fr Jack: Mahamudra

This last exchange between AP and mumuwa is exactly what I have been wrestling with. What technique do I use to deal with the striving and doing of ships in the harbour and the non striving of Do Nothing? I do think they end up in the same place but how do I handle the different roads taken to get there? I am confused but maybe that is a good thing.

jack

So do both for a while and just notice.

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So do both for a while and just notice.



"

That's what I do now. Some sessions I devote to Ships. Other sessions I devote to Do Nothing. A lot of the time I start with Ships, switch to Do Nothing when I get to MM space, switch back to Ships if I start drifting, then to Do Nothing, etc.

Not an elegant way to go but maybe something I have to go through..

jack

Okay, so what is the experiential difference? Does it matter? You used the words "wrestling with" so I assume you are experiencing some kind of tension or conflict. So if you're doing both which one gets you to the "where" you want to be? Do you feel that you have to choose one over the other, or can you alternate assuming each might be better tuned to specific states from which you start?

cmarti, I almost always pick one method to start off a session. If I am already highly concentrated, I can start off with Do Nothing, If not, I start off with Ships. As I said above, if I start drifting, I do Ships. There is no experiential difference once I get "there" no matter which method I use. Both can get me where I want to go. I usually don't experience any tension during the session. The tension would occur off the cushion in wondering if I am optimising my meditation time.

As I said above, sometimes I devote one method to a whole session. I just ended 30 minutes with Doing Nothing. The experience was like being in a fog with no clarity and lots of drifting off.

jack

Shinzen said "if spacey, note. If racey, do nothing.". In this case I suggest ships when spacey, do nothing when racey.

This is a really good conversation... and it is making me realize how any practice ultimately can turn into either a "striving" practice vs. an "allowing" practice... or a "doing" practice vs. a "letting" practice... or use any pair of words that conveys control and effort vs. accepting and awareness.

Most of practice instructions and suggestions/corrections of practice seems like variations on the theme. Kenneth's three-speed is similar - if you are already "there" then be there (3rd gear) and if you are spacey/scattered do something about it (1st and 2nd gear).

Interesting...

p.s. Did I just call my own post interesting? That's tacky.

"The tension would occur off the cushion in wondering if I am optimising my meditation time." -- Jackha

Yeah, it's interesting how much concern, tension, what have you, gets generated by practitioners wanting to optimize, harmonize, and just make more efficient, their practices. I suspect, however, that practice is much less technique and much more learning to observe without trying to influence. Any effort put into influence, by definition, covers up some, if not all, of that which is being observed. It's the meditation practice equivalent of the Uncertainty Principle in physics

(Yeah, I know, not reifying technique is sort of heresy hereabouts....)

cmarti, I wasted decades meditating until I found this list, started noting and started a mahamudra practice. So, learning from others about optimising meditation technique is important to me. But, I hear you about observing as opposed to striving.

jack

"'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.' "

Yeah, I see your point mumuwu. At the beginning one "is doing" something until one realizes that the doing is a hindrance.

I guess I was just trying to help Jackha skip that realization.

Nevertheless, nowadays, when I read "While looking again and again..." I interpret that as a natural spontaneous way of looking, as unwilled looking. I think you an I were talking about this some months ago: the mind is already looking, no need to actually look. I'm sure we're talking about the same thing.

In this sense, ships or no ships, discernable mind or no discernible mind, discernable meaning or no discernable meaning, the important part of the "do nothing" technique (which to me is the same thing as traditional mahamudra and dzogchen) is that awareness permeates reality effortlessly, revealing that dualistic fixation is useless.

"if you open to the possibility that you might hear them'¦[the ships]" What is to open? Could it be that in order to open one has to reach the uselessness of dualistic fixation? To me "do nothing" is to become "useless" so that awareness opens.

Yes, I'm a victim of the same kind of thing, Jack. I didn't mean to be critical as much as I was just putting a place marker out there because I believe that technique, especially for vipassana folks, can get in the way of some observations after a certain point.

"Nevertheless, nowadays, when I read "While looking again and again..." I interpret that as a natural spontaneous way of looking, as unwilled looking. I think you an I were talking about this some months ago: the mind is already looking, no need to actually look. I'm sure we're talking about the same thing."

I'm definitely with you. There's this fully integrated sensory experience that is undivided, direct, rich, and effortless that includes all of the sense doors. Then there's this serial process that takes ownership of it, and can only attend to one thing at a time. The attender, efforter, awarer, meditator, etc. is merely part of this integrated field.

"This is a really good conversation... and it is making me realize how any practice ultimately can turn into either a "striving" practice vs. an "allowing" practice... or a "doing" practice vs. a "letting" practice... or use any pair of words that conveys control and effort vs. accepting and awareness.

"

That striving or allowing problem plays out when one starts off with mindfulness of the breath meditation as a beginner. Does one keep attention on the breath or does one rest in the experience of the breath? Big difference. And, we can't go so far as to just daydream or get up, turn on the television and have a beer. Doing Nothing Meditation is doing something no matter how subtle or how unconsciously. I think the answer is only when we have built up our meditation muscle are we able to Do Nothing and just allow it to happen. It's like learning a musical instrument. Only after we have put in lots of time deliberately practicing the basics can we let everything go during a performance and let the music play itself. It was an interesting experience when this first happened to me playing in a band. All I found myself doing was listening to the sound I was making and the sound of the rest of the players.

jack

Ken McLeod says there are 3 factors that are necessary for meditation success: willingness, know-how and capacity. By capacity he means, in my words, the meditation experience and muscle we have built up. Many times we have the willingness and know-how but haven't built up the capacity. Knowing this is the problem helps to prevent any frustration we have in our practice.

jack

Jack, in regard to doing nothing, the key realization for me (built up muscle?) was that doing everything or anything is also doing nothing.

