Powerful Self Enquiry in Samatha: Explained

[ardacigin]

At some point in your spiritual practice, you’ll experience the manifestations of physical pliancy, such as the absence of ordinary tactile sensations, feelings of weightlessness or floating, and pleasurable sensations throughout the body.

When this happens, it is important to ignore (without craving or aversion) all bodily sensations and deepen metacognitive awareness to higher levels to practice self enquiry. 

Scientists and philosophers have grasped what I'm about to say intellectually. However, these truths have little to no value whatsoever unless it completely transforms the mind fully at the core of the hidden recesses of your psyche.

This following practice will provide a mature insight into these truths to be permanently embodied.

These are the 3 false perceptions your existing psyche operates on. These are the foundation of all your motivations, beliefs and actions.

1- I'm a separate entity, a Self, in a world of other entities.

2- My emotional states - happiness or unhappiness - depend intimately on the interactions between myself and the other entities/objects/environments.

3- As a self, I rely on my manipulation and survival skills to influence these interactions to satisfy my cravings in the hopes of satisfaction where my happiness will be maximized and suffering will be minimized.

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All 3 of these assumptions are false. The following practice will help you see through this complicated illusion.

The Still Point and Self-Enquiry

This practice allows us to “step outside” our reactions to the sensory experiences associated with pacification and the arising of bodily sensations of joy and pleasure as a result of your practice.

This creates enough detachment and equanimity to let these processes unfold naturally by themselves. Pleasurable sensations still appear in awareness but receive no attention at all.
Start your meditation by becoming fully aware of the world around you. Explore your immediate environments with attention.

Feel it with your body. Listen to the sounds inside and outside the room you’re sitting in.

Sense all of the activity that’s going on.

For example, you might hear airplanes flying overhead, traffic noises, birds and dogs, and various human activities. Then, let your mind identify and fill in the source of the sounds you hear.

Picture in your mind the cars you hear, the airplanes flying through the sky, and the birds sitting in trees. Expand the scope of your attention to include a visualization of the constant ferment of activity going on all over the world, on land, in the waters, and in the sky.

Reflect on the earth as it spins on its axis, moving through space at thousands of miles per hour, surrounded by the constant motion of planets and stars and entire galaxies whirling through the void at inconceivable speeds.
While keeping this universe of ceaseless movement and change clear in your awareness, shift your attention to your body, sitting in stillness on the cushion.

Allow the contrast between the stillness of your body and the activity of the external world to saturate your consciousness.

Keep your attention focused on your body while the rest of the world fills your awareness.

Over time, you’ll naturally become aware of movement and activity in the body—breathing, the beating of your heart and pulsing in your arteries, and maybe the energy currents and involuntary movements of piti.

Visualize all the other activity you know is taking place in your body—the movement of food through your digestive tract, the flow of blood through tissue, urine collecting in the bladder, and glands secreting substances of all kinds.
Once you have a clear, strong sense of your body as a hive of activity, shift the focus of your attention to your mind. Let the hum of activity in your body join the rest of the world in peripheral awareness while attending to the relative peace and quiet of your well-trained mind.

Contrast the relative calm and quiet of the mind with all the turmoil, activity, and change in the realm of physical sensations, noting in particular that quality of mental stillness and peace. Allow your attention to dwell on the difference between your mind’s inner stillness and the teeming activity in your body and the world.

Inevitably, you start to notice that the mind really isn’t that quiet after all, except when compared to everything outside of it. At the same time, you’ll become aware of an even greater stillness at the core of your moment-to-moment experience.

This is called the Still Point. A point where absolutely profound levels of equanimity lie.

Find that Still Point, and make its stillness the focus of your attention. Relegate everything else to peripheral awareness, letting things remain or pass away as they will.

Enjoy the Still Point, resting in it as often and for as long as you like. The strange sensations of pacification and the energies of pīti will just blend in with everything else in the background of awareness while attention rests unperturbed. Unification will continue.
By doing this practice and investigating the Still Point, it becomes obvious that this is where all observation happens. The Still Point, in other words, is the metaphorical “vantage point” from which metacognitive awareness occurs—except that it’s now become the “seat” of metacognitive attention.

