Choiceless Awareness

A look at a spontaneous and natural approach to meditation which is immediate and

direct
By Da Dennis
Introduction
It has been my privilege to practice many forms of meditation as taught in the
countries of India, Burma, Thailand as well taking many pre-meditation courses in
western nations particularly in the U.S. and especially in California. Among these
early courses were hypnosis, Science of Mind, Silva Mind Control and
Transcendental Meditation, all concerned with the use of mental capacities to create a
difference in mentality. I was interested in these practices because they were
concerned with the regulation of the mind to create new experiences, usually
pleasanter and more exciting than normal everyday routine mentalities which create
anxiety and suffering. Most of this activity was about changing one mental situation
for another or brightening up the box in which I and most people around me lived.
New Thought,which I was involved in, for example was about exchanging an old,
restricted thought for a more positive expanded one. New Thought, The Infinite Way
(Joel Goldsmith), Unity and Science of Mind all promised a better tomorrow if mind
could dwell upon the positive and divine principle of life which they among other
names called God.

Hypnosis which was the first mental training which I explored. It taught me the
power of suggestion and it's interference into the unconscious mind. I also
discovered the power of intervening in someone else's brain. Science of Mind taught
me that by attuning myself to what they called the Infinite then my life would be full
of happiness, and my necessities would be met. Silva Mind Control taught me how
to control my own mind through a special technique. Then mantra repetition as
practiced by Transcendental Meditation taught me how i could regulate my
brainwaves and become relaxed and calm, an important way to live in this busy world
with its numerous ups and downs.

It wasn't until my later years that I began to investigate more serious forms of mental
work as taught in India and elsewhere in the mystic east. The emphasis upon what i
now discovered was inner investigation, called in Hindu Advaita schools as well as
Buddhist, vichara rather then mental manipulation: to see what is real and un-clouded
by mind's desires. In Buddhist meditation it is called vipassana: to see what is truly
real. It was a totally different direction. I must give special thanks to the Indian
Advaita teachers and their teaching of the Non-dual nature of reality which gave a
tremendous boost to my already developing practice. Among those teachers could be
counted Ramana Maharshi of south India, Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj of Bombay and
the non-categorical J. Krishnamurti of world fame. The three of them together
seemed to point in a similar direction taking meditation out of the realm of
otherworldliness into the practice of self-observation and investigation in the now. I
am most indebted to J. Krishnamurti's teachings which seemed to appear
spontaneously during the most stressful moments of practice and which shed a
different light upon the process which I was going through.

My own discovery of the direct and simple practice of meditation came about as the
result of many years of Buddhist Meditation. Though I had previous contact with
great teachers such as Master Thich Nhat Hahn, the Vietnamese peace worker and
founder of Plum Village in France, it was not until I came in contact with Mr. S.N
Goenka's form of Vipassana meditation that I earnestly began to practice. After
several years and eight courses I sincerely felt that I needed contact with living
teachers because the Vipassana Courses were taught with video tapes and CDs and
the material had been too standardized to suit me. I felt that in the standardization of
his materials, Mr. Goenka had shut out the spirit of the Dharma and reduced the
process to a mechanical form of meditation. With gratitude I left his practice and
went to Thailand where I decided to reside in a northern province, Chiang Rai, in a
simple monastery located between the Mekong River and seven beautiful mountains.
Wat Tam Doi Kung Kheow was a perfect place to practice. After three and one half
years of residing there I moved to another Temple outside of Chiang Mai called Wat
Tam Doi where Ajaan Nawee who spoke enough English re-oriented my practice.
At some point a friend informed me of a Dharma teacher in Burma and getting a
monastic invitation from him I went to the monastery of Sayadow Pau Auk who
specialized in the Jhana practice. The Jhana is a very concentrated form of mental
capacity often called the Samadhis in the Hindu tradition. Unfortunately political
problems between the U.S. and Burma occurred and American citizens were given
24hours to leave the country. This interrupted my practice.

Upon returning to India I began to visit Nepal and especially Lumbini the place of the
Buddha's birth where I became cognizant of the Panditarama Meditation Centre
where the resident Teacher was the German Sayadow Vivekananda. Under several
drawn out retreats, the longest of two month duration I began, through self-
introspection, to observe unusual meditation states. This led me to return many times
to this center and put myself under his guidance. It became an important place for
my self-investigation.

