Love Itself - in Form and the Formless

     “A number of years ago, at a retreat in Ithaca, New York, Leonard told me that he was going to retire from music. Then a few years later, he came out of retirement, and he came out with a CD that he called Ten New Songs … The whole album is dedicated to, 'Our Teacher, Joshu Sasaki Roshi.'
     The works of Leonard Cohen, are known all over the world, of course. But what isn't known is that they are peppered with inside allusions to the teachings of Sasaki Roshi. The fifth cut on the Ten New Songs is called "Love Itself" and it's Leonard's version of the teisho, or Zen talk, of Sasaki Roshi. Unless somebody pointed it out, you wouldn't realize that.
     Sasaki Roshi has only one talk: There is zero. But zero is inherently unstable because it consists of all of the positive and negative in the universe. Therefore, inevitably it breaks apart into expansion and contraction. Expansion only knows how to expand. Contraction only knows how to contract. In between, they create a vibration called space, and that vibration is further nurtured and matured in the cleft between them, and then it evolves into a feeling thinking self that either knows it just came from zero, in which case we call it an enlightened self, or it doesn't. If it knows where it just came from, it knows to give the positive that it received from father back to father, and the negative that it received from mother back to the mother. Therefore, it disappears. There's nothing in between father and mother anymore. And they come back together to create a new state of zero. Oh, you don't understand? Okay, well, I'll try to say a little more. Then he says exactly the same thing again. And then, I see you still don't understand. Well, let me see if I can say some more. But you see, each time he says it, he lives it. He could say it forever. He lives that cycle and if you sense that he's living that cycle, you could listen, you could hear him say it forever.
     You're going to see in this song, there's a refrain. It imitates the style of Sasaki Roshi, but there's more to it. Sasaki Roshi talks about this little room of space where father and mother vibrate, and that's — They come into contrast, you reunite, come into contrast, reunite. He always describes it as like a private little room where there's only the two sides of the Source.
     Many of you have experienced that there are different flavors of Flow, different flavors of impermanence. I look upon the expansion and contraction as the fundamental flavors. When a wave comes up on the shore, the top of the wave is expanding, the bottom of the wave is contracting, and in the cleft as they're sheared apart is born all this foam. There's wavy Flow, there's vibratory Flow, which is analogous to the foam, but underlying it all is this expansion and contraction.
     Often, the most prominent experience of Flow, or change, or impermanence, is a kind of scintillating misty bubbly kind of Flow and it's very blissful, often. And your whole body and mind and the external world can dissolve into it, and it's like trillions of little motes of dust sort of just shimmering. Some of you have had that experience. Because it's blissful, there is the danger of being attached to it. But if you don't become attached to that, then it all sort of flatlines into zero. All the little vibrations go back to the Source. Father and mother come together, and there is shalom bimromav, the peace of heaven.
     If having that champagne bubbly experience of Flow is like being made love to, in a sense, what's beyond that is the Gone. And what's beyond the Gone? Well, after Gone, there's no place to go but to come back, to self and world, but to see it in a different way, for having had that experience. And to do this over and over and over again until there is no fundamental separation between the experience of the Source and ordinary experience. They're on a continuum. There's not a duality between the deepest transcendent empty timeless spaceless cessation, there's not a duality between that and any ordinary experience. They're on a continuum. That's living nirvana. There's nothing in between one's humanity and that which is beyond the human. And that would pretty much describe the world of a master.
     There is the formless, there is the form, and then there is them not being fundamentally separate. In the end, if you want to experience what Sasaki Roshi calls true love, hontō no ai, use that expression. It says everybody wants true love, but they don't realize that true love is zero. True love is what happens if you're willing to let go of the most celestial form of love other than true love, so you'd have to even let go of the massage of the spirit.
     Understanding this, you are in a position to completely understand Leonard's song called 'Love Itself.'"
     Shinzen Young https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSv5ELuujjs&list=PLngmRO3nU7wLESfjzlpE3STD4YqFvq5pE&index=32&t=4s

 

Leonard Cohen - 'Love Itself'

 

 

Appreciating the Subtle

     Equanimity, peace, & other subtle states are seldom appreciated or discussed these days. When we do notice subtle states, we tend to dismiss them as "boring" or rush to escape them! We overlook or dismiss most of life; instinctively cling to pleasant experiences; and instinctively reject unpleasant experiences. 
     Unless we deeply understand & minimize this conditioned, trance-like reactivity, we will continue to create unnecessary suffering for ourselves & others.

