Shinzen once said that, “When the teacher is ready, the students appear.” I guess Shinzen is ready for me. For those who are wondering why I picked Shinzen as my main dharma teacher, here’s a welcoming video wherein he summarized the reasons.

Another reason is that I like his geeky approach to the dharma and his unique interactive meditation style. But most importantly, he’s a no non-sense teacher who’s not afraid to talk about enlightenment and his first-hand experience as a “liberated” person (Shinzen never calls himself liberated or enlightened, but I believe him to be, otherwise I won’t pick him as a dharma teacher. but that’s just me.).

Finally, on top of it all, his humility and honesty is disarming and he laughs like a geeky kid.

Most you of who are following this blog, my (hyper)stream, and tweets are probably sick of me pimping out Shinzen. But what can I say? I find tremendous value in his teaching so I’m just paying it forward. I hope you find value in them as well. And if you do find value in them, please pay it forward. It’s good karma

May you be safe, be healthy, live with ease… and may Happiness be.

P.S. As of this writing more videos of Shinzen Young are being added to his YouTube channel (big thanks to HPK for recording and uploading these videos). There’s also another YouTube channel with Shinzen’s up-close interviews conducted by Stephanie Nash. Collectively, these videos contain all the up-to-date version of Shinzen’s teachings condensed from his four decades of experience. As an example, here’s the technical foundation of Shinzen’s contemporary reworking of the Buddha’s five aggregates – see The Human Sensory (TSSFIT) System.

I’m glad that Shinzen is doing this “brain dump” online so that many more people will benefit from his style of teaching (which in my opinion is the best that I’ve encountered out there). The best part is that, from what I know, whatever Shinzen talks about in those videos are the same things he teaches in his home-based retreats. This means that Shinzen is making his teachings available as “open source”. You don’t have to pay him anyting to get the gist of his teachings. You don’t have to buy any of his books (though I highly recommend The Science of Enlightenment). You don’t have to pay him squat to benefit from his teachings. You can basically just watch all the available videos and implement it in your daily practice. That’s essentially what I’ve done. I have never met Shinzen in person. I have never attended (yet) any of his residential retreats. Yet, I feel that he’s provided me with all the information I need through his free videos. If that is not Open Source Enlightenment, then I don’t know what Open Source Enlightenment is.

Thank you, Shinzen for your teaching, generosity, humility, and openness. May you live long and kick more ass.

However, I had some questions on how to continue with my meditation practice whenever I find myself lucid in my dream. After all, the purpose of my lucid dream practice is to extend my meditative awareness within the dream and flow from there. So I submitted a question to Shinzen so that he could shed some light on it.

Question: When doing the Five Ways in a lucid dream, should I label the experience Touch, Sight, Sound or Image/Talk ? (For those who are not familiar with Shinzen’s lingo [pdf], I’m asking Shinzen whether to note lucid dream sensory experiences as “objective” reality or “subjective” reality.) See Shinzen’s answer in this video.

Thanks to HPK and Shinzen for entertaining my questions. May happiness be.

(via Flickr ~ wignaz)

In my previous posts I transcribed tracks from Session 13 of The Science of Enlightenment. Session 13 is one of my favorite sessions in the series because it’s a good reminder for everyone who are consciously taking a spiritual path.

In this post I’ve transcribed the last three tracks in the session. This is the part where Shinzen Young described in detail three possible extreme reactions or attitudes of people in the Intermediate Realms of Power.

Before reading my transcription below, if you haven’t read my previous posts yet, I suggest that you read them first so you can appreciate this post from a bigger context. Here are the links to the previous tracks that I have transcribed.

The Science of Enlightenment: The Pathless Land

The Science of Enlightenment: Consciousness as a Three-Layered Cake

The following are last the three tracks on Session 13. I hope this helps you along your journey. May you be safe, be healthy, live with ease… and may Happiness be.

Session 13: Track 4 – Relating to Your Intermediate Realms

As I mentioned, in my book, the yardstick, the barometer of spiritual maturity lies in how one conceives of and relates to the phenomena of this Intermediate Realm. I can suggest to you that there are three extreme cases and an infinity of intermediate cases.

One extreme relationship to the phenomena of the Intermediate Realm is as follows. A person starts out on the surface like everyone, either because of a cultivated path, or simply spontaneously, or perhaps because of some condition like and illness or being expose to sleep deprivation or hot or cold or who knows what — drugs. For whatever reason a person turns 90 degrees from the surface and starts to go down a bit into the substance of consciousness. They go down a bit and they encounter some phenomenon that may be unusual. It may be strange, and they get frightened, and they say, “That is not for me. I don’t ever want to go back to that place.” So one extreme response or relationship to this intermediate realm is, you go down a little bit you freak out, you scramble back to the surface, and you stay on dry land, you stay on that surface for the rest of your life, and you do not go back there.

A second extreme relationship, once again for whatever reason, either through a cultivated path or some circumstance, or spontaneously due to random flow of probabilities, for whatever reason you have an experience when you go into the substance of consciousness below the surface. Start to move towards the source, something happens, and you like it. It’s interesting. It’s empowering. It’s enticing. You say, “This is for me. I want to learn about this.” You start to explore. But the way that you explore is not by going any deeper. You turn 90 degrees again and you begin to go out horizontally out into the phenomena of that realm. Now you start to go out and explore this rich, empowering, interesting world of special phenomena — kundalini energy, psychic powers. I think you can see that the range of phenomena that constitute that realm is pretty much the range of mainline New Age stuff. That’s the New Age material down there. There’s no end. Once you go out horizontally there’s no end to new stuff you can experience — more interesting stuff, more powerful stuff, weirder stuff. The problem is you think you’re making spiritual progress. You think you’re getting closer to the spiritual source. But in this extreme case you are not, and you don’t know it. And your followers don’t know it. Because the vocabulary that you use is almost indistinguishable from the vocabulary used by the people that are going the mainline plummeting straight down to the source without following any byways horizontally out. The vocabulary is almost indistinguishable. The concepts is almost indistinguishable. It’s all spiritually correct stuff. And this is one of the reasons why teachers are very useful, if not absolutely necessary. Only somebody that has traversed those realms can really distinguish whether you’re going on a horizontal path out into the powers or whether you’re following a direct line to the spiritual source.

