Numinous Nonsense

[This post was taken from a response that I left a fellow member of the Dharma Overground. He posted a long explanation of his current practice, in which he is modulating between meditation and not-meditating during his sitting sessions. His reasoning is connected with parallels in training that he draws from physical training, and his descriptions were very sincere. Even so, I mostly disagreed with his assumptions and did my best to lay out my reasoning, which I thought would be interesting to share here. For a more in-depth understanding of what he was saying, please feel free to check out the original thread.]

Thanks for your post. I found your approach very interesting, and appreciated the methodicalness and precision of your experimentation. Bravo on that.

Also, assuming that you are sharing this to get feedback from other practitioners who have also conducted the “experiment of meditation”, so as to consider alternative perspectives and to perhaps fine-tune your own approach I offer the following for you consideration.

First, I think it’s an interesting parallel that you draw between fitness training and meditation. There certainly do seem to be many parallels here, and having been an athlete and completed several intensive periods of training (I’m currently in the midst of a 14-week strength training program that is quite rigorous) I thought I might take your points and dissect them a little further.

The parallel you seem to be making between over-training the body, and over-training through formal meditation practice seems good-and-well on the surface, but I would question this metaphor as these are categorically different areas of the training. Training attention is very different from training the physical body, as it has very different characteristics and qualities. That being said, I do think we could keep the over-training distinction, but instead should frame it in this way: Instead of seeing training the mind in terms of meditating vs. not-meditating, where if you meditate too much you will over-train, I would frame it instead in terms of “right effort”.

Having sat for as little as 30 minutes a day, and as much as 12 hours a day for months on end, I’ve found that insight and concentration are developed most effectively not by trying to modulate between meditating and not meditating (as clearly on a retreat one is meditating the entire time, nearly non-stop), but rather by modulating one’s amount of effort in practice. The over-training dichotomy then becomes laxity vs. over efforting. For example, when I am on retreat–or sitting in practice–I have a clear intention to remain mindful throughout that period. I never try and cultivate non-mindfulness (though one can’t be perfectly mindful, obviously), but instead try and notice when there is too much effort (in which case I relax) or when there is too little effort (in which case I wratchet up the interest and energy). I have over-efforted during practice before and it did lead to a kind of over-training where I felt completely zonked out, tight, and there didn’t seem to be much value in that practice. Then when I quit practicing and released the effort a bit I did find that there seemed to be progress. But I wouldn’t attribute that to meditating vs. not meditating but rather to not yet knowing how to modulate my effort through mindfulness.

You see, mindfulness–as is seen in the fantastic teachings on the seven factors of enlightenment–can never be over-developed as it is always working to balance out the other 6 factors (the 3 tranquilizing factors and the 3 energizing factors). The other 6 factors however can be over or under developed and so with those we must watch out how they are balanced. The great thing though is that mindfulness of whatever is occuring just naturally leads to the missing factor being strengthened. When our mind is dull and we’re mindful of it, the mind is inclining towards clarity. When the mind is over-energized and we are aware of it, we are holding it all in a wider space and can thus relax.

The danger of the approach that you mention, seems to me, to be that you could be intentionally cultivating non-mindfulness and undermining the powerful continuity of attention which brings about great depths of concentration and insight. Since you’ve read Daniel’s book I assume you’ve seen what a huge emphasis he puts on continuity, and how strongly he correlates continuous, strong practice with the developments of insight that each of us (presumably) are here to develop. I’ve certainly found this to be the case, and have seen with pretty much every meditation practice I’ve undertaken (insight, concentration, metta, etc.) that continuity is always stressed and for good reason.

That being said, I am quite open to being proven wrong on this point or to at least re-evaluating the importance of continuity of mindfulness in practice.

all the best,

-Vince H.

In a recent episode on the Precision Change podcast David Allen, the “productivity guru” as he is called, offers some great high-level reflections on the importance of his GTD system. Using the dichotomy of being and doing David says that [I’m paraphrasing] if you want to “just be” see how long you can be without having to go deal with bodily functions or some other form of doing. The implication here is that being is a state of inactivity and the moment we have to do anything then we need a system, or methodology, like his in order to help us with our doing. I agree on that point entirely, but have some problems and suggestions with regards to his assumption on the nature of being, and its relationship to doing.

What David perhaps doesn’t realize is that being isn’t the same as inactivity (or not-doing). Rather it is the connection with a fundamental, and formless aspect, of reality. That connection can happen during relative inactivity or during the most intense activity. The sages of all of the world’s wisdom tradition have recognized this. In the Taoist tradition we see references to the phrase “effortless effort”, in the Christian tradition we see a deep concern with the integration of contemplation and action, and in the Buddhist tradition we see the activity of the Bodhisattva, who does not forsake the world for some sort of pure being, but rather commits to helping all beings realize that same being. In short, there is absolutely no contradiction between being and doing, and many people throughout the millennia have recognized this.

But let’s not be too hard on David Allen. Being isn’t his main focus, and for what he has done in the world of doing, he has helped a tremendous number of people. Some of those people (like me) have even used his system to deepen their connection with and recognition of being. Thanks David!

That being said, if David, or any other productivity nuts are reading this, I want you to know that just as there are some great methodologies to help us do, like his GTD system, there are also many great methodologies for being. Indeed, just as David suggestions systematic instructions for how to become more organized, effective, and attentive to our life’s activity, there are many systematic instructions for helping one come to find deep levels of being, of stillness, and peace, in the very midst of doing!

Meditation techniques like Vipassana, Zen, Centering Prayer, Raja Yoga (not just the physical poses but the whole system of yoga), Vedanta, Sufi meditation, etc. are all methodologies for revealing the deepest truths about who we are. This truth is not opposed to the world (as many spiritual seekers often believe) but is rather something that deeply transcends the world, while also being intimately connected with it. It is both immanent and transcendent.

