Four Paths of Meditation Practice

    It can be almost impossible to have any sense of where we come from, who / what we really are. Usually we only get brief, vague, glimpses, intuitions, insights. But these nudges are recurrent, and our openness, readiness, preparedness to receive them fluctuates. At some point, some of us are drawn to open up & assent to this whispering call, to at long last say, 'Yes!' 

    There have always been those among us - shamans, wisdom keepers, prophets, mystics, saints, and countless ordinary folk - who remember their True Nature more clearly than most, and live as closely as they can to align with that insight: http://www.johnlovas.com/search?q=perennial+philosophy

 
    Hearing / reading about our True Nature, especially for those with minimal direct experience of it, can be challenging. Language itself is dualistic - it comes from & reinforces a perspective that each of us is a separate entity in a harshly competitive relationship to people, animals, Nature, life itself.

    Those who've had profound direct experiences of ultimate reality, have powerfully experienced how everyone & everything is one, profoundly interconnected, expression of timeless, intelligent Love. 

 

    One of these awakened folks is the Zen teacher & poet, Henry Shukman. A few words he says about his latest book, "Original Love: The Four Inns on the Path of Awakening" 2025:

     “What I’ve come to feel in the world of meditation, and what my book is really about, is that there are different paths. They’re all closely related, but they have slightly different purposes. They’re not all one and the same.

    So there’s a whole world of practice around mindfulness, which is basically therapeutic, healing. It’s about taming our anxieties, de-stressing, and getting our nervous systems in better shape, more balanced, more subtle, responsive and well-toned, rather than jammed into an accelerated position all the time, stressed-out. So that’s great.

    There’s a whole world also of discovering deeper connectedness, and discovering that underneath our surface life of name & gain and trying to get things, or what Wordsworth called, ‘Getting & Spending,’ beneath that surface life that we’re all so engaged in, there’s a kind of deeper life where we contact something some call the soul, like a deeper level of our personalities, a sort of truer, somehow more authentic self, that has very different concerns. It’s much more concerned with beauty, with spiritual things, and with deeper connection with others. Sometimes it feels connected to forces in Nature, and Nature itself. So to uncover that more connected part of ourselves is a whole other kind of practice. Mindfulness and meditation can help with it, but it’s a slightly different target zone from foundational mindfulness.

    And then there’s the whole world of flow states and absorption practices and what we call Samadhi in Buddhism. This deep absorption, beautiful states of mind that we can cultivate in our mediation, which are wonderful. That’s another world of practice.

    And then the fourth one, I say is Awakening, which is also not like any of the others. Yes, closely related, but it’s a sudden, dramatic shift from one way of seeing, where I am me, which basically I am in those first three kinds of practice. I remain me. I don’t have to suddenly discover I’ve never been here the way I thought. I can work with who I feel I am in mindfulness. Likewise in the deeper connectedness, I’m still a person. There’s no doubt about it. But I am feeling myself in a very different way, but it’s still kind of me. And likewise in cultivation of flow, my sense of self may get quieter, but I haven’t radically discovered that I’ve never been a self the way I thought. 
    In Awakening, we do discover that. Suddenly, we see that what we have taken ourselves to be, has just been a figment of our imagination. And somehow, what’s really been going on is something – well we can get it on different levels really, different depths. There’s no time, there’s no space, there’s no separation. It’s just one unfolding happening now. Just like this. And that’s what we are.” 
    Henry Shukman https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJ6uKrhAc_s

 

         “There are only two ways to live your life.
         One is as though nothing is a miracle.
         The other is as though
         everything is a miracle.” Albert Einstein

 Now is the Time

Now is the time to know 
That all that you do is sacred.

Now, why not consider 
A lasting truce with yourself and God.

Now is the time to understand 
That all your ideas of right and wrong 
Were just a child’s training wheels 
To be laid aside 
When you can finally live 
With veracity 
And love. . .

My dear, please tell me, 
Why do you still 
Throw sticks at your heart 
And God?

What is it in that sweet voice inside 
That incites you to fear?

Now is the time for the world to know 
That every thought and action is sacred.

This is the time 
For you to compute the impossibility 
That there is anything 
But Grace.

Now is the season to know 
That everything you do 
Is sacred."

Hafiz 'The Gift' translated & interpreted by Daniel Ladinsky

 

Insight Meditation Society (IMS), Barre, MA

 

     

We CAN Experience the Light

"We are all walking in the dark

but with a handful of candles 

that is in our power to ignite.
With every choice we make,
I chase the darkness.
But, I choose to believe in the light."
Closing lines of the 2024 BBC miniseries “The Jetty”

 

     Daniel Schmidt (a Canadian!) is writing, producing & narrating a series of imho impressively wise, beautiful, powerful movies, designed to point us towards directly experiencing our true self.
    Here's my transcript to a small portion of  Daniel Schmidt's "Samadhi Movie, 2018 – Part 2 (It’s Not What You Think)" :

    “In this film when we use the word Samadhi we are pointing to the transcendent. To the highest Samadhi which has been named Nirvikalpa Samadhi.