Session 13: Track 5 – Problems with the Realms of Power

There are a number of problems with this whole New Age phenomenology. Of course New Age is just a late 20th century term for something that has been recognized and known for millennia. In the Buddhist terminology it is sometimes called the Realms of Power. The surface ordinary awareness is referred to in traditional Buddhism as the Nirmanakaya — which means kaya, the body of appearance. The phenomena in the intermediate realm are called the Sambhogakaya — which means the body of glory. And the Source is called the Dharmakaya — the body of the Absolute, or the supporter, dharma means that which supports. So they talk about the three kaya, or three bodies. Every buddha has three bodies — nirmanakaya, sambhogakaya, and dharmakaya — because every buddha, every fully enlightened man or woman, has experience in each of these three realms.

So here are the problems with the phenomena of the Realms of Power. The first and foremost is, because the realms of power are near the Source, if you get caught up in the appearances in the realms of power, you’re losing this wonderful opportunity to have a direct experience of the Source. You have to be able to see through those phenomena just like you have to be able to see through the phenomena of conventional reality. That’s the first problem. The second problem of course is, this whole aspect of turning 90 degrees again and going out into exploring these realms, because as I say without knowing it you could think that you are on a spiritual path and you could convince others that this is a spiritual path. When in fact it is literally parallel to the movement that people make on the surface of consciousness which is a movement of statis. When we move on the surface of consciousness we get statis. Basically the same trip that’s why this phenomena, this extreme case of going out horizontally is sometimes referred to as “spiritual materialism.”

The other problem is for every person that is interested in traversing the vertical path to the Source, there are a thousand people that are interested in the ego ornaments of the realms of power. So the ration is about a thousand to one in terms of where people’s money goes, where their time and energy goes, who they’re likely to follow on a spiritual path. The more you have a component of the powers, the more likely you are to attract a lot of people and to make money.

Another extreme, the third extreme, I’ve already obviously implied what it is: You go straight down. Whatever comes up you just view with mindfulness and equanimity. If nothing special happens, you pay attention to the ordinary. If something special happens and it’s frightening and painful, you view it with mindfulness and equanimity. If something special happens and it’s blissful and gives you special powers, you view it with mindfulness and equanimity. You make no distinctions. It’s a zero-tolerance policy. It also represents a certain extreme. In general, the Buddhist tradition would prefer that people follow that extreme. However, I should say that I have had teachers whose main interest was the special powers, BUT from a certain context.

I live with this teacher in Taiwan for almost a year, just he and I living together. He was a total Taoist Tantric Wizard. His entire interest was in the spirit realm and getting powers, BUT that interest had developed after his enlightenment. Why he had that interest was, within his culture and given his educational background, that was the best way he could help people — by curing their illnesses, by locating runaway children with psychic powers, by exorcising people that have been demonically possessed (which I saw him doing. very fascinating. Chinese possession phenomena, culturally quite different from Western possession phenomena). In any event, he cultivated all this stuff because that was part of his path of engagement to help other people. It wasn’t he was particularly interested for himself. He was liberated. He lived in the Source.

In the Buddhist tradition, if you’re interested in this stuff, it’s ok to put a lot of time and energy into it AFTER you have contacted the Source. Because after you have contacted the Source all of this phenomena take on such a different context. You realize where it really comes from. And until you have realized where it really comes from, there’s every probability that you’re going to develop problems in your relationship to these powers, which will then translate into problems in relationship with your fellow human beings.

We have three extremes:

You go down a little way, you encounter this stuff, you freak out, and you pop back up.

You go down a little way, you encounter this stuff, you get interested, and you go out into the world of exploration.

The third extreme: You go down and whatever you encounter you view it with mindfulness, equanimity, and a cognizance of its impermanence, and you just auger, auger, deeper, and deeper, and deeper, until you touch the Source. And you have direct experience of where both the surface and the intermediate zone come from.

Session 13: Track 6 – The Ascent of St. John of the Cross

Ascent of Mt. Carmel - English Translation of the Terms Used in St. John the Cross' Original Drawings

A good historical example of the third extreme, from the Western tradition, is St. John of the Cross. He was a great Christian mystic-poet. lived in the 16th century in Spain. He used the model of going up rather than going down but the idea is the same. He described the path to God as Subida Del Monte Carmelo (The Ascent of Mt. Carmel). He belonged to the Carmelite order of Christianity, which is one of the main meditating orders in the Roman Catholic tradition. He drew a picture (and we actually have the picture that he himself drew) of this Mt. Carmel — different stages that you go through as you’re ascending. And of course, the peak of Mt. Carmel is Dios, it’s God. Except he didn’t write Dios on the peak. Here’s what he wrote: At each stage of going up this mountain, he wrote Nada, Nada, Nada, Nada. And on the very top he wrote Y El Monte Nada. And at the peak also you’re going to experience Nada. Nothing, ok. But of course, the Nada of that peak is a very special nothing: the Zero of which you have heard me speak, many, many times. That’s the Nada that is Todo. And with this picture is a poem in Spanish. And I’m paraphrasing, I can’t remember either in Spanish or in English the exact thing that he said but it is something to the effect of: If you want to climb this mountain, you cannot let yourself be frightened by the beasts, neither can you stop to pick any flowers. It’s exactly the description of a really mature relationship to the intermediate realm — Not frightened by the beasts, but you’re not picking any flowers either.

(via Flickr ~ noblerobinette)

In my previous post I transcribed Session 13: Track 1 – The Pathless Land of The Science of Enlightenment series. In that talk Shinzen Young uses a metaphor of a “three-layered cake” to describe the journey from the surface of consciousness to the Source of consciousness. In this post I’ve transcribed the next two tracks so that readers would have more context of what Shinzen is talking about, and have more understanding of the usefulness of the three-layered cake metaphor.

Personally, I find that metaphor very useful as a conceptual model for my own practice. In this session Shinzen treated paranormal phenomena as if they were real, but without elevating them — a true sign of a matured teacher. Shinzen’s articulate description of the Intermediate Realms is an important reminder to everyone who are on a spiritual path.