When one begins to awaken to their true being, their engagement with the world can emerge from a place of much greater stillness, peace, and clarity. Certain confusions can drop away, and we are free to engage our lives with a greater sense of freedom. This can be a tremendous compliment for mastering productivity, and as far as I can tell, one without the other can actually be a great disservice to our highest potential as human beings.

Though I read this interview (and blogged about it) nearly 4 years ago, I was struck by it again while re-reading this question and answer with spiritual teacher Adyashanti.

Question: People can be pretty skeptical nowadays about people who claim to be awake, and it may appear to many that you’re setting yourself up for an awful lot of criticism.

Adyashanti: And isn’t that telling? I think it’s unfortunate that a person can spend hour after hour, day after day, year after year, lifetime after lifetime dedicating their life to enlightenment, and yet the very notion that anybody attains enlightenment is taboo. We’re all going after this, but God forbid somebody says they’ve realized it. We don’t believe them, we’re cynical, we have doubt, we go immediately into semi- or overt attack mode. To me it highlights the fact that people are chasing an awakening they don’t believe could happen to them. That’s a barrier, and the biggest one.

This is such an important point, one I harp on constantly here on my blog, as well in my interactions with other dharma practitioners. Our models for what enlightenment is, to a large degree, seem to determine our success in waking up. If we cling to perfection models, which are unrealistic and unachievable, then we’ll constantly be distorting reality with expectations and assessments which are out of focus and unhelpful. When we relax our models, investigate the thoughts surrounding them, and use everything that arises as something worthy of investigation, then insight naturally happens and awakening is assured. Of course, we still have to re-engage our models and continue to grow and evolve as human beings. On the personal side of the things, this is an endless process, but awakening is not “endless”.

I’m glad that more teachers like Adyashanti are getting this message out there, are challenging the dark shroud surrounding enlightenment, and are bringing it into the realm of the achievable. In the same article Adyashanti claims that, “when people have breakthroughs and talk about them in public, awakening loses its mystique. Everyone else can see that it’s not just special people who have deep awakenings, it’s their neighbor or their best friend.” Here’s to more transparent dharma, and to more people actually getting it for themselves!

I’ve been an active user on Twitter, the micro-blogging community, for over a year. Being a big fan of the service, I love to see when new folks get on there, especially when we’re really close. For those of you not on there, but interested, here’s a killer video on Twitter from the folks at Common Craft:

There’s no way to grasp what is always happening, because as soon as you do you’re unable to open your hand fast enough to receive the next gift of god. So, how to grasp something with your hands always open, this is the paradox of prayer. - Father Thomas Keating

An amazing video where Father Thomas Keating explains the dynamic between the universal and personal dimensions of reality…

Props to the Global Oneness Project for the video.

[I've been having a fun back-and-forth with a dharma friend on what seem to be two different takes on enlightenment. One is the more traditional Theravada model where the defilements (kilesas) are destroyed upon full enlightenment, which is call arhantship in that tradition. The other model is that the sense of a separate doer, perceiver, knower, or center-point is seen through completely and has simply stopped functioning in the way it used to. In this model the person is still able to feel and do everything they could prior to enlightenment, including anger, fear, desire, etc. What follows is my criticism of the first model and an argument for the integration between the desire to become a better person and to become enlightened.]

Thanks for your reply and for your thoughts on the difference between these two perspectives. Though I do disagree with the removal of defilements model, I do think that Jack Engler (from what I’ve read of his) has perhaps one of the more down-to-earth takes on it.

The main problem, as you know, is that there aren’t any westerners (including Engler) who using that set of criteria have attained arhantship. I wrote about this in my undergraduate thesis, in a section called “the glass ceiling of enlightenment” and quoted Joseph Goldstein, from two sources, supporting this view. The first was from an interview he did with some Spirit Rock folks, where he claimed that no Westeners had yet achieved full enlightenment, but that once they did he thought that several others would follow (kind of like when the 4 min mile was broken), hence my use of the glass ceiling metaphor. Then, when I was on the 3-month course with him a couple years back he made a comment that if anyone was an arhant in the crowd they could have the retreat center, IMS. It was a half joke, but also very serious. Everyone laugh and I cringed. hahaha.

The problem is that if we can’t find a single arhant out of all of these amazing folks who have spents year after year on retreat, have plunged the depths of the Buddha’s teachings, and have presumably sat with many asian arhants, then something is terribly wrong. And what is wrong, isn’t us, but the models we have about arhantship. We want it to be the final cure-all, an emotionally perfected state, and yet there isn’t a single westerner (or I would argue asian) example of someone who has clearly achieved that. There are however, some pretty smart people, who having attained what they can only presume is the end of the road–including Daniel Ingram and Jack Kornfield, but many others as well–who have deconstructed the models and have offered something far more human, attainable, and worthwhile in their place.

That being said, I have a great sense of sympathy with the appeal you mentioned around the development of compassion and presence, that certain great people seem to have. One way I think these two approaches can be integrated, is by differentiating between Buddhahood and arhantship. Arhantship being the untying of the knot of perception, and the dissolution of a separate doer, perceiver, or knower. In essence it’s the full realization of a fundamental non-dual identity, which while supremely important in terms of identity doesn’t necessarily change any of the human difficulties that came before it. Buddhahood on the other hand, is the ongoing path of one who has committed themselves to cultivating all of the different parami qualities, knowing that their development is really an endless endeavor, though it can have amazing results. After the ecstasy, the laundry and after enlightenment, the further cultivation and development of skillful ways of being in the world.