And the focus of your attention is the subjective experience of looking at the mind and 'the material world' from a totally detached perspective.

Suffice to say, this brings equanimity skills to monstrous levels.

Equanimity is non-reactivity to both pleasure and pain (not just pain). This is facilitated by powerful awareness and joyful tranquility thanks to your diligent practice. Now it is time to bring in the final component.

Self Enquiry Process:

As you keep observing, you may also discover the so-called Witness, the subjective experience of a pure, unmoving, and unmoved observer who is unaffected by whatever is observed.

 A warning is in order here. You will likely feel that you have discovered the true Self, the ultimate ground of all experience. In a sense you have—but it’s not at all what you think!

The Witness state is the ultimate ground of your personal experience, but it has arisen in dependence upon the body and the world, and it will disappear with the body. Its real value and significance is that it points toward a much more profound Insight, provided you don’t make the mistake of clinging to it as a Self.

Doing so only nourishes the attachment we are all born with to the idea of being a singular, enduring, and separate Self.

Mistaking the Witness state for a true Self is what leads some people to claim that Consciousness is the True Self. 'Consciousness' in this case is different from what Leo means by Consciousness. In this case, consciousness has a fixed form, state and duration in time. It appears profound but is still illusory.
To properly use the Witness experience, probe more deeply.

Go to the Still Point, the place of the Witness, with a question:

“Who or what is this witness?”

“Who is watching?”

“Who is experiencing?”

Adamantly refuse to entertain any answers offered by your intellectual, thinking mind. Also, don’t be deceived by your emotional mind, which will try to make you believe you’ve found the answer when you haven’t.

Just hold on to the question as you experience the Witness. Don't waver.

If and when Insight arises, it will be a profound Insight into the truth of no-Self, and it will be so obvious that you’ll wonder why you never realized it before.

With the culmination of such a practice, the first stage of awakening - stream entry - will occur. The first permanent stage of awakening where those 3 false assumptions your life rests on will dissolve.

 

 

 

Edited December 4, 2021 by ardacigin

[Endangered-EGO]

@ardacigin Thank you for the detailed instruction. I have myself tried experimented a lot with mindfullness, concentration, doership and non-doership.

However I believe this just puts the issue one level further into more subtle territories.

How to you stay in the stillpoint without manipulating your experience constantly?

 

For me, sometimes when I am in a still state that isn't induced by concentration the self can fall away. Sometimes it's just gone, and sometimes when my eyes are open it feels like there's a 180° switch between content and context. Like for example with a self context is the outside world and without one, context is that pure awareness/conscioussness.

Do you have any instructions to just drop into it, without focusing on objects or broadening awareness? I feel like this just reinforces the neuroticism of the self to always want to do something about everything.

 

[ardacigin]

4 minutes ago, Endangered-EGO said:

How to you stay in the stillpoint without manipulating your experience constantly?

You drop into still point by NOT manipulating your experience in absolute equanimity. (Although equanimity is not absolute. It just appears that way since equanimity dial has increased from 2% to 80% in still point).

However, this is a slightly pleasant state. Not a neutral one. In the background, joyful tranquility (which should already be developed prior to engaging in this technique) will paint the emotional tone of the practice. Being 'bored' in this process is a sign more Samatha practice is needed to develop more joy and happiness.

You can still do this without it, but there are important reasons why I don't recommend going 'dry insight' which I won't go into now.

9 minutes ago, Endangered-EGO said:

Do you have any instructions to just drop into it, without focusing on objects or broadening awareness? I feel like this just reinforces the neuroticism of the self to always want to do something about everything.

Dropping into it has 2 main components:

1- You need to fuse attention and awareness in a completely open state. Similar to Dzogchen and mahamudra. In TMI, you develop stable attention and strong awareness. It is usually experienced as 2 different modalities of perception. But you need to use them both at the same time.

But that changes a lot here. In this case, you expand the attention (the analytical faculty) to the whole body and relegate the awareness with the investigation of mind contents. The distinction between attention and awareness blurs.