Doing nothing is a perspective, not a tactic

cmarti, your first sentence reminds me of the Taoist saying, the perfect man does nothing and everything gets done. That I understand. I don't understand your second sentence. Can you say more?

Ken McLeod has an interesting exercise: Get in relax mind (shamatha). Then get in seeing mind (vipassana) Are they the same or different? He thinks we will eventually experience them as the same.

jack

"THE 'I' APPEARS'” AFTER THE FACT OR AFTER
THE HAPPENING HAS ALREADY HAPPENED,
AND THEN THE APPEARANCE'”'I' DECLARES
IT DOES, DID, CREATED, OR INTENDED
THIS OR THAT TO HAPPEN."

stephenhwolinskyphdlibrary.com/downloads/You Are Not.pdf

What Chris is saying is that since you are not, you never do anything. The perspective of a doer doing things, or a meditator doing nothing - is just that - a perspective (at least - that's what I think he means).

Yes, that's it in a nutshell -- no permanent "I" to do anything or to control anything (though the "I" loves to do stuff and take credit for making the so-called decisions).

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Yes, that's it in a nutshell -- no permanent "I" to do anything or to control anything (though the "I" loves to do stuff and take credit for making the so-called decisions).

"

Something I have understood intellectually for a decade or more. Experientially not so much. Hints and glimpses at times.

jack

I have been doing a daily 1 3/4 hour Skype session for about a year now using slightly different formats: Talk for 15 minutes then ping pong for the rest of the time. Or, talk for 15, ping pong for 20 min., go mute for 20 while i do either very slow noting or mahamudra (mm), then ping pong note for the rest of the time.
It has taken an interesting turn for the last 2 mornings. Yesterday we talked for the entire time but I stayed in mm space the whole time. We had lots of long pauses. I didn't strive at any time. Talk when it came up appeared out of a stillness. This stillness remained while I talked or listened. This morning we did somewhat the same but after 1 1/2 hour we decided to ping pong note at regular speed for 10 minutes to see how things changed for us. Then we did a very slow ping pong noting to again see what changed. Overall, for the 2 mornings I found I was into the mm space much more and much easier than my night mm meditations.

jack

One additional thing. There was a point this morning when I felt a fight. No, that isn't quite the word. A tension between a part of me that was without boundaries and a part that was stuck in my self. It was between my self and my non-self. Maybe the word "fight" isn't that far off.

jack

A year ago there seemed a lot of interest in mahamudra meditation and specifically Kenneth's ships in the harbor technique. Do you think interest has fallen off and people dropped the practice?

I still have a daily mm practice. And, I am still stumbling around with it. Sometimes I do ships in the harbor. Sometimes a Shinzen Young Do Nothing meditation. Sometimes a Ken McLeod non-conceptual awareness meditation. All the methods can get me to the same mm place. But, my shifting back and forth from technique to technique is probably not that efficient.

jack

Most techniques are most effective when you do the same thing for several months, without varying. Because they should run you into some walls where they "don't work" (the way you want them to) and if you just change technique, you get to avoid facing that frustration with it not being what you want it to be. There are cases where changing is useful, but most people jump around because they get bored or frustrated or "nothing's happening" with the previous technique. But the trick there is to notice that very important message: you want the experience to be a certain way and that's not how it is.

Along those lines, one thing that Beth pointed out to me is that the noting includes 1) listening (for the non-existant ships in the harbor), 2) the positive states (calm, peace, joy, quiet, bliss, openness, ease, etc.) and --- what I didn't realize from a year ago -- 3) the noting of "allowing" for the subtle dukka sensations/thoughts that are also present in equanimous states.

Any negative sensations (boredom, frustration, discomfort, pain, practicing thoughts, wanting to be better, wanting to get something, dull complacency, spacing out, sleepiness, etc.) should be clearly seen and noted with "allowing". Some people use "releasing", too. Releasing = clearly seen and allowed to stay if it wants and allowed to go if it wants. I like allowing better because it's tempting for me to make "releasing" into a willful command, whereas allowing is clear seeing and, well, allowing.

"Along those lines, one thing that Beth pointed out to me is that the noting includes 1) listening (for the non-existant ships in the harbor), 2) the positive states (calm, peace, joy, quiet, bliss, openness, ease, etc.) and --- what I didn't realize from a year ago -- 3) the noting of "allowing" for the subtle dukka sensations/thoughts that are also present in equanimous states.

Any negative sensations (boredom, frustration, discomfort, pain, practicing thoughts, wanting to be better, wanting to get something, dull complacency, spacing out, sleepiness, etc.) should be clearly seen and noted with "allowing". Some people use "releasing", too. Releasing = clearly seen and allowed to stay if it wants and allowed to go if it wants. I like allowing better because it's tempting for me to make "releasing" into a willful command, whereas allowing is clear seeing and, well, allowing."

Good suggestions from both of you. Thanks. I was letting subtle negative sensations, mainly this isn't working, to slip in.

beta: I use "accepting" as a note for the negatives. It has the feeling of fully experiencing it and accepting it but maybe more of a turning away from it than what you are saying.

girag: Do you use the Ships in the Harbor technique?

jack.