fr Jack: Mahamudra

I have recently started ping pong mahamudra meditation and want to see if I am on the right track. Here is my experience. The word 'listening' doesn't feel right for me. Listening seems too aligned with hearing. I sense the void, emptiness or whatever you want to call 'it'. So, while I still say listening, I really mean sensing

After a little practice, there seems to be two levels of my experience when I do mahamudra. One was the void. The other was everything else such as hearing, sensations, thoughts, etc. I started using the word 'narrative' for everything in this level. I also use words such as expansiveness, loving kindness, compassion, and acceptance.

Overall, this practice has been great.

jack

Jack, for me as well, "listening" can seem a little contorted so I usually just open up without a note and start noting "openness" "brightness" etc. Some times if I am very confused I will note listening just for it's reliable anchoring.

I agree. I use "seeing" for all the senses.

Orasis and AP, thanks for the replies. How do you handle distractions such as sensations, thoughts, emotions, etc.? As I said in my initial post, I lump them all together.

For those interested by traditional Mahamudra, I would suggest using the following manual:

www.mahamudracenter.org/mmcmembermeditationguide.pdf

As far as I can tell, it is the best step-by-step guide.

"Orasis and AP, thanks for the replies. How do you handle distractions such as sensations, thoughts, emotions, etc.? As I said in my initial post, I lump them all together."

Hi!
I'm not sure if this is in line with what's called Mahamudra here, but in my experience practicing based on traditional texts and teachings like Alex mentioned above, it is very important to investigate the sense that phenomena are distractions.

I do this by checking whether the arising thought, sensation or feeling is the same as or other than the pure open clarity of awareness. Checking directly (i.e., not using thoughts feelings and sensations to "check" each other but rather using that pure open clarity to "check" the arising phenomena) leads to seeing the thought, sensation or feeling as merely a moving display of the very same open clarity.

It's like the ocean (void) and the waves (thoughts feelings sensations). They both have the exact "same taste", the same true nature-- the still and moving waters have the same quality of wetness.

*"Distraction" is just one thought's opinion about thoughts feelings and sensations. The open clarity knows no distractions!*

Hi Jack and co,

In the context of Mahamudra noting, "listening" is the primary object and refers to the activity of turning toward an undefined object, the ships in a distant harbor. The ships cannot be heard. This is important to understand. So, listening is not the same as "hearing," in which case you are noticing actual sensory input. Listening in this way allows the mind to be infinitely receptive. I offer this as a way into the Mahamudra perspective, which is often difficult for students to understand. One of my favorite instructions comes from the 3rd Karmapa, who wrote,

"While looking again and again at the mind, which cannot be looked at,
The meaning, which cannot be seen, is seen vividly, just as it is."

-The Third Karmapa's Mahamudra Prayer (Rosemarie Fuchs, trans, Snow Lion pub)

Listening for the distant ships is another way to turn toward the essential nature of mind. Listening in this way is Mahamudra. Please keep in mind that Mahamudra as I am defining it here has nothing to do with the systems of teaching that have built up around Tilopa's original Mahamudra instructions to Naropa. I am only interested in the original meaning of the word, this turning toward the essential nature of mind. Everything else, all systems and traditions, are skillful means, not to be confused with the immediacy of the recognition of your true nature.

Here is a full description of the technique:

www.buddhistgeeks.com/2011/07/mahamudra-noting/

edited for clarity and attribution

Ah, thanks for the clarification Kenneth. I like that practice of "deliberate noting". Excellent use of noting to enact a precise feedback loop.
-Jake

Kenneth, I don't think anyone on this thread is mistaking hearing from listening but thanks for the reminder.

One of the most important statements for me right now is "Am I making a thing out of something that [is not a thing]." I think this was from one of your papers. I am doing ping pong mahamudra noting with a partner every morning. More and more of this practice is leaking over into my off cushion life.



jack

In this case, Bankei's koan "who is the one who sees and hears?" is closer to the original idea of Tilopa and Bodhidharma's "direct pointing to the nature of the mind". In this case, one is not listening to some imaginary ships, but compelled to turn back and look at the mind (that which sees and hears), again and again, to eventually see vividly "that which cannot be seen".

"Orasis and AP, thanks for the replies. How do you handle distractions such as sensations, thoughts, emotions, etc.? As I said in my initial post, I lump them all together."

@Jackha Just like jhsaintongue said: Checking directly (i.e., not using thoughts feelings and sensations to "check" each other but rather using that pure open clarity to "check" the arising phenomena) leads to seeing the thought, sensation or feeling as merely a moving display of the very same open clarity.

In the end, "listening", "sensing" or "checking directly" could work very well or they could hinder the practice. It depends on the tendencies one has. If I enjoy aural sensations more than visual sensations, perhaps this enjoyment allows an opennes that is exactly the same as the "pure open clarity" that jhsaintongue mentions.