     ‘Equanimity’ can be defined as: "a gentle matter of fact-ness with whatever comes up in experience. In a similar way, a scientist is trained to maintain the detached viewpoint of a neutral observer."
       Shinzen Young. “The Science of Enlightenment. How Meditation Works.” Sounds True, 2016.

     “Being bound neither by delight nor distress is a classical description of the mind-state of equanimity. Bikkhu Bodhi describes this mind-state as a ‘considered mind’ (‘because a prejudiced mind, a mind that has already been made up, cannot consider anything that is contrary to its accepted views’); a mind that has become pliable; become stable; become flexible; reached a state of not fluttering. This is a concentrated mind, without blemish, purified and cleansed with all defiling tendencies gone.
     This is admittedly an accomplishment of a buddha (with a small b) and a tall order for those not trained in the mental discipline. Still, in investigating deeply the workings of our own minds and meditative experiences, we may be able to catch a glimpse of some of the attributes described above. This glimpse, in turn, is a peek into the mind-state that has gone beyond [seeking] delight and [avoiding] distress.” Mu Soeng 
       Mu Soeng, Gloria Taraniya Ambrosia, Andrew Olendzki. “Older and Wiser. Classical Buddhist Teachings on Aging, Sickness and Death.” Barre Center for Buddhist Studies, 2017.

     "... my hope (is) to have ‘traversed the world’s attachments’ (and therefore achieving) a state of equanimity and contentment rooted in wisdom. Contentment is a state of mind and need not rely upon a particular set of external conditions. We are accustomed to thinking that we’ll be content once this, that, or the other thing takes place, and we thereby put a lot of energy into trying to make those conditions manifest. Sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn’t. Even when it does, when we reach a goal (such as retirement) or fulfill certain criteria (such as having a comfortable place to live), it may still turn out that we are not content. Either the conditions change, as they are wont to do, or we find that new desires arise to clamor for our attention once the old ones are fulfilled.
     At any given moment, the quality of one’s experience will be defined by whatever emotional states are arising. Riding the roller coaster of desire, we might be gratified half of the time and distressed the other half. We are being told by the Buddha, however, that we also have a third option – not climbing on board in the first place. Any moment with desire is a moment entangled in suffering. Any time we want things to be different than they are, we are setting ourselves up for disappointment. This is because delight and distress are two sides of the same coin, and we cannot have one without the other. It is precisely because he is not consumed with delight that the Buddha can ‘sit alone, without being consumed by regret.’
     Many people will say that it is worth the distress to experience the delight. As we mature, however, we may find ourselves drawn more to the middle range of experience, the state of mind described here by the Buddha in which the fires of desire no longer burn. This is of course the best-known metaphor for awakening: ‘the fires of greed, hatred, and delusion have been extinguished (nirvana).’ Conventional wisdom assumes it is boring and bland in this middle emotional range, but those who have experienced firsthand the equanimous quality of mind that comes from true mindfulness know better. Unencumbered by the emotional highs and lows, the mind is capable of a remarkable clarity and immediacy. Delight and distress do not spice up our experience as much as they confuse and obfuscate it.
     If our contentment depends upon receiving the things that delight us or avoiding what causes distress, it will remain shallow. At the deeper end of the pool, the mind is more calm, more focused, and hence more powerful. Awareness itself is the most astonishing aspect of the human condition. As we learn to orient toward it more often and more skillfully, the contentment described here by the Buddha becomes increasingly accessible. Profound well-being awaits us here and now, in every moment, and can be reached simply by ceasing the attempt to get somewhere else." Andrew Olendzki 
       Mu Soeng, Gloria Taraniya Ambrosia, Andrew Olendzki. “Older and Wiser. Classical Buddhist Teachings on Aging, Sickness and Death.” Barre Center for Buddhist Studies, 2017.

