how do we distinguish between the type of anger that stirs us to take right action Something I find myself doing while reading NYTimes headlines on the toilet…Reads headline -> feels heated/flippant/frustration rising -> Reads another headline -> inner flippancy rises -> *thinks “oh, wait, I’ve been here before” -> is this painful? — yes … Continued
Our motivation for samadhi increases as we sense the possibilities of the fruits of practice. The more we sense the interconnectedness of life, the more we want to understand what seems to separate us from everything else, and the more we see the need to stabilize our mind in order to discover that fact. The … Continued
Another supportive component of samadhi that is often overlooked is the understanding and realization of the need for a stable mind. We are not creating stability because it is written in a text or because someone we admire told us it was important; we are doing this because we feel the need. This is extremely … Continued
A component of this steadying attention is the development of faith. Faith is distinguished by a relaxed attitude to the presentations of the mind. The faith-mind is undefended and confident within the complete array of mental phenomena, and is no longer afraid of what the mind contains. The faith-mind understands that thinking does not characterize … Continued
When there is complete rest and no mental movement, awareness senses what cannot move and has never moved, the absolute reality from which all relative reality arises. One teacher calls this “the Dazzling Dark.” The Buddha speaks about this in the following passage: “There is a state where form ceases to exist. It is a … Continued
The space that holds thought has always been present, but it cannot be sensed while we are grasping at each new concept. Cultivating concentration does nothing to the space itself; it simply allows the mind to extricate itself from identification with thought. If we look at what happens when the mind loses its sense of … Continued
A steady mind is quiet, and from that stillness observes the movement of life. If this steadiness is met with the primary intention, there will be a knowing when the self appears. This knowing quality is inherent to awareness itself and does not have to be trained. If I were to pass my hand between … Continued
What passes for the increasingly popular field of Consciousness Studies is, in almost all cases, a study of brain activity, not a study of consciousness. Only consciousness knows about consciousness. Only awareness is aware of awareness. Science is an activity of the finite mind, that is, an activity of thought and perception, and necessarily superimposes … Continued
Ask yourself the question, ‘Am I aware?’ but don’t answer the question with the thought ‘Yes’. Just ask the question ‘Am I aware?’ and allow your attention to be drawn to the experience that will subsequently inform the answer ‘Yes’. The experience that takes place in between the two thoughts, ‘Am I aware?’ and ‘Yes’, … Continued
The experience of being aware of being aware may be triggered by the thought ‘Am I aware?’ but it is revealed between this thought and the response ‘Yes’, that is, in between two appearances of mind. Just as the colourless screen is all that is present between two frames of a movie, so the experience … Continued
Mind is not an entity that is distinct from awareness; it has no status or existence of its own. In fact, there is no such thing as ‘a mind’, just as there is no such thing as ‘a movie’ with its own existence independent of the screen. Mind is the movement, activity or functioning of … Continued
Awareness’s knowing of its own being is the simplest, most obvious, intimate and ordinary experience, which all people have in common. In fact, it is not an experience that a person has. Awareness is the experiencing element in all experience. It is awareness that has the experience of being aware, that is, it is awareness … Continued
In our culture we primarily value objects, states of mind, ideas, beliefs, opinions, feelings and relationships. We give our attention to objective knowledge so exclusively that our primary experience–the subjective knowledge of ‘I’, awareness’s knowledge of itself, or the experience of simply being aware–is, in most cases, overlooked or ignored.
The finite mind can only know a limited object–something with limited, objective qualities, such as a thought, feeling, sensation or perception–even though it is itself made out of unlimited awareness. The mind cannot even think of awareness, for awareness has no objectives qualities and the mind can only think of something objective. If the mind … Continued
We cannot delay fully embracing the moment. To do so maintains the divisions within the mind, the division between the mind and the body, and the division between the organism and its environment. All divisions are attempts to keep us from the truth of what is right here. When this is understood by the sincere … Continued
Mindfulness eventually becomes redefined through nondoing and relaxation, and nondoing validates everything. When our ambition toward promoting our mindfulness has ceased, we begin to rest in what is naturally available. Mindfulness effortlessly moves into an abiding awareness, which maintains itself in our absence.
Discerning the difference between thinking about something and directly experiencing it is the function of samadhi. Through the quiet, abiding attention of samadhi, we see clearly how the self comes into being through the commentary we infuse and the narrative we create.
All of this presupposes the basic Buddhist teaching and truth of anatta. This concept is at the heart of the Eightfold Path and will be explored thoroughly in the next chapter. Learning anatta intellectually is not the point; anatta is to be realized, ingested, and completely integrated into every facet of our life. The spiritual … Continued
There is the story of a man who goes to the Buddha and asks him, “If each separate sense-door (smelling, seeing, tasting, etc.) does not connect to the other, what holds all the senses in a single body?” The Buddha replies, “The mind holds all the senses.” All the senses arrive into the mind and … Continued
When pure perception is forced into an exact definition by confining it to a word (in this case, “robin”), the sense-of-self arises in that moment. The sense-of-self and the word are mutually dependent upon one another, but it feels as if “I am experiencing a robin.” More specifically, the self arises with the knowledge that … Continued