Within the last few years of practicing on my own, however a new way began to
reveal itself. Often influenced by contemplating the guidances of J. Krishnamurti or
the Diamond and Heart Sutras as well as questioning the ideas of Sri Nisargadatta or
Ramesh Balsikar, one of his disciples, and whom i sat with for a month at his flat in
Bombay, the form of meditation would become more natural, fluid and silent.

I began to notice that with patience the mind would get bored with its noise and
preoccupations and naturally rests into the silent state from which happiness,
quietness and creativity would arise.
This is the natural and spontaneous meditation teaching which I should like to impart
with you. It will not take many pages to explain and will, I believe, turn your
practice into a celebration, making the Dharma a present, every day reality for you.

Deep, direct and immediate

These are the necessary qualifications for the natural and spontaneous meditation
states which I transmit to you. Should meditation not be deep it will not reveal the
underlying process of the arising of thought. It is this arising, along with the
secondary manifestation of accompanying sensations, which reveal the existence of
the "I-Am", the personality. This I-am is so important because when it arises then the
entire perception of the universe arises along with it. Also with the I-Am arising,
the belief in a personality, a soul, even that of a meditator or a person who meditates
appears. This belief must be penetrated in a very special way: Its emptiness must
be seen, it's not-real energy must be resolved, again in a very special way, back to its
true nature.
In order for this impersonal revolution to occur, the meditative insight ought to be
direct. As will be explained later it is already direct. As the student becomes more
adroit in his observation he will discover the processes involved in observing. The
process is, in itself ,natural and spontaneous. This spontaneity is direct and it is
immediate. By this I mean that as soon as one has the sensation that something is
there, a knowingness arises about it. This momentary knowingness is the direct
acknowledgement, without any effort, of the immediacy of mind. This is the
revelation of mind's functioning. A thought arises, knowingness arises and the brain
has rested immediately and directly upon the object. There is no work involved. And
it occurs so rapidly that it is undetectable even to many long-time practitioners.
There is an impersonality there also. As the student continues observing in this way,
he might make the incredible and insightful discovery that he, himself does not
observe, but observation goes on; he, himself does not move upon the mental object
nor it's sensations, but a moving occurs and produces knowingness. This directly
instructs the student into the great insights of ANATTA, the non-self, emptiness,
vastness, tathata. This realization need not wait. It need not take years of practice.
When the student sees that he doesn't move to the mental object and that he doesn't
even choose a mental object, but that he has nothing to do with any moving or
choosing, and yet a selection process is occurring within him, through him, then he is
on the path to awakening. When he discovers that his thoughts and feelings are
impersonal, not-me, not I, then he has gone direct to his moksha ( his breakthrough)
from belief about himself: He is not the doer. Therefore it is towards this process, the
understanding of which leads to momentary enlightenment, which in turn reveals the
deepest silence from which wisdom occurs and ordinary thinking processes are
resolved into their original natures, to which the student is directed.

Beginning so...
When you sit down to practice, for at the beginning that is what meditation is:
practice, don't start at a fixed point and don't end at a fixed point. Don't arrange the
mind or prepare it or compose it in order to have a proper or good session. Just sit and
watch the beginning of the session begin naturally. If you prepare the mind to
meditate, as one person told me,then you hold some type of idea of what and how the
session should go. Or how you want it to go! This is a very difficult point for most
meditators to understand: eventually you will come to the illumination that "you"
don't meditate at all. It all occurs through "you". Whether you are sitting, standing,
laying down, walking or doing some type of work, it is all happening through you.
You only interfere with the process at the most.
Have you ever noticed how when you simply look at an object there is no tension or
stress in the eyes, how the eyes just simply see? Additionally when you try to focus
your eyes to see something up more closely you tend to feel a tightness caused by
stress? Also as you strain to see a particular object you zoom in on the object
eliminating everything else around it? This is how you interfere with the eyes and
also, in the case of conditioned mental concentration, this is how you interfere with
mind and thinking. You cut out everything except the one idea upon which you want
to think about and limit your process greatly. Is this something which is to be
desired? This is the interference of the mind which shuts out the entire picture, that
which is present and only focuses on a part. This interference, conditioned as it is
must be eliminated in order to see what is here, now.
The Indian meditation traditions call this renunciation. The renunciation however
occurs through illuminative insight. It can't be provoked. It is the deep realization
that you are not the doer, in this case you are not the meditator, though doing and
meditating proceed. Karma yoga is essentially going through life with this insightful
wisdom. Every action, obligation and activity thus is relieved from stress and
anxiety. It occurs through you though you may not have the ability to trace when it
occurred. Ultimately as the understanding arises naturally and spontaneously and the
"doer" takes a transformative back seat you will be led to the deepest realization of
ANATTA or no-self. This realization will destroy that which gets in the way of
being free.

