I love this post and completely agree with it all! A few extra notes, all of which Sasha will already know.
- My Zen mentor told me of an old saying - the Buddha is still practicing, as are the grand masters of the Zen tradition. They are still meditating, getting more clear on what it is to be human.
- So there is no end to practice - but as Henry Shukman says in his book (which Sasha put me on to), there are definite shifts, which you cannot cause to happen in any way. These landmark events are "enlightenment," or larger "openings" in the Zen tradition.
- There's a dynamic dialectic around striving for enlightenment vs not worrying about it (partly because it's just what's already there shining out). As Ajahn Chah put its - just another thing to let go of!
- Refined states (love, the jhanas, etc) are not the heart of the deconstructive path, but attention/concentration is unusually important for it.
- Eventually finding a teacher you can really trust is key for most people.
- Grumpy note, I think some autodidact meditators on twitter are very overconfident and should listen to the tradition more. Much meditation advice on the internet is bad, in my opinion.
- Slow practice can be more effective because you're living in your real life, encountering actual suffering, not avoiding it by going monk-mode.
I might replace "listen to the tradition more" with "practice better epistemics". A few reasons:
1) I think that there are many things that consider themselves to be distinct spiritual traditions that one can learn from.
2) I think that one of the most valuable things you can learn from spiritual traditions is common individual and collective pitfalls for various sorts of self-transformative practice. The slight issue with *listening to* traditions is that they don't always tell you these pitfalls straight, and often aren't even particularly aware of them because of their own blindspots. There is much to learn with both and inside and outside view of these traditions.
3) I think that there are many other knowledge traditions that are at least as valuable (modern medicine, neuroscience, psychology, economics, history, statistics, etc.). These knowledge traditions cover only partially overlapping domains, but all seem very relevant to living well.
3a) All of the aforementioned knowledge traditions have the problem of blindspots, conceptual confusions, etc. There isn't really a way to guarantee good epistemology here. The best general advice I think would be "engage with a wide variety of sources that are both mainstream and outside of the mainstream and try to understand both with an inside and outside view".
4) I think that a major part of improving one's epistemics is interactively engaging with knowledge communities. I don't think the secret sauce is so much any particular tradition per se, but the act of engaging with people who have collectively and systematically attempted to generate knowledge. Interactive engagement teaches epistemics in a way that just listening doesn't.
Also, the Ken McLeod video sounds almost word for word like Shinzen Young on the same subject - these are perhaps my two favorite teachers but they have very different backgrounds so that's kind of amazing.
I think my girlfriend already “pops over” quite a bit thanks to a lot of forms of synesthesia and an ADHD-ish tendency to get lost in the moment. And I’d think potentially people who are more schizophrenic than average (or autistic) could also be unable to ignore the vividness of their senses (usually to an unpleasant degree.) I’d be more interested in a “reverse meditation” for people who have too much of that state.
So my immediate assumption is that we are talking about different things. Often, getting lost in the moment, in an ADHD-ish way, is a form of contraction... I am aware that this is frustratingly vague.
Yes, I’d agree it’s probably different and people with sensory issues aren’t hitting Nirvana from birth - but the baseline of “not getting lost in things easily” isn’t true for some people. Granted their immersion seems different from meditation immersion.
Nice post, I think this will really help people. I really enjoy your blog.
Re: being "done." In my opinion, there are many credible reports of people who have completely eliminated any sense of a continuous, agentic self. Thus, their awareness is just the unfolding of a process—just phenomena driven by the rigidity of causation with no one phenomenon prized as a "self" or vantage point. This leads to a constant kind of mental harmony. Sadness and anger and the rest still continue, though. Daniel Ingram is the foremost example of this. You can call these people "done" and "perfected" in a narrow sense: there's nothing else that insight meditation can give them.
I have mixed feelings about these reports, which I have also read with interest!