I hope you find this teaching useful as you tread along the pathless land…

Session 13: Track 2 – Three Layers of Consciousness

Basically I like to think of three layers, although of course there are many subdivisions. The first layer is none other than surface consciousness — ordinary waking, consensual reality. The second layer is rather thick. It corresponds to what in the West is called, the subconscious and the unconscious. And then the third layer is not really a layer, but that’s where the metaphor gets a little misleading. But we could, for simplicity’s sake, think of it at least initially as a layer.

The third layer is, of course, the core of consciousness, the Source of consciousness. If you want to call that God, you can call that God. If you want to call that the Nature of Nature, you can call it the Nature of Nature. If you want to call it Brahma, which is the Sanskrit word for God, or if you want to call it the Tao, or if you want to call it the True Self, or the No Self — any of these words are completely legitimate.

The words don’t matter. The important thing, of course, is to have direct contact with it — direct contact as opposed to indirect contact. Nothing wrong with indirect contact, but it really doesn’t bring the satisfaction that direct contact brings. Indirect contact is when we think about our spiritual Source — we believe in it, we have certain ideas about it. Indirect contact is when we feel at an emotional level our spiritual Source — we have a sense of the numinous, we have a sense of piety, of Grace. That’s believing, feeling, it’s all great. But that’s indirect contact. If we want to have direct contact it means we have to go there. Where the confusion lies, in many cases, is with the experiences that a person has in the Intermediate Realms of consciousness — between the surface and the Source.

In those intermediate realms of consciousness one may experience various unusual phenomena. When we look at how these unconscious and subconscious has been dealt with in the West, it’s very revealing. If you look at the early history of analysis, psychoanalysis, psychotherapy, you have, on one hand, Freud who spoke about the unconscious as this dark cellar, wherein all of these ghosts and demons and cobwebs and snakes and centipedes are hiding — the repressed poison and pain of our life, this pool of poison and pain of unresolved past experiences and conflicts. There is a certain truth to this. The basic impurities — the cravings, the aversions, etc. — are sort of stored down there. And in fact, it is the existence of those impurities that forms the impeding material that prevents surface ordinary awareness from constantly touching the Source of consciousness. And so from that perspective, the path is not really a journey, but rather it is a cleaning out of that intervening material, so that the surface and the Source fall together. When we shine the lights of mindfulness, and when we pour the water of equanimity into any experience that brightness and softening agents seep down into those areas where the blockages are and things get clarified and dissolved. And so the surface gets closer and closer to the Source. It drops one quantum shelf after another, until finally there’s a touching, and that’s your initial moment of enlightenment. And from that time on, in ordinary life, one is always aware that ordinary experience is in contact with the spiritual Source of all things.

Another view of the unconscious though, would be exemplified by Carl Jung. For Jung the unconscious was the world of the archetypes — the world of the spirits, the world wherein angels and dead ancestors, entities, and spirit beings actually exist, for real. And it’s quite true. Some people when they make this journey from surface to Source encounter extraordinary experiences in that intermediate realm. Not only might they encounter spirit beings and entities, but they might have other kinds of unusual experiences such as the impression that they have psychic powers. Whether these powers exist in actuality or not, I don’t begin to comment. But one can certainly get a very strong impression that they exist. One may have experiences of seeming to leave the body — a literally floating out of the body and looking down and floating down the street and seeing what you’re neighbor is doing. One may have experiences not only of encountering entities but of having these entities sort of channel through one. One may seem to have the ability to heal, or to influence people, or to even know what people are thinking. One may seem to have the ability to know what’s about to happen. Do we really have these abilities? Can we really do these things in the objective world? To tell you the truth, I don’t know. But the impression can be extremely vivid and strong, and therefore it is significant. It is significant.

It is of the utmost importance to realize that by no means does everyone encounter such unusual experiences or special powers when they traverse that intermediate realm. Also, it is to realize that by no means does everyone encounter directly the monsters of their impurities when they traverse that realm. Some people traverse the whole intermediate realm from surface to Source and are never aware of anything other than very ordinary banal experiences like the touch of their clothes, or aches and pains in their body, or the feeling of the breath. That’s all that ever happens to them, and yet they’re able to go to the Source.

Basically, some people have very ordinary experiences for the whole path. Some people get weird and uncomfortable — events in the mind, body, and even visionary hallucinatory material. Some people get interesting, unusual, entertaining, empowering experiences. Sometimes you can have a mixture of both — unusually hellish and unusually celestial experiences, both may be involved as you traverse this path. So there’s a lot of possibilities. Different people have very different experiences in the intermediate realm.

Session 13: Track 3 – The Creative Nature of Impermanence

However, how one relates to these experiences is of the utmost importance, whatever the experience may be in terms of what we might call, “spiritual maturity.” And in fact, the gold standard, the litmus test for spiritual maturity, in my book, is related to how a person conceives of the events in that intermediate realm. The spiritually mature person treats all events in that intermediate realm exactly the same. They greet them with mindfulness and equanimity. The spiritually immature person develops cravings and aversions with respect to the phenomena of the intermediate realm. They have fears of certain unusual experiences, desire for other certain unusual experiences. They have fear they won’t have any unusual experience. One way or another there’s all sorts of preferences, cravings, and aversions that can develop with respect to possible phenomena in the intermediate realm. As I say, the mark of maturity is how the person conceives of that intermediate realm.

There’s a famous Zen story about a monk who is meditating and started to get real successful at his meditation so that he could actually sit for hour after hour and, in fact, day after day without even having to move. He got so deep in meditation that even the gods started to admire him. Now, of course, in that part of the world what they call the “gods” we might say corresponds in the West to like angels and saints and that kind of thing. After a little while these angels and saints would show up every day and shower flowers on his head and give him offerings and things like that. And this went on for several days, and then finally he just grabbed his stick and he whacked them all and he said, “Get out of here! I’m tired of you guys!” That’s one response, okay. What did that mean, whacking them and saying “get out of here”? And is in fact, that’s the whole answer to this issue of these phenomena. Well, I would suggest to you that’s part of the answer, but that might not be the whole answer.