Enjoyment is the key word hear. One opens when one enjoys something. This type of enjoyment is the same state one experiences when the samboghakaya is present. So you can use something you enjoy as a gate to the openness of Mahamudra, the trick here is to release all preferences, aversions, attachmentes, etc. and pretty much enjoy every sensation.

"
In this case, Bankei's koan "who is the one who sees and hears?" is closer to the original idea of Tilopa and Bodhidharma's "direct pointing to the nature of the mind". In this case, one is not listening to some imaginary ships, but compelled to turn back and look at the mind (that which sees and hears), again and again, to eventually see vividly "that which cannot be seen".

"

However, IMHO, the phrase "listening to the ships in the harbor" has some advantages:

1) We cannot see the ships, so this helps us drop the need to see "something".
2) We cannot determine the distance between us and the ships, and this also helps us drop the need to establish spatial limits
3) Maybe the sound of the ships is a sensation we can enjoy and this helps us open effortlessly.

Imagination could help us wonder, enjoy sensations and hence open the senses. So I think imaginary ships can be used to our advantage to discern the nature of mind.

The koan is a different technique. Helpful too but perhaps with different mechanics. The question itself works like short circuit and that also can reveal openness.

"
In this case, Bankei's koan "who is the one who sees and hears?" is closer to the original idea of Tilopa and Bodhidharma's "direct pointing to the nature of the mind". In this case, one is not listening to some imaginary ships, but compelled to turn back and look at the mind (that which sees and hears), again and again, to eventually see vividly "that which cannot be seen".

"

My own experience with any practice that involves explicitly looking at "awareness" or "mind" or "emptiness" is that I end up generating some subtle (affective) phenomenon that appears as those things, and I then end up embedded in it. (I call this "resting in 'being'" as a play on how these techniques are often described, which is "resting in awareness"). I have always rejected those techniques, even before my current understanding of what affects are, simply because they never seemed to lead to anything good for me.

Asking myself "who is the one who sees and hears?" causes all these problems for me nearly immediately.

Kenneth's idea, listening for something that would be a sense object were it to manifest, solves that problem beautifully. No resting in 'being', no fake "awareness"-object, no embeddedness / identification with that object, just movement away from 'being' and towards apperception.

Different strokes for different folks.

Hi End! Good points. This's why having a proper understanding of the technique is important, and this specific experience you mention is why I've personally found Vajrayana approaches more helpful than Advaita for example. Because in Vajrayana the instruction "look at the one who's looking" is specifically intended to point to nothing. There's no-one looking. So if you come up with an answer other than "umm, actually I can't find anything at all when I look for what is looking" you'll be told to check again. Different strokes for different folks though, yes. Personally when I did this I would always get a glimpse of the fact that there's no one experiencing, just experiencing happening. Any sort of experience such as you mention of finding a subtle impersonal super-subject always seemed like an obviously imaginary answer to me too, and thus not particularly interesting either. Some folks (and whole traditions) seem to be able to use just that experience to lead to an insight into no-experiencer though so there you go
-Jake

End: It actually worked quite well for me to 'Recognize Awareness' - at first, when it was new and exciting and I interpreted it to be a state, I said 'Oh! This is Awareness. Cool!'. After doing it again and again the mind began to get wise to the game and just open up spontaneously. So for me, having a mistaken fake awareness object was fine scaffolding that cleared itself up on its own.

@Endinsight - good point, I agree since I have the same problem. Looking at awareness tends to get me locked into the 6th jhana. But it worked up to a certain stage. In traditional Mahamudra this is just one of the things to investigate. When natural clarity is seen, one must focus on emptiness, investigating the shape, location, color, etc. of the mind to eventually realize that the mind is not a thing; that is doesn't even exist, and yet manifests - the union of the absolute truth (the mind does not exist) and the conventional truth (yet the mind appears to exist) being the mark of emptiness in Mahayana Buddhism.

Listening to the ships in the harbour is more like Hakuin's koan "what is the sound of one hand clapping?" Here there is nothing to grasp.

Alex, yes, looking at awareness tends to conjure up the [affective distortion of the] 6th jhana for me too. Didn't realize that before. Duh. Suddenly Kenneth's claim that the witness is present in the 6th jhana makes sense to me. Never really caught onto what that meant in the past because 2nd gear never really clicked for me as a practice for a variety of reasons (recognizing that the witness is fake, seeing a variety of "witness" states at times, not enjoying the experience, not being inclined towards passive practices). That's very sharp of him to have recognized.