I've heard more mature meditators - like Shinzen, but also other people I know personally - describe the self emerging again after periods of time, ultimately settling into having optionality between "total no self" and "a pretty normal experience of self relatively speaking". Specifically, Shinzen speaks about his Zen teacher chiding him for hiding from selfing, and working to be comfortable with it. Based on comparative reports, it seems like "constant flow state" is a thing you can aim for, but it's more like an attractor you can get into and stay in, rather than "the end."
I really enjoyed the post! Except “The One Thing” is not just one thing. But it’s as good as any for wording the unwordable
What do you think about the path (goal) of healing your psyche on a deep level ( purifying, releasing and transforming all your karma/trauma ) - and coming into “The One Thing” as a side effect of that? I think it can be a wise and wholesome way to approach meditation and there are some really good direct benefits from it - like becoming significantly less neurotic and more happy.
I totally agree with healing as a way into it - I cited IFS as one inroads, but Existential Kink is another big one that I've advertised before... Often, when you release constricting self-stories, you pop out into what it's like to put down self-stories for a second...
Thanks so much for sharing this, Sasha. I found it very encouraging.
I've personally found both Loch Kelly's "glimpse practices" and self-inquiry helpful in giving me brief tastes of (at least something like) The Other Thing.
I enjoyed reading this. Also, I don’t mind giving you advice to go on a retreat. I think you’d get something out of it. Just don’t go on one where they tell you what you are going to think or feel or give you a specific map etc.
I'll go on a retreat at some point! So far the schedule just hasn't lined up with a retreat I'm interested in, and I'm in a fairly busy moment right now so that may continue
One small takeaway for me, from this excellent post (many thanks Sasha, you’ve sent me off on a massive reading trail :]). I loved being reminded of the Zen saying “Better not to start, once started, better to finish.”
I teach MBSR 8-week courses and people are invariably coming along seeking Track 1: performance enhancement. And why not! Then I tell them that the practice won’t necessarily make them feel ‘better’, in fact they may feel worse as they feel more. I often see confusion, faces falling as they realise that I don’t have the answer, let alone an answer encapsulated in a ‘pill’. I didn’t use to do this as I was scared of losing people and scared of not appearing to know all the answers… I let that one go, better all round I find.
Because a) I’d be bullshitting and b) It can and will cause you to question everything. I found it increasingly hard to ignore how my employment with a certain UK newspaper was at odds with ‘Right Livelihood’ for instance. Life hasn’t got easier; it has got richer though.
I've had such a strange and unsettling journey with meditation that I don't recommend it to anyone unless they are doing it for precisely spiritual reasons. This is a wise and honest post about meditation and I appreciate that.
I'm a big adherent of hypnotic meditation - essentially guided meditation set to a recording that's expressive of the physical changes that are to be attained in the moment ("Relax every muscle in and around your eyes etc etc."), and of the wider changes you'd like to, as put in this essay, 'inflect' your life with ("You are stronger and more resolute than ever before etc etc."). Sadly, insofar as it can be practiced independently, it involves no swinging pendulums or spirals-in-the-eyes.
I've found that the hypnotic approach is exquisitely harmonised to the purposive nature of the human spirit, as this piece puts it. Yes, you're attaining a fundamentally deeper sense of tranquility and physical relaxation, while aligning that physical clarity to a purposive clarity about things that are meaningful to you. I've known it to help people escape patterns of addictive behaviour; and while there may be no silver bullet for depression, it undoubtedly has helped me retain my connection to a sort of 'centre' that depression can otherwise conceal.
On top of all this, after an extensive period of consistent practice the physical ecstasy attainable during it is absolutely extraordinary, the closest thing I've ever felt to honest-to-goodness levitation.
This post is a labor of love, and it is received as such. Thank you, Sasha.
I love this post and completely agree with it all! A few extra notes, all of which Sasha will already know.
- My Zen mentor told me of an old saying - the Buddha is still practicing, as are the grand masters of the Zen tradition. They are still meditating, getting more clear on what it is to be human.
- So there is no end to practice - but as Henry Shukman says in his book (which Sasha put me on to), there are definite shifts, which you cannot cause to happen in any way. These landmark events are "enlightenment," or larger "openings" in the Zen tradition.