Maturing Beyond "Ordinary Happiness"

     Many people deeply believe that the universe is unfriendly, and that "ordinary unhappiness" is the most they can hope for. A pervasive subconscious sense of "lack" haunts many of us. 
       David R. Loy. “Lack & Transcendence. The Problem of Death and Life in Psychotherapy, Existentialism, and Buddhism.” Wisdom Publications, 2018.
     Sadly, most of us don't actually know what a deep, meaningful life means, looks like, OR that it is available.

     Roger Walsh MD, PhD, professor of psychiatry, philosophy, anthropology & religion at the University of California, states: 
     "... behind conventional religions with their myths, rituals, beliefs and dogmas, are hidden disciplines for practices for training the mind to induce the same states of consciousness that the founders had realized, and thereby opening up similar possibilities for all of us.

     Religions tend to get started when an individual has some sort of breakthrough of some kind. Different founders have different kinds of breakthroughs, but they have spiritual breakthroughs of one kind or another. And the people who are effective in initiating traditions that have lasting power provide several things. First they provide an insight, a vision, a spiritually-informed understanding. Then they’re also able to transmit partly charismatically, partly technically – that is they offer a variety of practices by which other people can have the same realizations for themselves, so that they transmit two things. One is insight, understanding, a vision of the way the world and we look from that awakened place, but secondly, a set of practices which allow others to have the same insight, understanding & state of consciousness and test it out for themselves.
     Now over time, as we all know, there tends to be a process of ‘truth decay’ – over time, the deeper or higher realizations tend to get lost or sidelined somewhat and what remains tends to be the belief system and the rituals around it. And in most religions, the ‘esoteric side’ – the real practices that can actually induce transformative states and psychological-spiritual maturation – tend to have become marginalized to a certain extent, to different degrees in different traditions.

     One of the real tragedies in our culture is that we have no understanding, let alone popular map*, of developmental stages beyond the conventional. So we have no encouragement or call to mature beyond conventional levels, which means that most people stultify at the conventional level, having no understanding that there’s something more. 
     There is data from multiple fields – developmental studies, psychotherapy, psychedelic work – that the psyche really does have inherent in it, a pull to development. Maslow called it ‘self-actualization,’ other people have called it ‘self-transcendence,’ ‘moksha drive,’ Jung’s ‘individuation,’ etc, etc. And, when that drive is not recognized or fulfilled, it creates a deep profound dissatisfaction. 
     And the tragedy is, because our culture has no understanding of this call, that malaise is not recognized for what it is. And people look for substitute gratifications of one kind or another. And the trouble is that you can never get enough of what you don’t really want. 
     So there is this inherent growth dynamic in the psyche, this fact isn’t recognized, which leads to enormous suffering in our culture. Maslow called these ‘meta-pathologies’ – pathologies, not of psychosis or neurosis, but existential pathologies that emerge for people. 
     And we have to have a realistic view of what post-conventional development looks like, because it’s not all sweetness and light. Every new stage brings forth new opportunities, new capacities, new understandings, and new problems. There’s a dialectic of development. Every new stage has its new challenges and difficulties. 
     And one of the big problems for us in our culture for anyone who starts to move beyond the conventional is there’s no map to understand the problems that emerge and very little in the way of remedies.”
       Roger Walsh, in an excellent 2hr interview by Rick Archer: https://batgap.com/roger-walsh/

     Four excellent recent books specifically deal, in-depth, with psycho-social-spiritual maturation well beyond the conventional:
     • Amoda Maa. “Embodied Enlightenment. Living Your Awakening in Every Moment.” Reveal Press, 2017. 
     • Shinzen Young. “The Science of Enlightenment. How Meditation Works.” Sounds True, 2016.
     • Dorothy Hunt. “Ending the Search. From Spiritual Ambition to the Heart of Awareness.” Sounds True, 2018.
     • Bonnie L. Greenwell. “When Spirit Leaps. Navigating the Process of Spiritual Awakening.” Non-Duality Press, 2018.