    The actual word Samadhi means something like to realize the sameness or oneness in all things. It means Union. It is uniting all aspects of yourself. But do not mistake intellectual understanding for the actual realization of Samadhi. It is your stillness, your emptiness that unites all levels of the spiral of life.

    It is through the ancient teaching of Samadhi that humanity can begin to understand the common source of all religions and come into alignment once again with the spiral of life, Great Spirit, Dhamma or the Tao. The spiral is the bridge that extends from the microcosm to the macrocosm. From your DNA to the inner Lotus of energy that extends through the chakras, to the spiral arms of galaxies. Every level of soul is expressed through the spiral as ever-evolving branches, living, exploring. True Samadhi is realizing the emptiness of all levels of self. All sheaths of the soul. The spiral is the endless play of duality and the cycle of life & death.

    At times we forget our connection to the source. The lens we look through is very small and we identify with being a limited creature creeping upon the Earth, only to once again complete the journey back to the source; to the center that is everywhere.

    Chuang Tzu said, ‘When there is no more separation between this and that, it is called the still point of the Tao. At the still point in the center of the spiral one can see the infinite in all things.”

    The ancient mantra, ‘om mani padme hum’ has a poetic meaning. One awakens or realizes the jewel within the lotus. Your true nature awakens within the soul, within the world AS the world.

    Using the hermetic principle, ‘As above so below, as below so above’, we can use analogies to begin to understand the relationship between mind and stillness, relative and absolute.

    A way to begin to grasp the non-conceptual nature of Samadhi is to use the analogy of the black hole. A black hole is traditionally described as a region of space with a massive gravitational field so powerful that no light or matter can escape. New theories postulate that all objects from the tiniest microscopic particles to macrocosmic formations like galaxies have a black hole or mysterious singularity at their center. In this analogy, we’re going to use this new definition of black hole as ‘the center that is everywhere.’

    In Zen there are many poems and koans that bring us face to face with the gateless gate. One must pass the gateless gate to realize Samadhi. An event horizon is a boundary in space-time beyond which events cannot affect an outside observer, which means that whatever is happening beyond the event horizon is unknowable to you. You could say that the event horizon of a black hole is analogous to the gateless gate. It is the threshold between the self and no self. There is no ‘me’ that passes the event horizon. In the center of a black hole is the one-dimensional singularity containing the mass of billions of Suns in an unimaginably small space. Effectively an infinite mass. Literally a universe in something infinitesimally smaller than a grain of sand. The singularity is something unfathomable beyond time & space. According to physics movement is impossible, the existence of things is impossible. Whatever it is, it does not belong to the world of perception, yet it cannot be described as merely stillness. It is beyond stillness & movement.

    When you realize the center that is everywhere & nowhere, duality breaks down, form & emptiness, time & the timeless. One could call it a dynamic stillness or a pregnant emptiness, within the center of absolute darkness.

    The Taoist teacher Lao Tse said, ‘Darkness within darkness the gateway to all understanding.’

    The writer and comparative mythologist Joseph Campbell describes a recurring symbol, part of the perennial philosophy which he calls the Axis Mundi; the central point or the highest mountain. The pole around which all revolves. The point where stillness & movement are together. From this Center a mighty flowering tree is realized. A Bodhi tree that joins all worlds. Just as a Sun gets sucked into a black hole, when you approach the great reality, your life starts to revolve around it and you begin to disappear. As you approach the immanent self, it can be terrifying to the ego structure. The guardians of the gate are there to test those on their journey. One must be willing to face one’s greatest fears and at the same time accept one’s inherent power. To bring light to the unconscious terrors and the hidden beauty within. If your mind is not moved, if there’s no self reacting, then all phenomena produced by the unconscious arises & passes away.

    This is the point in the spiritual journey where faith is most needed. What do we mean by faith? Faith is not the same as belief. Belief is accepting something on the level of mind to bring comfort and assurance. Belief is the mind’s way of labeling or controlling experience. Faith is actually the opposite.
    Faith is staying in the place of complete not knowing, accepting whatever arises from the unconscious. Faith is surrendering to the pull of the singularity, to the dissolving or dismantling of the self in order to pass the gateless gate.