- There's a dynamic dialectic around striving for enlightenment vs not worrying about it (partly because it's just what's already there shining out). As Ajahn Chah put its - just another thing to let go of!
- Refined states (love, the jhanas, etc) are not the heart of the deconstructive path, but attention/concentration is unusually important for it.
- Eventually finding a teacher you can really trust is key for most people.
- Grumpy note, I think some autodidact meditators on twitter are very overconfident and should listen to the tradition more. Much meditation advice on the internet is bad, in my opinion.
- Slow practice can be more effective because you're living in your real life, encountering actual suffering, not avoiding it by going monk-mode.
I might replace "listen to the tradition more" with "practice better epistemics". A few reasons:
1) I think that there are many things that consider themselves to be distinct spiritual traditions that one can learn from.
2) I think that one of the most valuable things you can learn from spiritual traditions is common individual and collective pitfalls for various sorts of self-transformative practice. The slight issue with *listening to* traditions is that they don't always tell you these pitfalls straight, and often aren't even particularly aware of them because of their own blindspots. There is much to learn with both and inside and outside view of these traditions.
3) I think that there are many other knowledge traditions that are at least as valuable (modern medicine, neuroscience, psychology, economics, history, statistics, etc.). These knowledge traditions cover only partially overlapping domains, but all seem very relevant to living well.
3a) All of the aforementioned knowledge traditions have the problem of blindspots, conceptual confusions, etc. There isn't really a way to guarantee good epistemology here. The best general advice I think would be "engage with a wide variety of sources that are both mainstream and outside of the mainstream and try to understand both with an inside and outside view".
4) I think that a major part of improving one's epistemics is interactively engaging with knowledge communities. I don't think the secret sauce is so much any particular tradition per se, but the act of engaging with people who have collectively and systematically attempted to generate knowledge. Interactive engagement teaches epistemics in a way that just listening doesn't.
Also, the Ken McLeod video sounds almost word for word like Shinzen Young on the same subject - these are perhaps my two favorite teachers but they have very different backgrounds so that's kind of amazing.
Tim - can you tell me which McLeod video you’re referring to?
This one, linked above! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_tOfwk0r8UY
Endorse these notes, I have been one of those autodidact meditators on twitter before.
I think my girlfriend already “pops over” quite a bit thanks to a lot of forms of synesthesia and an ADHD-ish tendency to get lost in the moment. And I’d think potentially people who are more schizophrenic than average (or autistic) could also be unable to ignore the vividness of their senses (usually to an unpleasant degree.) I’d be more interested in a “reverse meditation” for people who have too much of that state.
When she does that, does she feel in touch with body sensations as well, or is it more heady-spacy?
(I'm the same person I just wasn't logged in on mobile)
She feels mostly in touch with body sensations, it isn't that heady at all
So my immediate assumption is that we are talking about different things. Often, getting lost in the moment, in an ADHD-ish way, is a form of contraction... I am aware that this is frustratingly vague.
Yes, I’d agree it’s probably different and people with sensory issues aren’t hitting Nirvana from birth - but the baseline of “not getting lost in things easily” isn’t true for some people. Granted their immersion seems different from meditation immersion.
so there are two kinds of "lost in things" that are very distinct
one is "compulsive tunneling" and one is "whole-being flowing"
the former is like, "this is my 3rd game of slay the spire today" and the latter is the meditation thing
i do both :)
Well written, so thorough, and much fun to read. Thanks again for your contributions!
sounds fun tbh.
Nice post, I think this will really help people. I really enjoy your blog.
Re: being "done." In my opinion, there are many credible reports of people who have completely eliminated any sense of a continuous, agentic self. Thus, their awareness is just the unfolding of a process—just phenomena driven by the rigidity of causation with no one phenomenon prized as a "self" or vantage point. This leads to a constant kind of mental harmony. Sadness and anger and the rest still continue, though. Daniel Ingram is the foremost example of this. You can call these people "done" and "perfected" in a narrow sense: there's nothing else that insight meditation can give them.