Simply sitting

Simply sitting can be the most difficult form of being. The mind is always busy
seeking an object, usually gratifying and self-creating which means a way to prove to
itself that it exists. So it goes on constantly dealing with its survival moving, at the
speed of thought from one object to another. Many meditation traditions, primarily
those originating in the East try to still this process or to re-focus the attention
somewhere else converting the student into a very busy meditator concerned with
eliminating or at least calming down his mind. In simple sitting as used in choiceless
awareness there is an underlying insight that quieting down the mind, that is, using
intention, viz. an artificial practice can cause damage to the mind and redirect
meditation from its being ness to another form of doing ness. In simple sitting, the
meditator allows his attention to expand and include all activities of mind effortlessly.
Being choiceless has no agenda of what or how either his attention to mind should be,
where his mind should focus, what it should investigate. Letting the mind do what it
must he finds himself getting more and more detached and freed from the process
and, it will be noted that mind will get tired of its activities and quiet down by itself.
This is the natural form of shamata, or tranquility meditation. There is no agenda for
going into simple sitting and so the meditator can observe how the mind,conditioned
as it is, will fight against its new found freedom trying to make the meditator feel
secure and happy by pulling him out of the here and now and attaching him to some
object.

Difficulties in transmission
How to adequately transmit a dharma from teacher to disciple has been a problem
and great difficulty. To pass on the wordless has always been a challenge. A Parsi
friend once told me that the Holy Zoroaster taught most of his life before he
discovered his first student who happened to be the Emperor of Persia.
The meditative state is beyond words,and though often explained in esoteric symbols
and language it must be a very special student who understands it. This state is an
exploration into the unknown and as such it is very difficult to create a path to it.
One can only, at best, deal with the obstacles which block it's understanding. One
cannot create enlightenment: if it is created by the mind or by an artificial mechanical
process then it might seem like enlightenment but ultimately it would only be the
fulfillment of what has been contained in the memory banks, deposited there by
teachers, books and courses, all which are usually based upon someone else's
premises or traditional ideas from the past. Then the student has been impregnated
with a goal and an idea. With enthusiasm the brain will set off in the direction of
fulfilling such an idea and manifesting it as well. So the difficulty lies in a pure
transmission from teacher to student in a form which will not persuade, hypnotize or
influence him. The best way, I have decided is that the student investigate all of the
mental baggage which clouds his mind. For example do we really understand what
love is? Have we adopted someone else's ideas about it? Societies' ideas about it?
We feel mutual attraction to another and we call it love, do we not? That attraction is
constructed by physical and mental sensations of magnetism and passion defined as
love. But we don't know love directly because true, authentic love cannot be taught.
However we do know directly those non-love elements which together make up love.
Those elements might be heat, mental happiness, attraction,etc. By looking at those
elements through wisdom, then love might be revealed. And it might be the same as
truth, enlightenment,joy and every other condition. You see how difficult it is to
transmit clear experiences! The intellectual concept of something held in the mind
before it becomes silent is just that: an idea. But when the silence arises the
transmission is complete because it has experienced the thing itself. Otherwise it is
an opinion.
Patience, acceptance, equanimity
Often I find meditators, especially those who practice many years and are in great
difficulties, cling to their techniques and teachers almost pathetically. I feel that
progress is much more important then fulfilling a method or being loyal to a specific
teacher or school.
To begin with there is a mental type of Sila (conduct, the holy life, a minimal amount
of mental structure ) which helps make plain the way as one begins to meditate, a
preliminary type of preparation. The first is to acquire patience. When I say this I do
not mean that you can go out and acquire patience but that you must at least consider
why you are not patient with yourself. This patience is related to the second
preliminary attitude which is: accept any state of mind which arises in the meditative
practice. A busy mind is as good as a silent mind; a jumpy, disruptive mental state, a
monkey mind is as good as an empty, tranquil mind. That means that while one
mental state might be more advantageous then another the student must see all mental
states for what they are. Pleasant or unpleasant they arise from mind.

In other words acceptance which will develop into equanimity is essential for a
successful meditative practice. Whatever arises before the mind's eye is acceptable as
a mental object and worthy to be an object of investigation.
Another important quality needed is commitment. There must also be a dedicated
and serious commitment to the spiritual life and it's investigative practices. It must
become important. If there is only a mild and mediocre interest I believe that the
result will be the same. If there is no authentic commitment then after a few feeble
attempts into self-realization, perhaps experiencing the difficulties involved, the
student will give up. He will find any excuse to stay the investigation: No time, more
important commitments and thousands of other excuses to leave the practice.