In my own experience, after I’d been meditating for about five or six years, I started to have visionary material, very intensely. One of the interesting things about visionary material is that once it gets going it’s not necessarily limited to when you’re sitting in formal practice. That’s something that people that go through this phenomenon discover to their chagrin. Once it gets going it’s there all your waking hours often. So that means when you’re just walking around or whatever you’re seeing stuff all day. And in my case it was mostly, but not exclusively, giant insects. And they were very realistic. It’s not like seeing a static image. It moves with all of the motion of a living being. The perfect arthropod articulatory motion that you would find in an actual creature. These things, they move and they were extremely vivid. We say visionary material but I should say you can touch and hear and smell it too. That’s what I meant when I said that it’s extremely realistic, whatever its ultimate ontological status may be. In any event, that went on for a good year. And I was in school, I was in graduate school and I walk to school and there’d be giant grasshoppers greeting me along the path and all sorts of stuff, and I still function quite well. There’s no problem. It wasn’t like being schizophrenic or anything like that. It was just a phenomenon of that intermediate realm. It means that I had dropped into that realm and some material was coming up.

Well, what did I do? Nothing special. I just treated it like any other phenomenon. It’s visionary material, so you’d meditate on it the same way you’d meditate on the visual field. Like if the grasshopper is in front of you, as your awareness go to the upper right, to the lower left, how your visual awareness floats over the surface of the thing, and you try to look through it, not at it. So you have a certain equanimity, not to be either curious or frightened. The interesting thing is that the more mindfulness, equanimity, and cognizance of impermanence that you have relative to this kind of material, the more realistic it becomes. Not the less realistic. Until when you are able to experience these phenomena with complete equanimity and unbroken awareness, at which point paradoxically they become absolutely tangible. They become like the ordinary world. They become that vivid. At that time you might think that that’s very disconcerting, but actually it’s not disconcerting at all. Because you remember how I described the flow of impermanence.

Well, we’ve only described a few aspects of impermanence. One aspect of impermanence that I have not yet talked about is, the impermanence is not just a characteristic of consciousness. Impermanence is also the very creative flow of nature that forms and ferments phenomena into existence, moment by moment. The more mindfulness and equanimity I had with this visionary material, the more I was able to literally see how the flow of impermanence was molding that material. So at the point when I completely surrendered and allowed the flow of impermanence to expand and contract and vibrate, it was at that point that created these visions the same way it creates ordinary reality. That’s why the visions become so realistic. But you don’t freak out. In fact, quite the opposite. You have a deep insight by having seen how impermanence creates something that is obviously a hallucination. You now have insight into how ordinary experience — the surface consensual reality — comes into existence. I should say that it’s not so much that the hallucinations become real but rather what you formally called real proves itself to have certain aspects of a hallucination. You get a real insight into the creative nature of consciousness.

If one greets the phenomena that come up in this intermediate realm with mindfulness and equanimity, because the intermediate realm phenomena are closer to the Source than consensual reality, one has a wonderful opportunity to get a deep insight into the creative process — how it is that mind creates. The reason that the Zen people talk about hitting the deities when they come is that they don’t want students to miss that opportunity. They don’t want students to get tripped out on the content of that intermediate realm, and therefore, miss their golden opportunity to get an insight into the nature of consciousness — the nature of Nature. It’s a very empowering thing to have an entity come and shower you with flowers, but that is a trivial experience relative to the empowerment that you get when you understand how the Source creates all things — yourself, the flowers, the entity, the world.

The reason that in some traditions they call this intermediate realm Makyo, which means the realm of blockages, the realm of the devil actually. Ma means like the devil. The reason why such pejorative terminology is used is that it’s so easy to miss your golden opportunity. You could get so caught up in the wonder of the spirits, that you fail to realize how close those spirits are to the Great Spirit — the Source of all things. You have to look just beyond the spirits and you can see the Great Spirit. In other words, the third layer — the activity of the Source.

(UPDATE: For the concluding tracks, see The Science of Enlightenment: Intermediate Realms of Power.)

Early on I was confused by these two seemingly paradoxical approaches to enlightenment. But over the years I’ve grown comfortable to embrace the two contradictory views. In short, I’ve gotten used to the paradox. I no longer agonize over it. It’s still a paradox to me. But I prefer to view it as enlightenment by serendipity.

So whenever I say that the ultimate “goal” of my Open Practice is enlightenment, I’m very well aware of the contradictory nature of that statement. I’m aware that it’s an illusion. I’m aware that I’m setting up myself for failure. I’m aware that I’m treading on the pathless land.

Nevertheless, I carry on, keeping in mind the core lessons I’ve learned from The Science of Enlightenment. Allow me to share some of these lessons…

In Session 13 of The Science of Enlightenment series (one of my favorites in the series), Shinzen Young started out with a track entitled, The Pathless Land. In this talk, Shinzen has captured in exquisite detail my view on enlightenment.  I’ve transcribed the talk so I can share this to all readers and to encourage people to listen to the entire series. I can’t recommend it highly enough. I’ll be transcribing more of my favorite tracks in future posts. In the meantime, here’s a sample of how eloquent Shinzen is when describing the “path” to enlightenment. 

Session 13: Track 1 – The Pathless Land

One metaphor for spirituality is that it’s a kind of path. The particular benchmarks on that path and how one describes the starting point and the ending point of that path, and the kind of vehicles that one uses — the actual techniques and approaches that carry you down that path — may differ. And in fact, the description of the path itself may differ. Often people don’t realize that two seemingly different descriptions of the path are actually referring to the same thing. Of course there’s some troubles, some problems associated with considering spirituality as a path. It leads to some misconceptions and some pitfalls.

If we describe spirituality as a path then it immediately sets up all sorts of expectations, all sorts of cravings, all sorts of aversions — “I wanna be there”; “I’m not there” — all sorts of ignorance because the goal of the path of course is to understand where you have been all the time. In a sense when you come to the goal of the path you only realize where you’ve always been. So the length of the path that you have traversed is actually, in a sense, zero. If you start thinking about a path it creates enlightenment as an object out there and in the future, which of course is the essence of illusion itself. You’re damn if you do, and you’re damn if you don’t.

If you fail to describe this spirituality as a path people don’t have a motivation, they don’t have a direction, they’re not sensitive to the benchmarks and the signs, they don’t recognize them, they don’t know what turns to make, etc.