     * Those who specialize in this area do have "developmental maps": http://www.johnlovas.com/2013/11/fowlers-six-stages-of-faith.html
 

HOW we Relate

     Suffering arises primarily from having a distorted view of ourselves & the world, and thereby relating sub-optimally to ourselves & the world - as if lost in a dream, drifting on autopilot. 

     "... in my direct experience, I suffer when I perceive myself as separate from life." Caverly Morgan

     We can end suffering by waking up, perceiving reality as it really is, and relating more appropriately towards ourselves & the world.

     "We are liberated from suffering by correctly perceiving reality."
                                                                                                                              Yongey Mingyur

     From personal experience, we know that when we feel threatened, we become "contracted": physically our muscles tighten; mentally "the world shrinks" we're only concerned about our self or at most, our immediate family; emotionally we feel isolated, alone against a suddenly hostile world. We feel rigid, hardened, "up-tight," "a stranger in a strange land" physically, mentally & emotionally. In this contracted, grimly self-centered, "siege mentality", our actions naturally reflect our immediate outlook on life: "nasty, brutish, & short."
     There are many valid reasons why we become contracted - at times. Life presents all of us with some heavy, unavoidable challenges. However, the vast majority of our suffering is completely "discretionary" - completely unnecessary, IF we were interested enough to learn to live more wisely! But we become so thoroughly accustomed to being at least somewhat contracted, that all we may notice is that "life is stressful, but I'm coping as well as most" - "it's just normal stress" - (Freud's) "ordinary unhappiness" - just the normal momentum of my life.

     Again from personal experience, we also know that when we feel happy, satisfied, at peace, we become "expansive": physically our muscles relax; mentally "our world expands" our circle of interest & concern spreads far & wide across our one "global village," we entertain big creative nurturing thoughts & intentions to help solve common global problems; emotionally we feel part of & responsible for the entire human family, all living creatures, all of nature. We feel open-hearted, open-minded, at peace, relaxed, thoroughly at home, physically, mentally & emotionally. In this expansive, generous, nurturing mind-set, our actions naturally reflect our true nature: a wise nurturing grandparent who holds themself & all others in safety & unconditional love.

     Research also shows that we feel truly happy only when we're fully present; that it’s the quality of our presence, not the external environment, that brings happiness.
      Killingsworth MA, Gilbert DT. “A Wandering Mind is an Unhappy Mind.” Science 2010; 330(6006): 932. 

     Enlightenment has been defined as "intimacy with all things."

     Though we all have experienced episodes of expansiveness, for most of us it's a relatively rare, short-lived accident. We have little or no encouragement, guidance or support to learn to inhabit our true expansive nature.
      Even for those who learn mindfulness meditation, which is specifically designed to recognize & release contraction, and thereby allow us to naturally embody expansiveness, the momentum of contracted conditioning is so strong that they quickly forget about mindfulness, and resume sleepwalking through life in a contracted state.

     “… the main goal in meditation is not to get to certain good
      states, but rather to eliminate what gets in the way of those
      good states.” Shinzen Young

     “Your task is not to seek for love, 
      but merely to seek and find all of the barriers 
      within yourself that you have built against it.” Helen Schueman

      Mindfulness is not for everyone. It takes clarity of mind, courage & perseverance to very gradually, intentionally, progressively let go of habitual patterns, that have us stuck in unhappiness. A very small proportion of us do choose to intentionally mature wisely by way of an ongoing regular mindfulness practice.

Expansive Nature

Metabolizing Difficult Emotions in Real Time

     In mindfulness meditation, we practice physical processing: 'leaning into' challenging emotions - WHILE these show up as unpleasant physical sensations. We approach these opportunities with curiosity, interest & equanimity knowing that, what we used to mistakenly consider frightening solid objects, DO with this approach disintegrate into harmless bits of energy.