I have mixed feelings about these reports, which I have also read with interest!
I've heard more mature meditators - like Shinzen, but also other people I know personally - describe the self emerging again after periods of time, ultimately settling into having optionality between "total no self" and "a pretty normal experience of self relatively speaking". Specifically, Shinzen speaks about his Zen teacher chiding him for hiding from selfing, and working to be comfortable with it. Based on comparative reports, it seems like "constant flow state" is a thing you can aim for, but it's more like an attractor you can get into and stay in, rather than "the end."
I really enjoyed the post! Except “The One Thing” is not just one thing. But it’s as good as any for wording the unwordable
What do you think about the path (goal) of healing your psyche on a deep level ( purifying, releasing and transforming all your karma/trauma ) - and coming into “The One Thing” as a side effect of that? I think it can be a wise and wholesome way to approach meditation and there are some really good direct benefits from it - like becoming significantly less neurotic and more happy.
I totally agree with healing as a way into it - I cited IFS as one inroads, but Existential Kink is another big one that I've advertised before... Often, when you release constricting self-stories, you pop out into what it's like to put down self-stories for a second...
And, yeah. Words fail! :)
Thanks so much for sharing this, Sasha. I found it very encouraging.
I've personally found both Loch Kelly's "glimpse practices" and self-inquiry helpful in giving me brief tastes of (at least something like) The Other Thing.
I enjoyed reading this. Also, I don’t mind giving you advice to go on a retreat. I think you’d get something out of it. Just don’t go on one where they tell you what you are going to think or feel or give you a specific map etc.
I'll go on a retreat at some point! So far the schedule just hasn't lined up with a retreat I'm interested in, and I'm in a fairly busy moment right now so that may continue
I am wondering meditation got you thinking about how to best comprehend the massive system of conditioning known as capitalism? Love the writing:)
One small takeaway for me, from this excellent post (many thanks Sasha, you’ve sent me off on a massive reading trail :]). I loved being reminded of the Zen saying “Better not to start, once started, better to finish.”
I teach MBSR 8-week courses and people are invariably coming along seeking Track 1: performance enhancement. And why not! Then I tell them that the practice won’t necessarily make them feel ‘better’, in fact they may feel worse as they feel more. I often see confusion, faces falling as they realise that I don’t have the answer, let alone an answer encapsulated in a ‘pill’. I didn’t use to do this as I was scared of losing people and scared of not appearing to know all the answers… I let that one go, better all round I find.
Because a) I’d be bullshitting and b) It can and will cause you to question everything. I found it increasingly hard to ignore how my employment with a certain UK newspaper was at odds with ‘Right Livelihood’ for instance. Life hasn’t got easier; it has got richer though.
Thanks again, much food for thought.
I've had such a strange and unsettling journey with meditation that I don't recommend it to anyone unless they are doing it for precisely spiritual reasons. This is a wise and honest post about meditation and I appreciate that.
I'm a big adherent of hypnotic meditation - essentially guided meditation set to a recording that's expressive of the physical changes that are to be attained in the moment ("Relax every muscle in and around your eyes etc etc."), and of the wider changes you'd like to, as put in this essay, 'inflect' your life with ("You are stronger and more resolute than ever before etc etc."). Sadly, insofar as it can be practiced independently, it involves no swinging pendulums or spirals-in-the-eyes.
I've found that the hypnotic approach is exquisitely harmonised to the purposive nature of the human spirit, as this piece puts it. Yes, you're attaining a fundamentally deeper sense of tranquility and physical relaxation, while aligning that physical clarity to a purposive clarity about things that are meaningful to you. I've known it to help people escape patterns of addictive behaviour; and while there may be no silver bullet for depression, it undoubtedly has helped me retain my connection to a sort of 'centre' that depression can otherwise conceal.
On top of all this, after an extensive period of consistent practice the physical ecstasy attainable during it is absolutely extraordinary, the closest thing I've ever felt to honest-to-goodness levitation.
Nice.