Both qualities of 'analytical observation' and 'awareness context' is fully present simultaneously. The tendency for attention to contract on an object and turn it into a 'thing' is released constantly and returned back to the open state. Awareness is entirely metacognitive.

Practice this deeply and try to understand exactly how this dynamic works.

2- As a result of your practice, you should already have high levels of equanimity. This technique puts you there more deeply by fusing attention and awareness.

The equanimity feels like 'I can deal with any and all sensations that might arise right now' sort of proficiency to it. You need to master physical relaxation to extremely high levels at this point. Without inducing dullness or sleepiness.

Then you need to develop jhanic factors like happiness and joy. Only then will equanimity be developed guided by joyful tranqıility and relaxation. Ensuring efficient energy use in alert relaxation.

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Hope this helps.

Much love

[Endangered-EGO]

@ardacigin @ardacigin Th

But that's exactly the problem. I can get into equanimity by sitting down. Unfortunately there's always dark night territory afterwards. It's like being raped into submission.

 

Idk if I'm different, but I guarantee if I sit down for long enough up to Equanimity, either I'm passing out, or I suffer very very much. 

 

Either suffering is a step and I don't want it or I don't want to go through it that fast.

 

I honestly don't think this is leading me into a good place!

 

I can only meditate lying down, doing nothing at all. Surrendering to everything, giving up everything. This however doesn't lead to no-self.

[Nahm]

@Endangered-EGO

No self isn’t something one is led to, it’s already the case. The resistance to sitting & equanimity, is the suffering, which is the belief in a separate self. The neuroticism is being accredited to ‘the self’. That, the belief in the separate self is the neuroticism. There isn’t actually either. Just the resistance and suffering of the belief. Find the one who suffers literally. Go to the sensation of the suffering and see what it is literally.  There either is or is not the experience of suffering, because there either is or is not a separate self. 

 

[ardacigin]

6 hours ago, Endangered-EGO said:

@ardacigin @ardacigin Th

But that's exactly the problem. I can get into equanimity by sitting down. Unfortunately there's always dark night territory afterwards. It's like being raped into submission.

 

Idk if I'm different, but I guarantee if I sit down for long enough up to Equanimity, either I'm passing out, or I suffer very very much. 

 

Either suffering is a step and I don't want it or I don't want to go through it that fast.

 

I honestly don't think this is leading me into a good place!

 

I can only meditate lying down, doing nothing at all. Surrendering to everything, giving up everything. This however doesn't lead to no-self.

I understand. I've realized this later on that this is a samatha issue.

 I personally had extreme agitation reactions to sitting in cross legged postures (sweating) + lot of leg pain in mere 10 mins. This goes to show how horrible and negative I've reinforced my habits and had no idea of the attention and awareness dynamic.  (Even though I was practicing TMI for 1-2 years at that point).

This is a complicated problem you need to solve by developing jhanic factors and reinforcing positive attitudes and immediate relaxation in the face of 5 hindrances or your negative habits. (like sweating, striving, forcing etc).

Otherwise, meditation will be torture. Try to bring in the ease you have laying down. The same amount of comfort can be maintain in a cross legged posture with physical pliancy down the road.

[BipolarGrowth]

Just did this practice from the perspective of most likely 3rd path in Theravada Buddhism via the criteria outlined in Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha and other writings of Daniel Ingram, and it is clear that @ardacigin knows his stuff ??❤️
 

Please consider doing this practice if you have not or even have already reached stream entry. It can be very effective. 

[ardacigin]

@BipolarGrowth Glad you got value out of it.

 

[RMQualtrough]

I've had the experience you are describing. What if the answer to the questions you ask is nobody or nothingness? Because all elements of the self or me, do move and change. What is unmoving is of no substance or attribute... Is that what the insight is meant to be?

[ardacigin]

17 hours ago, RMQualtrough said:

I've had the experience you are describing. What if the answer to the questions you ask is nobody or nothingness? Because all elements of the self or me, do move and change. What is unmoving is of no substance or attribute... Is that what the insight is meant to be?

That is not quite the insight. All feelings of separate selfhood are complex and subtle mental constructs that inform the way you feel in your body and perceive the world. What is 'changing' or moving is irrelevant.