Somatic Practices

In my current experience thoughts and other processes of the mind are most of the time seen to be emptiness and movement with no real substance and therefore are not causing much graping. It is often the body and sense perceptions that feel deceptively real and solid and doing bodywork feels exactly the right thing to do for me at the moment.

I have done rigorous pranayama practice in the past, but Reggie Ray’s gentle and very thorough approach feels much more effective. The practice is done lying down or sitting up and it involves very deep inbreaths using the full capacity of the lungs, often doing multiple inbreaths with no outbreath in between. The breath is used together with some simple visualizations that helps to unfold the process of disintegration and ends up in the vastness of the space of awareness.

The somatic experience of breath entering the body tunes the mind gradually to the level of increased openness and boundlessness. In the beginning the body feels heavy, self-evident, and ordinary. With the opening up, the sensations merge into a unified field of perception where no single sensation stands out. The bodily experience loses it’s solidity and becomes vibratory and flowing, consisting of a huge number of very subtle transient sensations. This flow of energy and fluctuation underlies the brick wall of every physical experience.

Going beyond the mosaic of fast vibrations, one finds underneath the body of one huge space, open and flowing to all directions with no limits or boundaries. Body, movement and breath are all merged into a unified ocean of experience where single components or qualities can be no longer be determined. If one is doing ashtanga yoga practice, the breath seems to move the whole body directed by no-one, without any conscious thoughts and despite all the movement and flow, nothing seems to be moving.

The experience is a lot more physical, concrete and dynamic than my previous sitting practices that have been mostly of mental nature. The unraveling of the psycho-physical structures of my own body has been most educational and balancing.

Mistake #6

While working on 7th and 8th Stages of awakening, I started to lose the connection with my body. The unbalanced emphasis on no-self and no-thought led me into a disembodied state where the subtleties of my own body and it’s relationship to the universe in general and to the other people in particular was no longer felt fully. Phenomenlogically this was manifested in the absence of subtle sensations deep within the body, ’the energy body’ if you want to use such an inaccurate term. At times I could not recognize my body as something that belongs to me and in one instance of disorientation I could not even access my own memories which left me feeling totally disconnected from my own beingness.

I do not know if this period of dissociation is some inevitable phase one must go through and then come back to the full spectrum of everyday experience totally transformed, however I do know now that it is a restricted and narrow way and not to be sought after. The more grounded and fully embodied way of being that is currently unfolding for me is much more energising, exhilarating and inspiring and leads to fuller participation and commitment with life.

Mistake #5

I had developed an ability to investigate the very subtle fluctuations of the mind in stillness, but was unable to see a huge thought that was actually blocking all the other thoughts. I had become very adept at seeing even the smallest little fluctuation of the conceptual mind, but failed to see this category of thought before, because it is not as clear like some narrative storylines or mental images that light up in the mind. It is more like an intention that is shaping other mental activities or a subtle attitude toward another person.

When sitting on the cushion it can be an unseen mental attitude lurking below the radar of consciousness ”I am meditating” that directs the mind but blocks complete surrender. Off the cushion it can be any kind of expectation or intention that keeps the us from experiencing this moment with complete openness and freshness. For example it can be a certain attitude toward another person that prevents us from meeting him/her openly and without prejudice. This prejudice may not even show up as actual thoughts, but will nevertheless affect our reactions in a negative way when we are dealing with that person.

Mistake #4

I had a lot of preconceptions on how awakening would manifest itself. Various interesting experiences and states of mind left me in a state of non-reactivity that was liberating at first but actually proved to be a kind of emotional dullness and even indifference because at times I was unable to meet people where they were at. Although the non-reactiviness made me more tolerant and patient with other people, I was not completely open to all the various experiences of the mind and when I was mistreated it seemed like I was completely okay with it and things just flowed through me without sticking, but something remained unseen and undealt with. Little by little there was a built up of residue in the subconscious that started to shape my mental processes in the background.

It took time to learn that discursive thoughts and mental images that flash through us loud and clear like some radio broadcast we are picking up, are not all there is to the conceptual mind. Sometimes a big unseen thought can sit on the mind blocking all the other thoughts under it’s weight and mind can seem calm and silent on the surface. But it is tight and contracted silence, not open, free and expansive. Although this forced silence can feel like a relief in comparison to the full cacophony of the mental background noise, but it detaches one from fully experiencing this moment of being alive and slowly kills enthusiasm, liveliness and joy.

Mistake #3

Emptiness, the simultaneous understanding of the absence of agency and impermanence of all things, can also be misused. My view on practice was not based on correct understanding and I took the experiences of clarity, stillness and no-thought to be the end result itself. This led to the over-emphasis of still mind at the expense of other phenomena which resulted in applying effort to keep the mind still at all times. I now realize that I was using the emptiness as an antidote against thoughts.

Experiencing the blissful vastness, openness and freedom of the mind at rest is just the prelimary stage. Movement is an essential and inseparable aspect of the mind and seeing the perfection in all it’s gross and subtle movements is the next natural stage in development. The more fully this essential nature is clearly seen, the less there is a chance that the inevitable fluctuations will cause any distraction from directly experiencing the basic nature.

Mistake #2

There was a period of dissatisfaction with my current life situation and a wish to find a suitable outer expression to match my inner development, a need to change the course of my life and be more beneficial to other people. This led me to make various plans for the future, including starting to study for another profession which I thought would be more useful for the mankind in general.

Although there could be dozens of professions or activities that would express the inner realization better than my current situation, at some point I realized that whatever course I would take and whatever effort I would put into the expression of the inner reality, it would just be another form of self-expression. It would be another attempt of the self to try to get some concrete foothold at this stage, turn it into it’s advantage and get safisfaction from the situation. It is my current opinion that one cannot truly express the awake emptiness by willing it or by any kind of effort at all even if the intentions are noble and altuistic. That is just the small self trying to find another way in. The best we can do is live the Uncontinioned as fully as possible and let it evolve naturally and point the way forward.

Mistake #1

For a long time I tried to make the Nature of the Mind into a concrete thing, to reify it into something solid and manageable to the mind that could be taken as an object of concentration. Of course if I could find a handle to it and maintain the state by sheer concentration throughout the day, we wouldn’t be talking about the Unconditioned at all, but just another transient mind state. It’s no wonder I got terrible tension at the head from all that manipulation.

The mind is extremely malleable nowadays and although I did my mind tricks subtly, they we of no use to me and all I got was one big headache. This is one of the useful recent features: there is a kind of allergy to any kind of directing the mind forcefully. There is no escaping the principle of least effort: the only way forward is downhill.

Incomplete History of My Recent Failures

I am trying to write down some of the reasons that led to the decline of my practice last year in an effort to record this time period that is missing from my practice journal. Maybe other’s don’t have to make these same mistakes or if they do, may they recognize them a lot faster than I did.