    Belief and disbelief operate on the level of mind. They require a knowing, but if you enter into your own investigation examining all of the aspects of your own being ((self-inquiry)), finding out who is doing the investigating, if you’re willing to live by the principle ‘not my will but higher will be done,’ if you’re willing to travel beyond all-knowing then you may realize what (this film has) attempted to point towards. Only then will you taste for yourself the profound mystery & beauty of simply existing.

    There IS another possibility for life. There IS something sacred, unfathomable that can be discovered in the still depths of your being, beyond concepts, beyond dogmas, beyond conditioned activity and all preferences. It is not acquired by techniques, rituals or practices. There is no ‘how’ to get it. There’s no system. There’s no way to The Way. As they say in Zen, it is discovering your original face before you were born. It is not about adding more to yourself. It is becoming a light unto oneself; a light that dispels the illusion of the self.

    Life will always remain unfulfilled and the heart will always remain restless UNTIL it comes to rest in that mystery beyond name & form.”

“Be still and know that I am God.”
Psalm 46:10


“To realize the Self is to be still.”
Ramana Maharshi


“Empty yourself of everything.
Let the mind rest at peace.
The ten thousand things rise and fall
while the Self watches their return.
They grow and flourish
and then return to the source.
Returning to the source is stillness,
Which is the way of the Tao.”
Lao Tzu


“The secret of the receptive
must be sought in stillness.”
Zhou Xuanjing


“The complete stillness of the brain is an extraordinary thing;
it is highly sensitive, vigorous, fully alive, aware
of every outward movement but utterly still.”
J. Krishnamurti

PLEASE watch the entire SUPERB 60-minute video
"Samadhi Movie, 2018 – Part 2 (It’s Not What You Think)"
After transcribing a portion of this movie, I noticed that Daniel Schmidt generously provides complete transcripts! https://awakentheworld.com/transcript/samadhi-2-its-not-what-you-think/

Energy and Mindfulness - Part Two

     Meditation practice (like life in general?) has a tendency to overemphasize practitioners' strengths and further neglect their weaknesses. So it's very easy & common to become progressively more unbalanced. Yet what we're really after, is bringing our own mind, heart & body in harmony with others & the universe - harmonizing the personal with the transpersonal - ideally in a tangibly practical way. Indeed, Adyashanti teaches the importance of awakening at all three levels: head, heart & gut. These correlate with 3 key chakras. A practical, approachable technique is taught by Judith Blackstone: “The Realization Process." Sounds True https://www.soundstrue.com/store/the-realization-process-2436.html

      Judith Blackstone developed the Realization Process, a method of embodied nondual realization and psychological and relational healing. In the Realization Process, the radical openness of nonduality is based on deep contact with the internal space of one’s body. In this way, we discover an authentic, quality-rich experience of our individual being at the same time as we transcend our individuality. We realize ourselves as unified consciousness, pervading everywhere. 
     Below, a small part of her interview by Rick Archer of Buddha At The Gaspump: https://batgap.com/judith-blackstone/

     “I’m making a distinction in this work between matter, energy, and this pervasive space. It’s a distinction in the way we can experience ourselves. 
     So we can experience ourselves as physical matter, and when we do that we feel pretty separate from everything. 
     We can experience ourselves as energy, and most sensitive people do grow up experiencing themselves as energy – as that kind of streaming & pulsing & vibrating. And we can meditate in our energy system, and that will become even more fluid & expanded and so forth. 
     Now we can also attune to ourselves in an even more subtle level than energy, and that’s this pervasive stillness. And that pervasive stillness pervades the body and the environment as a whole. And that means that we then find ourselves in our body as a whole – it’s a dimension of unity, so we experience our whole internal space as a unity. 
     Now when we get there, when we know ourselves as Fundamental Consciousness (it has a lot of different names), then we get to an even more subtle level of our energy system – a very, very fine vibration that seems to be actually inseparable from the stillness, so that we experience the stillness, this radiance from the stillness at the same time. 
     The Japanese philosopher, Yasuo Yuasa, described how the internal space of the body becomes radiant coherence, as it’s pervaded by the transcendent. That means we become whole within ourselves, at the same time as we become one with everything else. It means we don’t have to eradicate our self-experience. We don’t disappear. In fact we become juicier. We become more present, and more aware of ourselves as even as an individual, but not in an abstract way, in an experienced way.” Judith Blackstone

     And this, from one of my favorite books of all time:
     “Samadhi can be conceptualized as the free flow of vital energy both within the body and between the body and the universe.