     “Most people don’t maintain a continuous mindful relationship with their subjective thoughts & feelings, so most people do not have the ability to experience anger, fear, sadness, shame, & confusion without suffering. When an objective problem presents itself, it produces uncomfortable subjective mental & emotional states, and you suffer. A salient feature of suffering is that it distorts behavior. You cannot perform the delicate act of threading a needle while somebody is holding a flame to your body. Your whole body shakes; the objective functioning is distorted because of the internal suffering. In the same way, the delicate act of human interaction is frequently subjected to the distorting influences of (perhaps subliminal) suffering. Because of this subjective suffering, our objective responses to objective situations are often less than optimal, and sometimes horribly distorted.
     When objective responses are nonoptimal, they sow the seeds for new problems – new objective situations that cause distress. Then we respond suboptimally to that new situation. This can create a feedback loop that has the potential to spin out of control at any time.
     Even in situations where the suffering appears to be quite small, the distorting influences can add up. For example, a current cultural norm in the United States is to go from passionate love to acrimonious divorce in just five or ten short years. How does this happen? It happens in dozens and dozens of small daily interactions, some of them a little bit emotionally charged and a few of them charged in big ways. When interactions that are unpleasantly charged are not experienced completely in the moment, they are not metabolized. They leave a ghost, a remnant suffering that haunts the cellar of our own mind. That remnant suffering sinks into the subconscious and distorts our subsequent responses. We make cutting remarks when we merely need to reply. We yell when we merely need to be emphatic. We bite when we merely need to bark.
     The same cycle destroys a relationship here, a career there; leads to a war here, a rampage there; a repressive dictatorship here; an ethnic cleansing there. That is the basic pattern on this planet: People do not understand how to experience pain fully, that is, without suffering. Suffering distorts their response to the source of the pain, and this distorted response can easily lead to more pain and, hence, more suffering.
     Here’s a diagram that sums up the problem.  

     So where does meditation come in? Meditation allows us to experience pain without suffering and pleasure without neediness. The difference between pain and suffering may seem subtle, but it is highly significant. When physical or emotional pain is experienced in a state of concentration, clarity & equanimity, it still hurts but in a way that bothers you less. You actually feel it more deeply. It’s more poignant but, at the same time, less problematic. More poignant means it motivates and directs action. Less problematic means it stops driving & distorting actions. I appreciate that merely hearing these words may not be enough to clarify the concept. But look back; perhaps you’ve experienced something like this in the past. If not, having read these words here will help you know what to look for in the future.”

       Shinzen Young. “The Science of Enlightenment. How Meditation Works.” Sounds True, 2016.
       *** HIGHLY recommended ***

Awkward Path to Peace, Equanimity & Joy

     If you're seriously committed to meditation practice, your noble quest to see clearly and find peace, equanimity & joy independent of circumstances might be smooth & easy, but more likely will have some ups & downs.

     “Depending upon various factors – such as psychological disposition, early conditioning, genetics, random chance – some people experience significant instability along the journey from surface to Source.

     Understand that your ordinary ordering principle is being ripped away – the body cannot get comfortable, the mind cannot get answers – but a new ordering principle, which is much deeper, is in the process of revealing itself.

     The awkward intermediate zone is a stage that some meditators pass through wherein the old coping mechanism (tighten up & turn away) is in the process of being shed, but the new coping mechanism (open up & turn toward) is not yet strong enough to provide abiding safety and fulfillment.” 
       Shinzen Young. “The Science of Enlightenment. How Meditation Works.” Sounds True, 2016. 
 

Complete Experiencing - Healing Trauma

     To be held in safety & unconditional love is one of the most fundamental of human needs. But life's paradoxical. A part of us longs for, while another part resists intimate connection.
     Meditation practice helps us to clearly see ourselves, others & the rest of reality, accept and re-establish intimate relationship with everything - "life's 10,000 joys and 10,000 sorrows." Shinzen Young's book (below) clearly explains how to achieve this through regular meditation practice.

