the traditions and different practices - yet, they do seem to lead to the same overall experience. A mystery. Sometimes I wonder if specific practices play any role at all other then to point us inward.

I like a practice that makes it easy for both activity and stillness to develop to their completion. By completion, I don't mean end but rather yield or give birth to the other. A Taoist kind of thing.

The whole body awareness, the grounding, and jhana (as I define it here) point to the stillness aspect - they give space for it. Stillness is open, attentive, clear, but with great potential - not shut down or dead. Out of this, something is going to happen. I'll get lost in thought or a pain or proto-blob of energy will develop somewhere - but some activity is going to start up. Then the 'paying the toll' and relaxation come in - more activity - but activity that carries attention/intention/attentiveness - and it is this attentiveness that allows a return to the stillness - it's pregnant with stillness - kind of.

"The whole body awareness, the grounding, and jhana (as I define it here) point to the stillness aspect - they give space for it. Stillness is open, attentive, clear, but with great potential - not shut down or dead. Out of this, something is going to happen. I'll get lost in thought or a pain or proto-blob of energy will develop somewhere - but some activity is going to start up. Then the 'paying the toll' and relaxation come in - more activity - but activity that carries attention/intention/attentiveness - and it is this attentiveness that allows a return to the stillness - it's pregnant with stillness - kind of."

Lovely stuff, Chuck! What I have been digging about this sort of practice lately is that it seems to bring the developmental benefits of more "hard-core", effortful methods but with a much smoother ride. Taking the goal, buddhanature, wholeness, as the ground of the path means the path becomes de-compressive rather than one of ever increasing build-up of tension in hopes of a breakthrough.
This gentle style of practice seems to bring immediate benefits for me and those around me while also subtly deconstructing the sense that their needs to be a "practitioner" who would "do" a practice and "get" something from it, leaving a greater confidence in natural openness and easy flow in its wake-- carefree dignity, as one of Tulku Urgyen's sons puts it.
--Jake

Thanks for those comments Chuck, and I agree with Jake, I find it 'lovely stuff'. Feels very natural to me, and something I can be attentive to during the 14 hours or so when not sleeping or on the cushion. And the stillness aspect - yes, something very wonderful often arises from this, not sure what this is called, but one way to describe it is a pure enthrallment with consciousness itself.

Here's a Shinzen Young video where he talks about a very similar practice, as part of a noting practice.

When one notices anxiety for example, and finds its epicenter in the body, the technique of both 'zooming in and zooming out' can be used, where one both focuses on the center of the charge, and the whole body, so the charge can spread over the entire body with less resistance. He says it's the imperceptible resistance to this spreading that causes suffering.

Well with a Big BUMP!!!