To teach is to inevitably mislead people, to a certain degree. Any kind of teaching, as soon as you opened your mouth, you have misled people. On the other hand, to fail to teach is to mislead people even worse.

Let’s talk about aspects of this path, understanding that to speak of it as a path has dangers and is misleading. And yet on the other hand, to speak of it as a path may be of some use.

One possible model for the path to enlightenment is to look upon it as a journey from the surface of consciousness to the Source of consciousness. A lot of times people think of spirituality sort of as turning a 180 degrees away from the world. We turn away from the world and we turn towards God. And it’s a 180-degree turn going in exactly the opposite direction. But the way that I’d like to look upon spirituality is it’s not a turning of a 180 degrees, it’s a 90-degree turn. If we consider consciousness in some way as a layered cake, which I think has some validity as a model — the Earth exist in strata; there’s the surface of the earth and then underneath that are older rocks and underneath that are older rocks and the whole structure changes as we go through successive layers. In the same way we can look upon consciousness as having different layers to it.

Our usual ordinary day to day experiences — the world in which we have to sort of take care of business; subject and object are separate; we’re inside time and space; we have only the ordinary human type experiences that constitute what we might call consensual reality. And so our day to day life can be looked upon as sort of moving over the surface of consciousness — the different kinds of experiences we have in daily life: ordinary reality.

When we start to meditate we turn 90 degrees. Instead of moving just along the surface of consciousness we start to move down into consciousness. Actually, passing through successive layers in its structure. So we’re moving into the mind, into consciousness. By consciousness I mean, of course, just the six senses. Hearing, seeing, smelling, tasting, the feeling body, and the thinking mind are the six doors of consciousness. And collectively, taken together, we can use the word consciousness to describe the collective of these six senses. We’re starting to go into consciousness rather than moving on the surface of consciousness. It’s a kind of journey from the surface of consciousness to the Source of consciousness. In doing so, we pass through successive strata or layers of consciousness, encounter different kinds of phenomena.

(UPDATE: For the continuation, see The Science of Enlightenment: Consciousness as a Three-Layered Cake.)

tweeting during Shinzen Young's Home Practice Program

How big is your body? It’s big as the whole universe or small like the nucleus of an atom, and everything in between. ~Shinzen Young

Many of you who are regular readers of this blog (and those who follow my tweets) know by now that I’m a big fan of Shinzen Young. I just love his geeky and no non-sense approach to the dharma. I consider Shinzen as my primary meditation teacher. However, I have yet to sit with him on retreats or even meet him in person. I just listen to his talks, watch his videos, ask him questions via email, read his instructions and apply it to my daily practice. But even with my limited contact with Shinzen, I still feel a deep sense of kinship and intuitively recognize that he’s the teacher for me. So I’ve decided to make it official that I become his student. You see, it’s not that hard to become a student of Shinzen. No special ceremony. No bowing or taking of refuge. No waxing on or waxing off, or doing the yard work. In short, there are no strings attached. All one has to do is attend his retreats, whether home or on-site. And that’s what I did over the weekend. I finally attended Shinzen’s home practice program. What follows is a first-hand account of my experience with Shinzen’s innovative approach to doing a retreat.

What the heck is a home practice program?

The home practice program is a phone-based retreat developed by Shinzen Young. Here’s a detailed description on BasicMindfulness.org –

Many people experience immediate positive effects from Mindfulness, but its real power to foster broad and deep psycho-spiritual transformation only becomes evident through ongoing practice. The problem is that most people are not able to get away on a regular basis to do extended retreats. Without regular retreats it is usually difficult to realize the exponential growth potential of the practice. Family and work responsibilities, the expenses involved and the travel required prevent the vast majority of those ready to take on a regular practice from doing so.

To overcome these barriers I have developed a unique program of monthly phone-based “mini retreats.” These retreats involve guided practice, self practice, group discussion and a chance for one-on-one private interviews with a teacher – just like onsite retreats do. But these retreats are delivered via conference call to your home or anywhere you happen to be in the world. They typically last four hours.

Here’s how it works:

1) Go to http://basicmindfulness.org – pick a schedule and the type of program.

2) Pay the fee for your chosen program(s).

3) You’ll receive the conference call numbers, access codes, and instructions a couple of days before the actual retreat.

4) On the day and specified time of the retreat just dial the numbers, follow the instructions and you’re on your way to four hours of practice.

A retreat over the phone? You gotta be kidding me!

Yes, I know what you’re thinking. I had the same initial reaction the first time I heard Shinzen talked about his home practice program in one of his Buddhist Geeks interviews. A phone-based retreat sounds very bland in comparison with an on-site retreat. Without face to face contact we lose the subtle cues in communication.  And what about the technical issues that might come up? For example: What if I don’t have a land line phone. Skype could work, but what if my internet connection drops off? Yes, I have a cell phone but my signal sucks, even at home. And of course, 4 hours of talk time will drain my battery and my airtime minutes! So these are some of my concerns with a phone-based retreat.

However, after talking with people who actually tried the program I heard nothing but positive feedback. Some of my concerns were actually just that, knee-jerk concerns. In actuality cell phone air time is not an issue because I have free nights and weekend minutes (the phone-based retreats are scheduled on a weekend). Another is that I could charge my cell phone in-between or during the conference call. I also get a good signal at home. So I decided to put my concerns to rest and try it out for myself. Last weekend I signed up for two retreats– Deepening Focus In & Focus Out and Sharpening Focus on Flow — and I’m glad I did.

The Phone-based retreat (Press # to continue)

Over the weekend I told my wife that I’m locking myself in the room for four hours. I asked her to not disturb me unless it’s an emergency. She seemed happy about it because I won’t be bugging her and she could do whatever she wanted while I do my retreat thing. I think she was also glad that I’ll do the retreat at home rather than drive all the way to Seattle and stay there for the whole day. In short, it’s a win-win situation.

For this retreat I relied on my ever-dependable iPhone, with its earphone, so I could hear the instructions better hands-free. Participants were instructed to dial-in 10 minutes before the start of the retreat for the introductions and pleasantries. Upon joining the conference call I noticed that some people in the call are already regulars and they knew each other already. Some had dialed-in from Europe. During the greetings I even overheard Shinzen asking one of the participants about “quantum computing.” Nice. How many meditation teachers ask that kind of question before starting the retreat?