Concentration
Traditional meditators often recommend a strong and previously developed
concentrative effort before deep meditation is practiced. The Theravada school calls
this shamata and Vipassana, this being depth exploration, analysis and inquiry. I do
not fully agree with this though i admit that for many slower developing meditators
this might be needed. Having practiced shamata techniques, especially concentration
on the breath and the abdomen, I find that it is very indirect and unnatural. It also
often produces undo stress as usually seen at meditation retreats.
Slow and fast vehicles ?
The question of slow and fast methods has been a sore spot in many meditation
schools. The Vajra school which began in India but found its greatest acceptance in
Tibet and somewhat in Japan as the Shingon school, claims to be a faster path to
realization. Some Theravada masters in Thailand and Burma claim the same. The
fifth and final Chan Patriarch Hui Neng believed that his way was more direct but
never criticized the slower "gradual school" of his colleague. The Patriarch's School
was transmitted to Japan and called Zen. This school calls itself a direct and natural
pointing to truth. I believe that the misunderstanding between meditators is due to
their misunderstanding of meditation. Meditation is a non-intellectual state in which
inquiry into reality spontaneously and naturally occurs within an experience of deep
silence.
Meditation is not limited to something which you do, an extra mental activity, like
dreaming, or visualization though in the beginning it might seem so. In the first
stages of meditation, one goes off to retreats and courses. One might even study texts
and attend guru classes because meditation is still not properly understood. It
remains as yet in the realm of the ego. There is an ego, a ME, an I-am which takes
the form of a meditator. This meditator-ego believes many things about spirituality.
He sees a fixed and determined goal to it: Perhaps enlightenment, a better re-
incarnation, a peaceful mind, happiness, etc. Meditation for him is clearing, changing
and transforming the mind. He has not been deeply touched by the Holy Spirit
(poetically speaking) so meditation is still only one of several daily activities. This
does not mean that the practitioner is wrong, or insincere. For many people this
might be their introduction. Then, as if suddenly, the mind opens and reveals its
specialness to him, even if for one mental moment. Thus meditation converts itself
into a state of being, the essential condition for guiding all the other activities of life,
for making decisions, for mental processing itself.

Now, somehow he has entered into the stream of meditation, spirituality, self-
investigation. It is no longer he who determines life, but Life Itself which arises
through him. He is no longer the doer, but all things are done through him! There is a
tremendous pull there and it is no longer the meditator's decision. The practice now
resolves itself into life.
A natural momentary inquiry
A momentary concentration is brought about by the natural attraction of awareness to
a sensation or a mental object. This natural movement is what produces a natural
concentration and is sufficient to create a natural enquiry into the matter.
When you sit and become aware of a thought, there is no effort in this. The same
when you become aware of a sensation. A sensation arises, then you become aware
of it. There is no seeking the sensation, nor the thought. It is just there. In the same
manner a free and natural awareness arises. As it becomes steadier by its own natural
process the analytical mind will investigate it, understand its nature let go of it and
move on to the next thought or sensation. In the arising there is an attraction to the
mind to look at it. There is, again, no effort to it. It simply occurs by its own energy.
It seems to be a momentary type of mental magnetism.
Sense organs and meditation
The brain functioning through its sense organs is constantly penetrating the world
around it examining and classifying the phenomena which occurs so that it can create
an appropriate response. The myriad of information particles entering through the
skin,eyes, nose, mouth ears and brain produces the next moment of the body's
existence and choice. The body creates a type of field around it, created by the
senses, and absorbs the appropriate information and uses it for protection, function
and survival. This is going on continually and effortlessly. Such is the process of
meditation. It is all happening on its own. Does the brain reach out through its
nervous system and touch the unknown, the vastness? But through some conditioned
need to touch something more defined, does it pull back and discover a sense object?
There is no work involved in touching the unknown which is release, moksha. But
there is work relating to the known, the non-moksha elements! You must go for it
with everything at hand including your innocence and confusion! A change ought to
come: from you meditating to meditation arising through you. This is a very
important change!
The continuum
Meditation is the observation of the body/mind continuum ands it's cessation. It is so
simple that few will accept this. It is so natural and spontaneous that few will allow
themselves to attain this. The very observation of the continuum is also natural. It
hardly needs to be developed. If you but look, it is there already. If it wasn't then
you would not be aware that a thought is arising or a sensation. A thought and
sensation usually accompany one another. I suppose that there are mental activities
without sensation but while the ego-energy persists both will manifest at almost the
same moment. A thought is present. Then it is not. Then another thought is and then
isn't. A sensation arises and immediately mutates. If you are sensitively looking you
can observe the flux in it. Some small part of it might change. The sensation might
change its temperature or it's throbbing vibration. It might move or it might repeat or
disappear immediately. If you become especially observable you will then notice its
cessation. It might be experienced as sensation-emptiness-sensation-emptiness.

