The Flow of life
After seeing how conceptual the sense of self is, and noticed the pain of it, it becomes easier to notice where the letting go points to. It points to a stillness that was always there. Looking for a concrete self and finding vibrations, and learning to preserve peaceful stillness, points to how impermanent everything is. Things arise and pass away. Therefore, nothing concrete can provide permanent happiness. Once the outside world is looked at in this way, the same perception can be turned inward.
Gone
The Zen practitioner Shinzen Young provided a memorable concept of Gone as a method of practicing with impermanence. He uses a noting practice which can be counterproductive when it interferes with concentration. Shinzen qualifies the practice: “As a general principle, put no more than 5% of your attention on the labeling process itself. The other 95% goes into the ‘knowing.'” As you can recall in the 1st of this series. Bhikkhu Analayo emphasizes that concentration has to be enough to facilitate memory, or else it’s already a form of mind wandering. The difficulty is getting the mind to realize that it doesn’t need too much pressure to be aware. Just a small movement of attention is enough, and an internal knowing that is able to recognize what is there.
If you practiced the prior Jhanas practices, you should have a foundation to develop what is necessary for good noting practice: Concentration. Shinzen requires that concentration be good enough to detect all kinds of experiences vanishing/diminishing, to be able to stay focused on vanishing exclusively, and to not push and pull when a vanishing is happening. Essentially you have to be able to stay concentrated with equanimity. In the prior videos of this series, being able to let go of a gross sense of self, and to see the pain of it and to preserve peace, helps to motivate an equanimity to just be with sensations. This helps to bring a comfort, as opposed to terror. No matter what happens, “this too shall pass.”
The Source
As Daniel Ingram pointed out before, this practice needs a good foundation to keep a person sane. With concentration as a basis for pleasure, it can prevent a psychological breakdown, which can happen with these practices when they are done without a sense of pleasure or a warmth towards oneself. Treating mindfulness as a means to an end, just increases suffering. Like in St. John of the Cross and his Dark Night of the Soul, the mind is being purified of addictiveness with it’s eventual union with God, or Nirvana in Buddhism. This of course can go into an over-intellectualism, but nothing beats actual practice. Being clearly, but gently aware of what arises, and especially what passes away, relaxes the need to hold onto experiences. There’s also a sense of rest that can be found with each letting go. For example, if something is unpleasant and it vanishes, then naturally there is relief. What is unexpected is that when good things are happening, and they vanish, the mind can learn to feel a sense of rest. The mind is finding something enjoyable to follow. Shinzen says that “you are gradually developing a sensitivity to detect the unborn source of consciousness.”
This is a difficult practice, because the mind has to authentically let go in order for it to feel relief. By detecting gones with a sense of richness, and even a looking forward to another gone, prevents the mind from going into despair, and it can actually enjoy that stillness. The end of every breath is a stillness that timelessly contains all events. Shinzen defines ending as Nirodha in Sanskrit, or Nirvana, to blow-out. The blowing out quenches distress, and paradoxically becomes fulfilling. “As you become more sensitive to detecting Gone, you may come to a place where you note it so frequently that Goneness itself becomes an object of high concentration. The gaps between the ‘Gones’ get shorter and shorter until a figure-ground reversal takes place. Gone becomes the abiding ground. Self and world become fleeting figures. Needless to say, experiencing something like this will have a huge impact on how you relate to aging and death.”
Even when death surrounds everything, there’s an eternal nothing where everything comes from. It was always there, so a permanent sense of loss is comforted by a permanent sense of rest.
Gone – Shinzen Young: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-7LXHjGHfM&feature=youtu.be
The power of Gone – Shinzen Young: https://www.shinzen.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/art_PowerofGone.pdf
What is Mindfulness – Shinzen Young: https://www.shinzen.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/WhatIsMindfulness_SY_Public_ver1.5.pdf
Dark Night of the Soul – St. John of the Cross: https://www.isbns.net/isbn/9780486426938/
The Science of Enlightenment – Shinzen Young: https://www.isbns.net/isbn/9781683642121/
Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha: An Unusually Hardcore Dharma Book (Second Edition Revised and Expanded) by Daniel M. Ingram: https://www.isbns.net/isbn/9781911597100/ Free version: https://mctb.org/
Contemplative Practice: https://psychreviews.org/category/contemplativepractice/