     Apart from the normal communication between people through language and action there is another quite different sort of mutual influence. It is that of the rhythm of the Original strength which permeates all human beings and all Nature. Through it every individual thing in essence and, as it were, underground is connected with every other. If then one who is further removed from the working of the Primordial Force is close to one who lives more in accord with it, the rhythm of the Primordial Force will certainly be transmitted from the one to the other. The latter without knowing it exerts a good influence on the other.”
     Sayama MK. “Samadhi. Self-development in Zen, Swordsmanship, and Psychotherapy.” State University of New York Press, 1986.

mollycules.podia.com

The Buddhist Path Summarized

     The entire Buddhist path fundamentally entails: 
          • abandoning the 5 hindrances, 
          • developing the 4 foundations of mindfulness, &
          • realizing the 7 factors of enlightenment 
     so as to gain true knowledge & release from the bondage of suffering & rebirth.

       Shankman R. The Experience of Samadhi. An In-depth Exploration of Buddhist Meditation. Shambhala, Boston, 2009.

      "5 hindrances are negative mental states that impede success with meditation:
          1. Sensual desire: Craving for pleasure to the senses.
          2. Anger or ill-will: Feelings of malice directed toward others.
          3. Sloth-torpor or boredom: Half-hearted action with little or no concentration.
          4. Restlessness-worry: The inability to calm the mind.
          5. Doubt: Lack of conviction or trust.

     4 foundations of mindfulness, bases for maintaining moment-by-moment mindfulness and for developing mindfulness through meditation: 
          1. mindfulness of the body
          2. mindfulness of feelings (or sensations)
          3. establishing mindfulness of mind (or consciousness) 
          4. mindfulness of mental objects (or qualities)

      7 factors of enlightenment:
          1. Mindfulness - to be aware & mindful in all activities & movements both physical & mental
          2. Investigation into the nature of dhamma
          3. Energy
          4. Joy or rapture
          5. Relaxation or tranquility of both body and mind
          6. Concentration - a calm, one-pointed state of concentration of mind
          7. Equanimity - to be able to face life in all its vicissitudes with calm of mind and tranquility, without disturbance."
       above from Wikipedia

near the Forest Refuge, Barre, MA

 

Polishing the Mirror Bright, & Beyond

     "'constructionists' argue that all experience, including mystical experience, is constructed from & filtered through a variety of inescapable personal & cultural experiences...

      Yet this may be only part of the story …  

     At the very highest reaches of meditation, transcendent experiences of a wholly different kind, radically discontinuous from all that have gone before, are said to occur. … Here descriptions & comparisons fail! For these experiences are said to be ineffable, indescribable, beyond space, time, and limits of any kind.  
     In the words of the Third Zen Partriarch: 
          To this ultimate finality 
          no law or description applies…. 
          The more you talk and think about it 
          the further astray you wander from the truth."


       Walsh R, Vaughan F eds. Paths beyond ego. The transpersonal vision. Penguin Putnam Inc, NY, 1993.

CM Tam   www.dpreview.com

 

Samadhi OR Hypnotic trance?

     Many meditation teachers advise students to put serious effort into focusing attention on one object eg the breath, in order to stabilize awareness. Some Zen teachers state that one must achieve samadhi first before making any real progress in meditation practice. This forced mental effort goes hand-in-hand with forced physical effort, "breaking through barriers" of pain. Stable one-pointed awareness can indeed be achieved by some using this marine-style method. However, those who have some variant of attention-deficit disorder, and or low pain threshold, and all of us when we have a lot going on in our lives, are not marine material.

     Hallmarks of samadhi include the end of "self-talk" (the obvious loud stuff at least) and complete physical ease of sitting (for prolonged periods). Both of these are major reliefs, so there's subtle euphoria, and the tendency to think "I've got it!" - delusion!! It's a small, very early step, in a lifelong journey.

     What's not commonly appreciated, is that a self-induced hypnotic trance can easily be confused with samadhi. One can literally escape the prolonged mental and physical strain by going into a trance state. In trance, one feels "locked-in on target" (like a jet fighter's canon) on the focus of attention.

     In the samadhi one cultivates with open-awareness meditation (Vipassana, Zen etc), one should be able to slowly move physically, look around, etc and REMAIN in samadhi. If doing these things ends the state ("breaks the spell"), it was self-hypnosis - a good hypnotist can help get you there in 10 minutes.

     We are trying to wake up! Samadhi - fully conscious, awake and aware - is cultivated through dedicated skillful mindfulness practice that is unforced, but continuous throughout one's (initially) waking hours.

Photo from Insight Meditation Society's website: http://www.dharma.org/

Interbeing

     “The key to self-development … is the experience of … a state of relaxed concentration in which the individual neither freezes out of fear nor clings due to desire. … the free flow of vital energy within the body and between the body and the universe.”

     Sayama MK. “Samadhi. Self-development in Zen, swordsmanship, and psychotherapy.” State University of New York Press. 1986.

Artist: Alex Colville   "Seven Crows"