After the introductions the retreat promptly started on schedule. The basic structure of the retreat is like this:

1) 1 hour and 30 minutes guided meditation with Shinzen. He guides the participants depending on the theme of the retreat. He starts the guidance in the subjective space (feel, image, talk) and slowly moves on to the objective space (touch, sight, sound).

2) 1-hr break. During this segment participants are instructed to practice on their own (e.g. do walking meditation, do simple chores while applying the meditation technique, etc.). Also, during this time, participants can dial Shinzen’s direct number if they want to have a one on one conversation with him.

3) After the break, there is a 30-minute Q&A with Shinzen. During this part of the retreat participants are encouraged to share their experiences and ask Shinzen about specific concerns or questions regarding meditation techniques.

4) 1 hour guided meditation with Shinzen. He guides the participants into ever deeper and broader application of the meditation technique.

I highly recommend to get to know Shinzen’s lingo first before trying out the phone-based retreat. You would have an optimal retreat experience if you’re familiar with Shinzen’s Five Ways before you jump into the home practice program. Here’s a video of Shinzen explaining the five aspects of the Five Ways.

In addition, all the reading and listening materials you need are available on the reading and audio section at Basic Mindfulness. Once you do your homework, you’ll appreciate the clarity of Shinzen’s style of teaching.

Pros and Cons of the Home Practice Program

In general I found the home practice program to be very focused and extremely helpful in developing the meditation techniques taught by Shinzen. I learned a lot in one weekend. However, there are pros and cons to this kind of retreat.

Let’s start with the cons:

- Lack of physical proximity with the teacher could result in loss of subtle cues in communication.

- Less social interaction with the participants.

- Less social pressure to conform. For example, if a participant has no discipline then she could be easily deviate from the meditation session since no one would be watching her during the retreat.

- Technical issues might come up. For example, I got disconnected once during the conference call. I blame my carrier.

And now the pros:

- Anyone from anywhere (e.g. home, library, bus, train, secluded park, etc.) can join in. At one time there were more than 60 people logged in from all over the U.S. and some from Europe.

- Conversations and Q&A are more focused due to less distractions from other participants.

- Less social pressure to conform. For example, participants (especially introverted types) could feel more at ease in the comfort of their own home.

- Less distraction from other people, especially if your sangha is infested with jerks, cute guys/girls, or smelly hippies who gave up basic hygiene

- It’s cheaper. No need to pay separately for the retreat facility and dana for the teacher.

- More eco-friendly. No need to drive to the retreat center hence less carbon footprint.

- And this is what I like best: Private communication with the teacher. I really appreciate a direct contact with Shinzen Young. He communicates well with his students via phone and/or email. He responds promptly and patiently to theoretical as well as practical questions.

Bottom line

All in all, the pros of home practice program greatly outweighs the cons. Shinzen calls the home practice program a “mini retreat”. It’s not meant as replacement for extended on-site retreats. It’s a supplement to on-site retreats, as well as an alternative for those who don’t have the opportunity to do on-site retreats. I’m looking forward to my next phone-based retreat already.

Maybe in the near future when Second Life is more advanced and the internet has more bandwidth people will be able to do a more satisfying virtual retreats online. In the meantime, the phone-based retreat gets the job done. Give it a try. I’m confident that you’ll agree with me that Shinzen Young’s home practice program is an awesome dharma delivery system.

ADDENDUM: Soon after I posted my first-hand account of Shinzen’s phone-based home practice program I saw this video on ShinzenInterviews channel. It’s an interview by Stephanie Nash with Shinzen about guided meditation on the phone. Check it out for more information on how the home practice program works.

may you be happy and peaceful

Last week I attended a two-day weekend retreat led by Sharon Salzberg at Nalanda West via Seattle Insight Meditation Society (SIMS). The theme for the weekend was “fierce compassion”. It was my first time to attend a two-day retreat. It was also my first time to sit with one of the pioneers who popularized vipassana and metta Buddhist meditations here in the West.

I had no idea how the retreat would be structured. I also had no idea on Sharon’s style of teaching. I just knew she’s popular in the Buddhist circle and she authored a number of books. I haven’t read any of her books, but I’m aware that her dharma style is “metta” (or lovingkindness) meditation. To be honest, I’m not the metta kind of guy. I’m more of hardcore-intellectual-gung-ho type when it comes to meditation practice. And that’s exactly the reason why I attended the retreat: To balance the “head” and the “heart.”

When I first saw Sharon Salzberg she striked me as very ordinary. She’s like a motherly figure who smiles a lot. Her dharma talks were not structured and non-technical. Sometimes she would use some Buddhist (Sanskrit or Pali) terminologies but most of the time she just used plain English when answering questions from the audience. Her talks and techniques centered around her specialty: lovingkindness meditation. So it’s no surprise to me that most attendees were women (about 90-95%). Go figure

Sharon drew a lot of examples from her life experiences during the dharma talks. She was very down to earth. She seemed very honest in answering questions and sharing her own stories (including stories about her friends, Jack Kornfield, and Joseph Goldstein). She talked about how compassion doesn’t mean saying “yes” all the time. She expounded on the four Brahmaviharas (or the Four Immeasurables)–lovingkindness, compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity. I like her discussion of the extreme and near-enemies of those four virtues.

Sharon didn’t make any grand claims when it comes to practice. She didn’t promise that the practice will bring about “enlightenment.” In fact, she didn’t even talk about enlightenment at all, aside from a passing mention. I felt a mixed feeling about it. I don’t think that Sharon is intentionally watering down the dharma. She was just responding to the questions from the audience. Most of the questions were about how to apply compassion and use lovingkindness practice to deal with other people, one’s psychological baggage, and life in general. In short, how to apply Buddhist practice as a psychological coping mechanism. Nothing wrong with that. But as a hardcore practitioner I think this is a limited view of Buddhist practice. For me, Buddhist meditation practice is first and foremost a liberation-oriented technology. The psychological benefits are side-effects. Those side-effects are more than welcome, but they’re side-effects nonetheless.

