Techniques to Go Beyond the Conceptual Mind: Part II

No. 1

Try thinking of something that does not exist. This will stop thoughts, but only for a short while,  because you can’t stop your mind with your mind. To arrive at momentary flashes in the field of awareness, you have to go deeper into the physical, subtle and Void bodies before thoughts become attenuated and spaced out. Here Rudi’s phrase is worth repeating: “No problem is solved by the same level of consciousness that created it.”

It is not possible to stop thoughts fully, even in deep meditation. This is a myth of meditation, and a dead end for meditators.  In straining to stop thoughts you become fixated on stopping thoughts, which itself is a thought. You may also think that because you cannot stop thoughts completely, you are a poor meditator. This too is another thought.  Thoughts come out of nowhere and go back to nowhere, especially when you are not fixated on them. Try not to let thoughts flashing through your field of awareness seduce you.  Just let them go. Having said this, if the top of your head is open a great idea, or a poem or painting, or even a creative solution to a problem may well occur. You have tapped into the big mind that transcends the little mind of the self. This is often wonderful and useful, but if this creative idea happens in formal meditation, you can think through the idea later. 

No.2

Similar to the first technique, is the Vedanta method of inquiry. Ask yourself the question: Who am I?  Am I thoughts, emotions, sensations, a body.  Am I anything that passes through awareness? The answer is NO, or in Sanskrit, NETI NETI. Who am I then?

Here is a poem I wrote on the subject:

someone

turned on the light 

inside my body 

At some point in your mother’s womb a light went on. This light is the field of awareness that makes consciousness possible. This is who you are and it is separate from the story that constitutes ego. This light may live beyond your present incarnation when you find yourself in a new body, whatever it is.

Consciousness is always consciousness of a thing, so awareness is actually prior to consciousness. Awareness is the irreducible element, the intangible bedrock underlying the passing show. This is the deepest level of your Being. You cannot know awareness because it is pure subjectivity. To know awareness is to make it into an object— but you can experience it on some level. Even some otherwise airy Vedantins realize that pure consciousness is impossible because it has to be mediated though a physical body. Nevertheless, they usually ignore the body. They think that redirecting the mind to the field of awareness again and again by asking the question, Who am I? is the path to enlightenment. Nisaragatta, Ramana Maharshi— whose body was a wreck—and even Krishnamurti believed that breathing methods and meditation were basically unnecessary. It is telling that their disciples and followers in no way reached the level to which these three masters appeared to ascend by just using the practice of inquiry. 

Tibetan Buddhist Dzogchen practice is also similar to Vedanta because its main principle is turning the mind to look at itself. What is the source of the mind? It is something empty yet cognizant, radiant and luminous. It is not something you need to develop but just todiscover and rediscover. In Dzogchen the end of the practice appears at the very beginning. You get animmediateglimpse of the Void body through“pointing out” the nature of mind in Dzogchen. As in Vedanta, the goal is to live from the perspective of awareness rather than from the conceptual mind. In Dzogchen philosophy and poetry, awareness is likened to the limitless clear blue sky. This is dwelling in rigpa,the vast space of big mind.

It is a tall order to mostly dwell in rigpaby just mentally returning to it again and again.

For the Tantrika it is necessary to integrate your physical body with the subtle body and Void body to stabilize awareness. Then you are really “rewiring yourself,” as Rudi used to say. Awareness filtered through the body is a subtle pulsation or vibration that can be apprehended. This is called spanda(the doctrine of vibration) by the Tantrikas. In order to experience spandafully it is necessary to open the chakras in the central channel and then all the chakra cells of the body. 

Yet you can nonethelesscut to the chase as Vedanta and Dzogchen practitioners do, using the inquiry technique I described above for a minute-long meditation that you can repeat multiple times a day. The inquiry methods are initially a quick way of cutting conceptual mind before practicing the double-breathing exercise. You can try doing the one-minute meditation hourly, or every other hour, or wheneveryou are not feeling rightfor whatever reason.Feel free to extend this practice beyond a minute! Make suffering an optional experience with these short meditations. Give yourself a mental holiday. A few-minute break can actually seem quite long. You can also try practicingthe inquiry methods briefly at the beginning of formal Kundalini sitting if your mind is racing, or when you find yourself getting stuck in a mental/emotional loop during your sit. Inquiry methods, however, are strictly a preliminary method for clearing the mind and are not a substitute for opening your chakras with the deep double-breathing method to arrive at the Void body.

No 3.

My favorite technique of cutting conceptual mind is the “strong eye” of the indigenous Australians, first mentioned by anthropologist Stanley Elkin in his book, Aboriginal Men of High Degree. I learned more about this technique from interviewing an indigenous Australian artist about the dotted lines in his work when I was an art critic. In the Aboriginal version of meditation, the eyes expand from a fixed point to 180-degrees of soft-focus attention. It is not possible to hold this attention and maintain internal chatter at the same time, so it very effectively stops the mind. Eventually the adept begins to see light lines in a landscape and clusters of light lines, which in Aboriginal culture can mean power spots or water holes. Light or energy lines are also important in Taoist feng shui practicefor the same reasons. 

You may also have seen these light lines in Kundalini meditation. They connect everything in the room. Try doing the strong-eye technique in conjunction with the double breathing in a dark room and tell me what happens!!!! Of course, it can also be done in the beginning of a one-minute practice or formal Kundalini sitting, as with the first two techniques.

I advise experimenting with all these techniques to see what works for you. Also, on any given day, one may work better than another.

Here are the light lines in a painting by Australian artist Liwukang Bukurlatapi. They crisscross images of the Dreamings, the spirit beings who created a particular landscape of the aboriginal world and everything in it. As my Australian informant told me, seeing the light lines “makes the gut grow happy”. In other words, they recharge the viewer. They are the underlying battery that animates and connects all existence.

Here are the energy lines in a Chinese landscape painting by a Taoist monk. Presumably, the figure in the hut is meditating.

1. 

   Love it, I feel like it’s important for me to keep remembering this as I often get caught up in…

2. 

   loved this mark, always so great to remember that there are multiple realities and this collective story we all share…

3. 

   Thank you for taking the time to write such a powerful and thoughtful post. You continue to guide us with…

4. 

   Thank you for this lesson, Mark. Your generosity and kindness is incredibly giving. My challenge is having blocked chakras; this…

5. 

   Wow. Thank you Mark. This calls me to reflect on the changes occurring along side my practice since the first…