There is the story of the Chassidic Rabbi who said that the inscribed letters of the
Holy Torah are sacred. Yet the spaces between the letters are even more important!
This is especially so in awareness as the gaps and psychological spaces between
mental activity and sensations become even more obvious. Those spaces contain no
content that is definable because they contain the unknown, the empty. This
unknown is not any different from that unknown. The unknown of infinite space is
that same space in thought. That unknown is in itself uncreated and unborn which is
what the Blessed One called nibanna (Nirvana). It is present in every activity. It is
the unknown from which everything arises and without which there can be no sound,
sight, smell, taste, touch sensation nor thought.
The conditioned letting go and authentic letting go.
There is a very important point to be made: That for every action which takes place
in this way of realization there is either an ordinary, conditioned way that an arising
will take place and/or there is a special way which is unconditioned ,spontaneous and
natural which occurs. In the former there is an ego-energy which is protective of the
meditator"s ( it's own) status quo in the present moment. It's concern is for the
survival of itself: It's self image. Even though the person may meditate in this
condition what he is really doing is experiencing mental activity which occurs within
the limits of his own self-fulfilling boundary. This conditioned process will offer
pleasant states which will impede the meditator from moving onward to its release.
There will be all types of experiences which will seem to the meditator as signs of
spiritual progress. Any of the siddhas or psychic powers active on the lower stages of
development will enhance the practitioner's opinion and stature of himself. He may
manifest whatever he wants and also become famous and economically stable. His
mind has only reached into a metaphysical experience which is still governed by
earthly desires and comforts. But in this mind-produced state he is merely fulfilling
his ego-energy which simply adheres to standards and ways of living which are
dictated as unconscious goals of the society's religious, cultural and economic
demands in which he resides. Conditioned mind cannot see beyond the attitudes,
ideas and programs acquired from its cultured surroundings and which are stored in
its memory apparatus. This type of mind will fight for its survival and maintain the
meditator within its grasp. The practitioner will be satisfied until that which he has
gained will slowly disappear because change is right around the corner; even it is at
the next moment!

The unconditioned mind also has no preconceived notion of the nature of being and
mind and what meditation might be. It enters all unknowns with a special sense of
experimenting. It is not goal oriented. It is an adventurous mind. Not knowing what
will occur, it maintains itself in an un- hindered state oblivious to what it ought to do
or what it should experience. This specialness co-arises moment by moment with the
manifestations of the mental process. It does not presume and does not guide the
meditator but naturally and spontaneously allows him to investigate in this special
way. The meditator is free in his mind. The objects of mind arise and dissolve.
Because there is no fear in the meditator's mind he moves easily and fluidly towards
his liberation. This is because he is NOT seeking Nirvana , nor enlightenment. In
fact with the resolving of conditioning he is not seeking at all. Pushed on by a raging
stream of impersonal force he cannot escape the silence, he cannot be detained from
awakening. It is his inheritance, indeed the inheritance of all being to return to its
own, pure nature. As Jesus stated: it is the father's good pleasure to give you the
kingdom. However though this force is present it seems that one, at least in the
beginning, must be awakened to some degree to be pulled into it consciously. A
paradox like so many!

Begin anew
If you are satisfied with your meditation practice and can observe how your life is
unfolding for the better: more tolerance, arisings of joy and happiness for no reason,
periods of invigorating silence, perhaps less useless social intercourse and accessing
deeper levels of communication, honesty, seeing conditions more deeply, only to
name a few gifts of the spiritual path then obviously your Dharma is good for you,
and keep with it.

If however you do feel that something is lacking and you want to discover what is is,
or you are attracted to the holy life and you begin meditation practice then you might
consider this first counsel to new practitioners: Forget all that you have previously
heard, read about, learned in other courses, put all that information aside and begin
anew. Become a new-born child who has no information about life and experiments
with everything. This is how meditation ought to be practiced: as experimentation.
The spiritual life is, for me anyway,the experimenting of the universe, not accepting
anyone's word for it, respecting and listening to those who have dedicated their lives
to self-discovery but also having the freedom to test out circumstances for yourself.
There must be no blind belief in any of this. One ought not to be limited by beliefs,
authoritative teachers, gurus, religious groups, or esoteric societies with their fixed
dogmas and doctrines. One must be free to move, step forward (or backwards) and
experiment as one must.