During the retreat I wanted to ask Sharon what her definition of “enlightenment” is, how her experience of  “classical” enlightenment changed her life, and how she relates to the concept of enlightenment nowadays. But I chickened out. Those are rhetorical questions, by the way. I wanted to hear her answer it in front of an audience. Maybe next time I attend her retreat.

The two-day retreat was structured like this:

1) About 20 minutes of guided sitting meditation.

2) Dharma talks and Q&A.

3) Walking meditation — People could walk outside the building around the neighborhood (as long as they look “normal” and not walk like zombies in slow motion so as not to freak out the neighbors). For those who prefer the traditional slow walking meditation, they could do it inside the building or at the back of the compound. I did my walking meditation around the neighborhood.

In the spirit of Open Practice, I tweeted during retreat (but only during breaks and before actual meditation practice begins). I didn’t break the  rule of “silence” because I didn’t talk during the retreat. There was no specific rule on tweeting anyway Below are some of my tweets:

silent walking meditation… touch, sight, sound, tweet… #openpractice http://yfrog.com/7e1c1j [10:08 AM Jul 25th]

lovingkindness walking meditation… may I be happy, may I be peaceful… may you be happy, may you be peaceful… #openpractice [2:38 PM Jul 25th]

stereotype for Western #Buddhism holds. people in the retreat are mostly middle-aged white people, mostly women. #openpractice [8:40 AM Jul 26th]

retreat about to start… i’m using a chair today. my lower back hurts on the mat. tweeting=off; concentration/equanimity=on #openpractice [8:56 AM Jul 26th]

while doing lovingkindness meditation on all sentient beings, for a brief moment I felt a subtle expansive flow of awareness #openpractice [12:18 PM Jul 26th]

for those wondering why I’m tweeting during a meditation retreat, my tweets are also my notes. i don’t call it #openpractice for nothing. [12:38 PM Jul 26th]

#coat4d: equanimity = wisdom of not being in control ~Sharon Salzberg #openpractice #vipassana [2:02 PM Jul 26th]

here’s a flower ~ may you be safe, be happy, be healthy, and live with ease… #openpractice http://yfrog.com/7h3nzj [2:53 PM Jul 26th]

All in all, I find the retreat rejuvenating and insightful. I’ve learned a lot in terms of lovingkindness meditation. To sum it up: Lovingkindness meditation is a specific practice for increasing one’s circle of compassion and care–from oneself, to family, to friends, to all humanity, and to all sentient beings. (In Integral lingo, this is an exercise in increasing compassion and care from egocentric, to ethnocentric, to worldcentric, and to kosmocentric.)

Although lovingkindness is not my main practice, I’m now including it on my list of practices. I now use the practice regularly when not in formal sitting. For example, when I’m walking around or driving on the freeway, I look at people and I recite the lovingkindness mantra in my head. This reminds me that, enlightenment or no enlightenment, every sentient being just wants to be happy.

So to all of you who are reading this at this very moment: May you be safe, be happy, be healthy, and live with ease.

P.S. After Sharon Salzberg’s Friday night talk prior to the retreat, I met a Twitter friend in person who also attended the talk. She’s a yoga teacher named Nikki, and also a kindred Shinzen Young geek who goes by the Twitter id @dragonc. We had a good conversation about practice and some of our common interests. She’s cool, hip, upbeat, and geeky. So if you see her on Twitter, drop by and say hi.

P.P.S. Here’s a video of Sharon Salzberg’s Friday dharma talk (via SIMS beta site. Thanks, Alden!)

Migraines are chronic headaches that can cause significant pain for hours or even days.  Symptoms can be so severe that all you can think about is finding a dark, quiet place to lie down.

Some migraines are preceded or accompanied by sensory warning symptoms or signs (auras), such  as flashes of light, blind spots or tingling in your arm or leg. A migraine is often  accompanied by nausea, vomiting, and extreme sensitivity to light and sound.

-  Mayo Clinic: Migraine: Definition

I’ve been a migraine sufferer for as long as I can remember. My earliest memory of a migraine episode was when I was in elementary school. I would cut classes and go home because the headache would render me useless for the rest of the day. During extreme attacks I would go the bathroom, hug the toilet, and throw up. Then I would go to my room, ask my mother to massage my head, and then curl up in bed covering my head with a pillow or blanket. Pain relievers helped a bit. But only hours of sleep could totally cure the pain, until the next episode. My life has always been that way.

Migraine attacks have been a part of my life. I’ve already grown accustomed to it. Sometimes I would get headaches multiple times a week but sometimes it would take weeks before another episode. There is no known cure for migraine headaches. The best “cure” is to know the triggers (it varies for different people) and avoid them as best as you can.

In my case, there  are a number of things which could trigger an attack: something I ate, alcohol, extreme sunlight, driving for too long, watching movies for too long, reading while inside a moving vehicle, stress, and thinking too much. Those are just some of the most common triggers I’ve observed in myself. Nevertheless, I still consider myself lucky. There is a spectrum of migraine sufferers, and based on the literature I’ve read, my case can be classified as moderate. There are some people who suffer from migraine headaches for days and even weeks. Mine goes away after a few hours of good sleep. However, whenever it happens, the pain still sucks. During extreme cases I’m unable to continue with my tasks and could no longer carry a normal conversation with people. All I want to do is pop up a painkiller pill, curl up in bed, hug a pillow, and doze off. That is, until I practiced vipassana meditation.

The Serendipity of Vipassana (Mindfulness) Meditation

Mindfulness meditation has gained popularity and acceptance in the medical field thanks to the efforts of people like Jon Kabat-Zinn. It has been effectively used by a number of people to relieve stress and deal with chronic pains. So it’s not really surprising for me to discover that I could also relieve my migraine headaches with meditation.

I’ve been practicing mindfulness (or vipassana) meditation, as taught by Shinzen Young, consistently for about seven months now. I meditate daily for 1.25 hours in the morning and another 1.25 hours in the evening, for a total of 2.5 hours a day. It was never my intention to use meditation to relieve my migraine headaches. However, for the past few months I noticed that my migraine attacks had been very minimal, and whenever they occur I would just continue with my meditation as usual.  Here is what I discovered:

Meditation relieves my migraine headaches without me popping a pill or curling up like a baby in bed. In other words, meditation seems to have the same effects on my migraine as if I had a few hours of sleep.