If the witness can be used as an insight-producing experience, I wonder if other traditions use other affectively distorted arupa qualities. Maybe Dzogchen uses affect-space (the affective space-like nature of mind)? Maybe Advaita uses affect-nothingness (the affective awareness that appears to know 'I AM')? Can't imagine anyone uses affect-signlessness, seems too close to being unmindful.

@AlexWeith @EndInSight Since English isn't my native language, what does "affect" mean in a meditation/practice context?

"@AlexWeith @EndInSight Since English isn't my native language, what does "affect" mean in a meditation/practice context?"


Sorry, this is a kind of new jargon. Endinsight may have to correct me but as far as I am aware of:

- by "affect" or "flow of affect" we mean "sense of being". Accordingly, jhana have characteristics that are "affective", in the sense that they can support a sense of being. The formless jhanas have both affective and non-affective characteritistics.

- the non-affective charactistics are then called "actual aspects", namely aspects that do not or cannot support a sense of being.

This means that in a state of no-self (EE, PCE), when the sense of being drops, one cannot be identified to let's say the 6th Jhana, but may still be able to sense the luminous (actual) characteritic of the 6th Jhana. This is important, as it allows us to split awareness, focusing part of it on the (actual) physical sensations related to the felt sense of being and the other part on the mental actual characteristic of a formless jhana. As a result, the attention is split on two actual (non-affective) objects, which results in the dropping of the sense of being or sense of self. Sorry for the geekyness.

I agree with Alex, but personally think of it in a simpler way. An affect is a copy of some sense object, distorted and invested with a sense of it being an identity for 'me' or experienced by 'me' or produced by 'me'. So in the formless jhanas, there are sense objects (whatever is in the 5 senses, plus the mind object corresponding to the particular formless jhana), and affects (distortions of the 5 senses, distortions of the mind object corresponding to the particular formless jhana).

If you scratch yourself, you may be able to distinguish between the tactile sensation of pain and (a moment later) the "ouch" or psychologically stressful aspect of the tactile sensation ('me' observing pain, 'me' being hurt by pain). The latter is the affect. By analogy, same for the rest of experience.

So affect would be like filtered cognition?

Maybe, it depends on what you mean by that.

But there's no need to think about affect in a conceptual way. There are sense experiences and, a moment after, some kind of copy / distortion / representation of them, which are affects. They're just objects in experience. Once you get a feel for the kind of thing they are, you can observe them like you observe anything else. (In fact, lots of attempts to observe a sense objects seem in my experience to be instances of actually observing the affect.) Very little theoretical investment is required to understand them.

"An affect is a copy of some sense object, distorted and invested with a sense of it being an identity for 'me' or experienced by 'me' or produced by 'me'."

A copy? Do you actually experience two sense objects (original and a copy), one without and one with affective qualities? Or does one sense object progress through the stages of codependent origination taking on characteristics that have non-affective or affective qualities?

Just curious....

" does one sense object progress through the stages of codependent origination taking on characteristics that have non-affective or affective qualities?

Just curious....

"

Yes, I'd say it's like this. Either a sense contact is elaborated by a (dependently arisen) process of identification as End said, or it's left in the fresh "first instant". As dependent origination proceeds to elaborate/distort the sense-contact the sense of temporality (before, now, after) expands exponentially (becomes more taken for granted).

Left in the fresh first instant contact is timeless and locationless and leaves no trace. But at any point in the process of elaborating/distorting if this moment of experiencing is investigated there can be a discernment of the the fresh contact and the elaboration, possibly resulting in dropping the elaboration and relaxing in the "first instant" especially IMO if the body sensations of resistance-to-experience which compound with the mental distortion are relaxed. Note that "mind" is also a sense field characterized by contact in the first instant.

"A copy? Do you actually experience two sense objects (original and a copy), one without and one with affective qualities? Or does one sense object progress through the stages of codependent origination taking on characteristics that have non-affective or affective qualities?"

I see three possible positions:

* In one moment there is one experience, and in another moment there is another experience, and it's possible to describe the similarities and differences between them using some kind of conceptual model, but that is just a model and not relevant to the nature of the experiences. One experience is called a sense object and the other is called an affect, but these are just names, and nothing can truly be said about the relation between one experience and the other.

* In one moment there is one experience, and in another moment there is another experience, and it can be said that the two share various qualities but differ in others. Thus, the second is a distorted copy of the first, and is called an affect.

* In one moment there is one experience, and in another moment the same experience has its qualities altered (lower "resolution", more dukkha, etc.), so it can be said that there is a single experience whose qualities vary over time.

However, I don't see any substantive difference between these positions, just a choice about how to talk about and think about the movement from sense object to affect.

I like to use the second way of talking about it. Partially just idiosyncratic, partially because the idea of the mind faking an interaction with the sense object by generating a representation that has the sense of 'me' interacting with it built in ("grasping") strikes a chord with me.

Or did you have something else in mind?