The sangha of support

It is good to have a friend on the way, a Dhamma mitra, to discuss, dialogue and
inquire about oneself and ones discoveries. By sitting with a dharma friend one
might share one's insights and explore one's experiences. One must be open to the
sincere questionings of the other person. Sharing is not pontificating nor preaching
but putting oneself on the line and having the courage to deeply listen to the other
without being daunted by deeply critical statements. This will be a great help in your
progress. There are no books nor traditions here to conform to. Only exploration and
enquiry. Read the book of self, for no other will suffice you proclaimed an ancient
Sufi Master

Sitting and kriyas

When I sit, usually it is within a timeframe of forty-five minutes or more. At the
beginning I settle into a comfortable position, using a small cushion placed under my
sitting bone (coccyx). This is only to give me physical leverage and take the stress off
of my legs. Sitting thusly also allows the body to express itself by sporadic
movements such as shaking, jerking, small snapping, rocking, other abrupt
movements, etc. which are usually fueled from the inside and could be releases of
stored up body energies which are blocked. The body purifies itself from them
through these surprising movements and experiences kriyas. When the student leans
against the wall or sits awkwardly in a chair these movements are blocked and often
do not occur. These are also indications that the conscious mind is letting go.

The Vedas state: Om is the archer, Om is the Arrow, Om is the target. At such times
as the cessations come there is no longer the archer,nor arrow, nor target. There is
only the marvelous condition of sunyata, undefinable, limitless, boundless. The word
itself however mystical it may sound to you, doesn't do it justice.
Let go of choosing and seeking
In the purposelessness of life which is the unknown, our brain strains to see patterns
and meanings. Is it because the patterns are there or because we want them to be?
Are we seeking that which is not there in order to complete ourself, to not experience
fear, confusion, loneliness, anxiety, etc.?

The reason that some mental states appear more productive and fortunate to you is
only that you have read about or learned such mis-information from teachers, books
and meditation courses. You have blindly accepted it believing that the books,
teachers and guides are specialists and know what they are talking about. In fact, not
having met them, nor lived with them you have no knowledge about the degree in
which they are living a more spiritual, or at least a more complete life. Or that you
are escaping from undesirable mental states. As we sit in meditation these states, as
mentioned, arise and we panic, judging them to be unwholesome. In our panic we
begin to struggle with ourself just as the Biblical Jacob wrestled with the angel. This
causes us suffering, DUKKHA, which in turn causes us more panic. We swiftly and
desperately go through our memory banks seeking means of escape: past techniques,
quotes in sacred scriptures, imploring the powers to save us, rituals, mantras, forceful
focusing, anything to get us back onto the correct track where we imagine that we
should be. Except we are not.

We live in a world run by specialists. There is so much information to choose from

that we have given up our own personal power to others whom we BELIEVE have
more knowledge. This may, in fact, be true in science, technology and other areas.
But in spirituality it may not be so. The spiritual dimension is part of every human
being (and according to some traditions, to all creatures big and small, near or far,
visible or invisible).
It is a dimension of each of us. We all have access to it. We are it! Therefore the
way it evolves within us is extremely personal.

Therefore in meditation and authentic practice we must let go of what we have heard
and experiment with what is present whether we like it or not. We must accept the
situations as they are and use them as material for mental investigation. Therefore
searching and seeking will become barriers for investigation. That is because in the
act of searching you are searching for a pattern which you hope is there and the brain
may in fact create that pattern. Then you will attach to it and feel great satisfaction.
But the brain has created all of this; with searching you will seek for what is not
here. Yet what is here, in actuality is the greatest opportunity. When understanding
arises regarding the actual, the here and now, one moves spontaneously and naturally
forward and deeper into the next mental state. That is why I recommend:
stop seeking the perfect opportunity to meditate and begin totally where you are, here
and now!