     "Every time we identify with feeling separate from life, that’s a very subtle trauma. It’s the trauma of the perception of isolation." Caverly Morgan

      "... everything yearns to be met. Everything yearns to resolve itself in love – that love being the open space of acceptance, of allowing, of staying resolutely present, and unconditionally open to every nuance of your inner experience." Amoda Maa

      "Once we are willing to be directly intimate with our life as it arises, joy emerges out of the simplest of life experiences." Pat Enkyo O'Hara
 
     "To be enlightened is to be intimate with all things." Dogen

     "If trauma is defined as ‘inescapably stressful event that overwhelms people’s existing coping mechanisms’ and that in its psychological sense overwhelms the integrity and continuity of the self because its damage to the internalized links between self and other, then for a great many people there can be many small traumas, generating many areas of sequestered, dissociated, and partially dissociated experience. This is in addition to vulnerability to severe trauma.
     ... most crucially at issue in dissociatively-based psychopathology is the collapse of relationality – both interpersonal and intrapersonal (or interstate). Dissociation, as a state of being divided and as a chronic process, is ultimately a barrier to relationality, both within and between selves.
     ... I believe (most of us have) an addictive proprietorship over dissociative solutions ... The way we do this and how much we do it may differ, but I think we do it all the same.”
     Elizabeth F. Howell. “The Dissociative Mind.” Routledge, 2008

      “Paradoxically, the more we try to change ourselves, the more we prevent change from occurring. On the other hand, the more we allow ourselves to fully experience who we are, the greater the possibility of change.
 
      Every identification we hold about ourselves disconnects us from the fluidity of our core nature. Our identifications – that is, all the fixed beliefs we take to be our true self – along with the associated patterns of nervous systems dysregulation separate us from ourselves and the experience of being present and engaged. As much as we may feel constrained by our survival styles, we are afraid to, or do not know how to, move beyond them.
      Our survival styles are reflected in our bodies in two ways: as areas of tension (hypertonicity) and as areas of weakness or disconnection (hypotonicity). Patterns of tension and weakness reveal the ways we have learned to compensate for the disconnection from our needs, core self, and life force.
     All of us are somewhere on the continuum of connection to disconnection from our core selves and our bodies.”
       Laurence Heller, Aline LaPierre. "Healing Developmental Trauma: How Early Trauma Affects Self-Regulation, Self-Image, and the Capacity for Relationship.” North Atlantic Books, 2012.

     “The basic premise of mindfulness meditation is that consistently infusing the qualities of concentration, clarity, and equanimity into ordinary experience over time causes a fundamental shift in our paradigm. It is for this reason that mindfulness is sometimes called insight meditation.

     If you want to be happy independent of conditions, you’ll need to learn how to have a complete experience of each basic type of body sensation. On the spiritual path, we have to learn how to have a complete experience of anger, so that anger does not cause suffering which then distorts our behavior. For the same reason, we have to learn how to have a complete experience of fear, sadness, and so on. We even have to learn how to have a complete experience of physical pain, as well as other unpleasant feelings in the body such as fatigue and nausea. When I say, ‘Have a complete experience of x,’ its’ just a quick way of saying, ‘Experience x with so much concentration, clarity, and equanimity that there’s no time to coagulate x – or yourself – into a thing.’ You and x become an integrated flow of energy and spaciousness.
     Learning how to have a complete experience of discomfort sets us free. Learning how to have a complete experience of pleasure deeply fulfills. … The body sensations of making love are spiritual to the extent that they are complete, that is, experienced in a state of concentration, sensory clarity, and equanimity. To know what true love is, we need to experience it as it truly is. In Tibet, that’s called the oneness of bliss and void.” 
       Shinzen Young. “The Science of Enlightenment. How Meditation Works.” Sounds True, 2016.
 

Fruits of Meditation

      Busyness, restlessness, distraction, intolerance to discomfort, and impatience energizes searching, but results in a lot of shallow, dry wells, exacerbating a chronic sense of 'lack.' 
     Those who persevere, 'delving deep,' achieve all that meditation has to offer. Lifelong committed meditation practice yields profound benefits, far beyond stress reduction.