I’m not making this claim very lightly. In fact, I’ve made use of six migraine episodes to put this discovery to empirical tests. For the past few weeks, every time I feel a migraine attack coming, I refrained from taking pain relievers. I would just carry on with my meditation practice no matter how much pain I was feeling at that time. The result: I was able to relieve my migraine headaches just by meditating, six out of six times! So far I have a batting of 100%! Not too shabby, eh?

That said, it’s too early to proclaim meditation as a wonder cure for all migraine headaches. The good news, however, is that there is a clinical trial in progress to scientifically study the effects of intensive meditation on chronic headaches. See Intensive Meditation and Migraines: Effects on Health and Well Being. I’m looking forward to the publication of the scientific study.

In the meantime, I’m just glad that I have another way of dealing with my migraine headaches with less suffering. This is especially useful in the wake of the bad side effects of acetaminophen and other painkillers.

Let’s Cut to the Chase. How Do I Do It?

For those who are interested to know how I deal with migraine headaches using vipassana meditation, here’s how I do it.

Step 1: Take a comfortable sitting position with spine straight (I do mine in half lotus posture. But sitting in a comfortable chair will do). Take a couple of deep breaths to start the relaxation. As best as you can, let the pain do its thing in the background. Don’t resist or dwell on it.

Step 2: Observe the breath by noting the rising and falling of the abdomen on each inhalation and exhalation. If attention wanders, just  gently turn your attention back to observing the breath.

Step 3: Once the body is relaxed and attention is calm, embrace and penetrate the pain! Observe how the pain in the head shifts, morphs, expands, contracts, spreads, and pulsates. Note and mentally label them as “flow.” Then watch the pain like watching a jellyfish in the aquarium. (That’s the best analogy I could think of at the moment. But I think it’s accurate.)

Step 4: Sooner or later, awareness shifts, instead of observing the pain, you begin to feel its wave-like sensations. When you notice the wavy sensations, just ride it! A few moments later, you’ll notice that the pain just vanishes. It is replaced by a relaxed and open attention. Continue with the meditation session as usual.

Well, at least that’s how it works for me Give it a try.

For a more detailed example, see how Shinzen instructs a student on how to deal with physical discomfort. The focus on change is basically the same algorithmic process I follow.

At this point, my experience maybe “anecdotal.” But as a migraine sufferer all my life, vipassana meditation is a welcome addition to my medicine box of relief. As my teacher Shinzen Young would say: Meditation can be used to transcend conditions, but it can also be used to improve conditions. I’m all for that.

ADDENDUM (07/20/2009): Once again I have empirical proof that vipassana meditation works not only to relieve my migraine headaches but also to stop it in its tracks before it even starts.

Case in point: I just came back from a trip to Victoria, BC Canada. It was a 2.5 hour ride by boat, each way. For motion-sensitive people like me, the constant rocking of the boat is more than enough to trigger a full-blown migraine headache attack. In fact, even before the boat left the pier, I already felt a tingling of a migraine attack coming in. However, instead of popping a pill, I just did my usual vipassana meditation practice during the trip. I closed my eyes, sat with my back straight and focused my attention on my breathing. Then whenever the boat was hit by big waves I would switch to focus on “flow” technique (e.g. by shifting my focus on the swaying of the boat). In short, instead of resisting the shaking, I would “ride” with the shaking and make it as the object of meditation.

The result: No migraine headaches during the entire trip! I enjoyed the trip, the company, and I got to appreciate the beauty of Victoria, BC.

Today is day 90 of the Big Sit. I’m happy to report that I’ve completed the challenge, and then some. Geeky as I am, I even kept a log of it in my (hyper)stream. (See my #bigsit Twitter stream on Friendfeed.) As you can see in the stream I have two practice sessions daily. I practice in the morning and in the evening, 1.25 hours each session, for a total of 2.5 hours a day. Each practice session is a mix of sitting and lying down meditation. I’ve described the details of my meditation practice in my previous post, see Algorithmic Approach to Meditation.

For experienced and expert meditators 90 days of dedicated sitting practice may seem to be a piece of cake, but I’m neither experienced nor an expert. In fact, just five months ago I could barely sit for 20 minutes in one session. But now I could sit more than one hour each session without feeling like I’m having a root canal. I consider that a big accomplishment in my behavioral pattern. I give credit to Shinzen Young’s Five Ways strategy for dramatically improving my meditation practice. It fits me like a glove, and it makes practice practical and fun. Below is a video of Shinzen giving a quick summary of the Five Ways.

The Big Sit may be over, but I’m only warming up with Open Practice. Thanks to Tricycle Community for the challenge.

I projected the image on my mental screen. The image kept fading, popping in, popping out. It would then shapeshift into grotesque images–a monster, a vampire, a ghoul, a temptress, an axe murderer. The scary images gave me the chills but I persisted visualizing the radiance of the Sacred Heart while noting the rising and falling of the breath. But still the image was quick to fade in and fade out. Then all of a sudden the image of the Matrix code dominated my mental screen.

Matrix Code Visualization

I spontaneously visualized the Matrix code moving through my body and all around me, as if I were the character Seraph in the movie. I thought to myself, Now, this is cool! It was more stable than the Sacred Heart, yet more dynamic. So I stayed and grooved with it. I visualized the room and my body being made up of character codes each of them expanding and contracting as they move and shift directions. As I was meditating I realized that I just discovered a visualization technique that works for me. I’ll call it Matrix Code Visualization.

Soon as I finished my meditation I analyzed why the Matrix Code Visualization suits me. Here are a couple of reasons:

1) The Matrix has many meanings. Although the Matrix storyline is a mashup of different religious and mystical symbolisms, the Matrix code is secular. It also appeals to my geeky nature.

2) The dynamic movement of the Matrix code is an excellent metaphor for the micro scale level of impermanence. It’s easier for me to be aware of the waves, vibrations, expansion, contraction, flow sensations while visualizing it. It’s a good complement to the Focus on Change technique.

So I’ll continue to use the Matrix Code Visualization technique and see how far it would lead me down the rabbit hole. If you feel like it, give it a try and let me know if it works for you too.