Mental noise and activity

New students when they begin to notice the meditative process are first confronted by
hundreds and thousands of thoughts and sensations. There doesn't seem to be any
end to them. They revolve, return and repeat constantly. The normal reaction is to
classify this as mental noise which shouldn't be present. The student yearns for
silence and peacefulness and strains and even suffers because of the noise which is
present. For many years I took refuge in sublimating this noise through many
methods. I could actually clear my head from this noise and by doing do I believed
that I was doing well. In fact I was suppressing what was a natural process and
forcing it to confirm to what I believed that it should be. Then I woke up: I allowed
the brain to recycle till its heart's content. And it did! Then it stopped all by itself.
The brain got tired of the constant repetition of it's noise and began to purify itself
from it - naturally!

silence and equanimity

Most teachers direct you to quiet down the mental activity. A grave mistake and one
that can really throw new meditators off kilter. I do not ask this. I only ask you to
observe and accept whatever is present in a sane state of equanimity.

There is a tremendous difference between thinking about equanimity and

experiencing it. Since words are not the thing itself and only used to approximate,
equanimity is a very elusive concept. It took me a while to finally realize its mental
state. It was in meditation one afternoon that I realized that there were many mental
activities occurring in my brain: talking, fluttering, moving,etc. but I was not
attached to any of them. I was distanced from them and had no care about them. Let
them occur, I felt. I had no relationship to them. I didn't deny them nor affirm their
presence. They simply were no longer important and had almost no influence over
me.

As my brain rested upon equanimity, I noticed that there was no energy present to
guide or control the mind. That is, I entered into a state of purposelessness. There
was no stimuli to discover anything. There was only a simple acceptance of what is.

While this was occurring, a space opened which was vast, dynamic, creative and at
the same time extraordinarily silent. Tremendous joy and happiness, contentment
were present then evaporated as the silence took itself even deeper, as all the universe
became silent and still.

Therefore I recommend that you put aside every forceful meditative practice that you
have learned and just sit! Really sit!

Without a purpose then, a tremendous amount of energy will naturally not be spent
upon seeking. If there is a fixed goal to sitting, let's say "enlightenment",then the
mind will be very busy trying to interpret the goal fixed upon information that he has
learned through talks, lectures, books,etc. The mind will have developed hopes of
what might be. Then that new concept will be projected by the same mind and sought
after. If enlightenment remains as a possibility, the student will understand that a
deep change is possible, and will not try to CREATE THE CHANGE. Then the
transformation will arise and most likely the student will have no knowledge of it
until weeks and even months go by. Suddenly he becomes very aware that a
transformation took place in consciousness some time past. But he wouldn't be able
to determine where and when it occurred, only that life is not the same!
Expectations should not get in the way of practice!

No outside practice will take you inside

I find that is so because truth, enlightenment, etc. belongs to the realm of the
unknown, that is, it abides in the unknown, there is no fixed way that you can attain
to it. It however being always present, always arising through you, manifests as you.
The mysterious and deep Dharma is constantly out-pushing so that you develop the
necessary apparatus to fully manifest it. The information of the universe, not really
separate, but only apparently so, is forming a new vehicle-you. It is constantly
changing your nervous system so that you might adapt to it. New brain cells mutate,
new neural pathways are formed as you come closer to expressing it.

Therefore as we simply sit, without holding any goal in thought to attain, we observe
the brain with its projections of reality (another way to say mind), taking on diverse
and varied forms . There is nothing else that we can do. Anything else is control,
and we have been doing that all of our lives and have not found contentment.

What you are observing is not confusion but the dharma integrating itself, through
your nervous system into your personality, drop by drop. You have been conditioned
to see the conflicts and confusions of your mind instead of seeing the wonder of this
manifestation within you.

Therefore I suggest that you sit and observe, leave off the self-judgement of mental
states and calmly accept all mental states that occur. Be patient with yourself for all
states will pass away and something quite wondrous is in store for you!

Initial difficulties
For the beginner will most likely approach the various mental activities with
conscious and conditioned ideas of what should be and therefore do battle with what
actually is. He will most likely try to establish what he thinks should be happening.
This will produce boredom, lack of energy to continue, confusion,loss of faith in ones
ability to meditate, grasping onto techniques, etc. Often the meditator experiences
these "hell" states, for anyone finding himself in one of them surely suffers. In such
states there is powerlessness, confusion etc. in which the meditator feels lost and
depressed and sees no way out. Just accept them- these states as neither good nor
bad. These states are teachers ; they are the In- dwelling dharma teaching you.

Maya and Nirvana

I learned something very useful some years back as I was studying the principal
Mahayana Wisdom Sutras. Nirvana and maya arise from the same substance. What
is that which stands beneath both of them: the mind. It is so because we
conceptualize both states. But as conceptualization resolves into silence then one
understands the truth of this statement. As the Diamond Sutra declares and this is
easily provable in the silence: all things in their essence are empty of any self-nature.