      “Often when we meditate, we are not consciously aware of much happening. It just seems like we are sitting there. Much of the time, our mind may be wandering, and when our mind is not wandering, it goes to sleep. After a while, we become aware that we are physically uncomfortable, and then we come back to our object of meditation for a couple of seconds. Sometimes meditation practice goes on and on like this, and it doesn’t seem as if anything of real value is taking place. When we tell our friends what we experienced at a meditation retreat – mostly pain, sleepiness, and confusion – they may well say, ‘You paid good money for that?’
     But all the while, clarity and equanimity are slowly but surely trickling down into the subconscious. They rewire us at the most fundamental levels without us necessarily knowing it at the time. How do we know that it’s happening? We notice that things are changing in daily life. Our behavior and perception seem to be improving spontaneously. … In meditation, a lot of the learning that takes place is of this type. Meditation can clean out stored materials without necessarily requiring that you recall specific memories, traumas, and such.
     We might refer to this paradigm as the ‘trickle down’ model for reaching the subconscious. This contrasts with the ‘dredge up’ model used in much of psychotherapy. In the dredge up model, we reach down and explore a specific complex. This leads to a specific personal insight that then improves our quality of life. Dredge up and trickle down could be looked upon as mutually complementary processes. For some meditators, trickle down purification may be sufficient. But when that’s not the case, they can utilize the services of dredge up experts, that is, competent mental health professionals. It’s important to appreciate the awesome power of meditation practice, but it’s also important to realize its limitations. Sometimes other elements are required – therapy, 12-step programs, openness to social feedback, having a list of explicitly stated ethical guidelines, and so forth.” 
        Shinzen Young. “The Science of Enlightenment. How Meditation Works.” Sounds True, 2016.

Healing Even When - Especially When? - Meditation Practice Feels "Icky"

     An excerpt of Shinzen Young on processing psychological baggage during meditation:

      “'relaxation pain' (has) two strange characteristics: the more you relax, the worse it gets (at least for a while) and though it doesn't hurt much, it seems to cause a lot of suffering.
      The act of relaxing causes the mesh of ones consciousness to open. You become porous like diaphanous cloth. Psychological 'impurities' (samskaras), deep seated fixating, can now percolate up to the surface in tangible form. Resistance per se is coming up with nothing particular to resist! The actual discomfort (P) in your body may only be at level 2, but your perceived suffering may be at level 100. S = P x R implies that R = S / P. So you must be resisting at level 100/2 = 50. You are experiencing almost pure resistance, pure craving and aversion. In other words you are experiencing pure impurity!
      … try to the best of your ability to accept it. In this way, layer after layer of blockage from the deep unconscious, which would be very difficult to get to directly, percolates up to the surface and gets worked off. Admittedly this is challenging because those very sensations are the tangible manifestation of deep seeded tendencies of non-acceptance. Although it is challenging, it is also quite doable by anyone. Objectively, the suffering associated with this phenomenon is no greater than that associated with a rash or the flu. Anyone can learn to live with those kinds of sensations, but why would anyone want to? What is the payoff? The payoff is that consciousness is being cleansed at a radical level, a level that would perhaps be difficult to reach otherwise. 
      This is the reason that I said to be happy. Trying to contact ones innermost conflicting tendencies directly in the unconscious is very difficult. But when the phenomenon of the 'icky-sticky' sensations arises, the endeavor becomes very simple. All you have to do is pay attention to those sensations, try to accept them and let time pass. Nature will do the rest. 
      The mark of maturity in meditation is that everything becomes a positive feedback loop. The better it feels, the deeper you go! The worse it feels, the deeper you go!”

     Read the rest of "The Icky-Sticky Creepy-Crawly It-Doesn't-Really-Hurt-But-I-Can't-Stand-It Feeling" found under "Articles", then "Meditation Practice"

http://www.shinzen.org/index.htm

Mond   www.dpreview.com

 

Flow in Mindfulness Meditation

      Shinzen Young defines 'flow' - the technical term in Basic Mindfulness Training (not Csikszentmihalyi's construct) - "as the movement, change, energy, or force present within a sensory experience. ... Flow is not something separate from specific sensory experiences; it is a characteristic that appears within a specific sensory experience as a result of continuously bringing clarity and equanimity to that experience."

     The downloadable pdf "What is Flow" found under "For Students", then "Further Reference",  

http://www.shinzen.org/index.htm contains very useful information for those deeply engaged in meditation.

pocoloco   www.dpreview.com