Therefore, in meditation all things arise from mind and don't reject one over another.
Don't be afraid of any mental state. Also from the Heart Sutra I learned the ultimate
nothingness of all things: that all things, including mental states and conditions which
make up life itself are reducible to emptiness. Therefore why get peeved or anxious
over your practice. Meditation is the art of looking in a very special way at all
phenomena which pass through mind.
 The great way
Meditation is the observation of the body/mind continuum ands it's cessation.
This came to mind one meditation session. Before we went into the sitting one of the
students mentioned a translation of the YOGA SUTRAS of Patanjali, the first which
begins: Yoga is the CONTROL of the mind currents. During the last few moments
of sitting, the above came into mind. It is very clear that the great way is not about
control on any level, in any stage of development. To enable mind to attain to its
inner silence there can be no control what-so-ever. This is because conscious,
conditioned mind has no way inward. It will force itself into silence, a silence which
it creates according to its earned and imagined parameters . Therefore it will only be
a controlled and created silence such as the silence produced by exhaustion, by
repetition, by breath, and movement among the many ways to calm the mind. Even
the idea that the mind must be calm in order to meditate mind is a conditioned and
mis-informed one. Of course the mind WILL calm down as a product of inner
voyaging, but that is only a by-product of wisdom. As the student sits attentively in
meditation the mind calms down naturally by its own energy not by the will or
decision of the practitioner.

As the practitioner sits and naturally allows observation/attention to self-generate, in

the final moment the OBSERVER itself will disappear and a very special type of
awareness will present itself. The nervous system will impersonally be attentive: all
the heaviness and self-satisfying sensations and thoughts of the I AM will be resolved
into nothingness. The return to the original nature is the return to the natural and sane
functioning of the nervous system in which there is no me, no I am, no atma, no
anything which could, in the least resemble a personality. None of that would be
present. I experienced this several times in my life. The heaviness of brain and body
dissolves and a freedom from both presents itself.
Once the mind is educated which means that it returns to its originality as a reflecting
experience then all things are made clear. And not only clear. Life becomes an
adventure. Even every routine office and household drudgery is converted into a
state of holy adventure. You will see through the game of life and see the wonder of
creation smiling into your heart. Often for no known reason I find myself
experiencing a deep and silent joy, even an experience of ecstasy. Often I am around
others and interacting with them when the brain becomes very quiet and still. Then I
experience them looking at me through their eyes, and me looking at them through
theirs. This oneness is very beautiful and powerful. It is the unity of all things. One
can imagine it, create it through thought or believe in it. But that is very different
from the unconditioned unity which arises spontaneously, impersonally and naturally
through you, but is not of you. The universe in all of its vastness is arising and
seeing. It uses each molecule to do so. It is the universe looking at itself, the wonder
of wonders way beyond the desires of people, calling you back home to that place
where you belong and which you never left. Please just let it happen.
Finish
This simple way of meditating becomes difficult for so many persons due to
expectations, prejudices, etc. As the silence deepens great things are in store for you
in the adventure called life.

bodhiden@gmail.com
bodhiden@yahoo.com

to find out what part of the planet I am visiting.

Summary of points
Meditation is a non-intellectual state in which inquiry into reality spontaneously and
naturally occurs within an experience of deep silence.

The inner inquiry is spontaneous and natural

Allow the awareness of the steam of consciousness to take place effortlessly. Allow
the thoughts, remembrances, events, images ey.al as well as the sensations in the
body to come and go without getting either involved in them or pushing the, away.
Witness this phenomena until it stops, then witness the stopping.

With patience the mind would get bored with its noise and preoccupations and
naturally rests into the silent state from which happiness, quietness and creativity
would arise.

Do not overwork yourself, strain yourself, apply too much energy, judge yourself,
hold on to assumptions about meditation and forget everything you gave heard on the
subject.

Meditation is the observation of the body/mind continuum ands it's cessation.

A momentary concentration is brought about by the natural attraction of awareness to

a sensation or a mental object. This natural movement is what produces a natural
concentration and is sufficient to create a natural enquiry into the matter.

What you are observing is not confusion but the dharma integrating itself, through
your nervous system into your personality, drop by drop. You have been conditioned
to see the conflicts and confusions of your mind instead of seeing the wonder of this
manifestation within you.

Expectations should not get in the way of practice!

Therefore I recommend that you put aside every forceful meditative practice that you
have learned and just sit! Really sit!

Stop seeking the perfect opportunity to meditate and begin totally where you are, here
and now!