Duck Dukkha, Sidewalk Jewels · 14 July 2009

Ok, I stopped making sense. Do-over.

Let me first write this like a sixth grader telling you about her summer vacation. Get the sentiments in the right places and the information that interests me in the center.

Last week was fascinating. I actually figured out what insight practice is, and that in the past, instead of implementing insight practices, I’ve used the slowed-down aspect of retreat to cruise in nondual anti-meditative states. Both are most wonderful. Nothing wrong with nondual surrender-mind. But since the insight thing is new, I’m a little flummoxed. This is my fourth trip to an insight meditation center (the visits to Zen and Vajrayana centers were sort of different, I suppose). Shouldn’t I have figured it out before? The practice is SO EASY and basic. Anyway, it’s all humbling but also thrilling.

On another note, the note I was attempting to make below, it seems like just straightup concentration is a great idea. It seems that the insight thing works now because I have done the concentration thing every day for two hours for five years. So I am also interested in the ways that all this concentration practice has changed me, and in why nobody wants to talk about this as an aspect of yoga practice, and why so many people aren’t even practicing it while they do their asanas.

Hello? Yogaschittivrittinirohada, eh? One-pointedness is so good! Are there a lot of people who do yoga the way I've been doing Vipassana... going to the center and paying the fees but never actually getting with the program?

That’s all.

Well also, because of Michael Jackson, there were big helicopters that made he zendo rattle and stacked my experience of sound and touch in an exciting way. And there were ducks. One of the ducks was white and couldn’t stop doing the shimmy; and I lay on the edge of the pond each afternoon watching its light ripple through the oak tree branches while the little guy had a sustained Daffy-level fit. It was as close to perfection as I’ve ever experienced, except for the terrible frustration of the poor duck. And: crucifixes everywhere, which I didn’t mind. That part was actually awesome: I’ll just admit it. I also didn’t mind the food, which I knew was horrible even though in my state of sensory sharpness it tasted delicious. Also, one night we never even went to bed and just sat there meditating for hours, and when the rest of us kids got up for coffee and chocolate and salami sandwiches, he just kept sitting there like a rock. The guy was gone. Completely disappeared to some other place, like Bodysnatchers. Next day he just went on teaching as usual. He’s 64. Technically.

…………………..............................................................

Back to the topic of concentration, this time in conversational language. What I mean to suggest—and the idea is not new (CP pushed this for years)—is that Samadhi isn’t a “spiritual” or otherworldly state limited to demigods and freaky gurus. The development of one-pointed concentration is what yoga is actually designed to do; and once we pull that off consistently, amazing benefits begin to accrue. It’s ok to concentrate the mind. There’s nothing woo-woo or necessarily violent about it. Anyone can take in there.

Since it’s so beneficial, and since we’re hanging out doing some simple body movement anyway, why not go for it?

There is this wonderful stuff that happens when you learn to go in to deep concentration, and then just go there day after day after day. There is a dramatic increase in intelligence because your concentration ability and mental clarity bleed over in to the rest of your life. The positive emotion is pretty consistent as well; and according to the jnana techers it can and should be cultivated systematically.

I am not going to worry about mapping the old jnana terminology on to the new flow state terminology, or to engage in whatever enormous debates may exist around “samadhi,” but it seems that old jnana literature is what best describes the experience of people who do a deeply concentrated practice. And it has great instructions, whereas so far the literature on flow states (and its saccharine relative, the “positive psychology” literature) are all over the place.

From what I’m finding initially, it seems that the idea of jnanas was from the Theravada, but that systematic practice of concentration and absorbtion states became a “lost art” in the world of systematic deconstruction of the mind that is insight practice.

I’ve run across two teachers who have gone back to research and write about the old practices, and then taught them. One was Ayya Khema, who recovered them from bad translations of the Vissudi Maga that she mapped back on to her own experience. And there is is Shaila Catherine, who gave a 10 month silent retreat over to trying out the old descriptions of how to practice deep concentration and came back from it with something kind of profound to give. She’s unassuming and frumpy and female. Maybe this is why nobody is paying attention to the beautiful jewels she is shining up and leaving on the sidewalk.

But to me this sounds like a simple, clear agenda for how and why to concentrate.

I’ll drop some links in the comments section later, including an audio interview with one of Khema’s students and a google talk by Catherine.

:::EDIT::: Links added. The two podcasts are pretty inspiring. 

Posted by (0v0)        
Categories: evolution , science , spirituality

Comment

1. You are one precocious six grader ;-)

   I worry that I am one of those who do yoga the way you’ve been doing Vipassana… going to the center and paying the fees but never actually getting with the program? Well, I am with the program during practice, but when the practice is over, I am still not capable of taking the practice with me to the other aspects of my life.

   Posted by: Fatou · Jul 14, 11:18 PM · #

2. Mmmmmm great big, deep posts to think about, missed you but this was worth the wait.

   Isn’t this what I’ve been getting at, that the practice itself, as a meditative act (Ouch, act, problematic no?) is the thing itself rather than a preparation for …..
   It’s the difference between the Buddhist sense of Samadhi and the Hindu sense No?
   Samadhi as an experience rather than as a state. Samadhi as an ‘act’ (help me out here Owl, if not act, what?) of concentration that can allow you to experience the illusion as opposed to Samahdi, a state, where illusion drops away and you experience oneness with Brahman. In Hinduism it’s the final goal no, but in Buddhism it’s a path along the way.
   Trying to remember what I read about the Jhana’s, must look into it. Look forward to hearing more from you about them, the jhana’s that is( jhana’s,plural right? ).
   Think this all explains why i’m more drawn to Buddhism than Hinduism, I have problems with patanjali. (reading Sankara’s alleged commentary at the moment and his attempt to turn the whole thing upside down, have you read it?).

   Hmmm think this comment doesn’t make sense, more thought needed.

   Posted by: Grimmly · Jul 15, 12:03 AM · #

3. Your first post wasn’t nonsensical. Here’s what I got: the ashtanga practice teaches us (or can teach us) to focus the mind (concentration). Typically, this is as far as we get, if we even get that far beyond the physical practice. Discussion of samadhi is avoided as an esoteric, eastern, spiritual thing we don’t want to talk about because we don’t understand it (culturally foreign, cryptic and abbreviated language of Patanjali), we fear it (will I become a weird new agey person completely divorced from rational thought? maybe this is just my fear…), and we fear offending other spiritual/religious sensibilities (thus the 40 platitudinous and palatable definitions of yoga). What you seem to be suggesting is that, once we have acquired concentration, the step to samadhi is both short and attainable.

   This is something I had never considered.

   I had, frankly, considered samadhi to be unattainable, the peace that passeth understanding, a visitation of Gabriel, swing low sweet chariot. You know, Old Testament s***.

   Well, indeed, for me, the distance is definitely not short, as I sorely lack concentration. Interestingly, I started doing yoga in the hopes that it would help my mind more than my body, and I preferred ashtanga both for the physicality and the lack of woo-woo.
   Two questions:
   1) are you suggesting more woo-woo? (I think that you’re suggesting that samadhi is, in fact, not woo-woo at all.)
   2) You seemed to make a distinction between absorption and concentration. Can you clarify?

   Posted by: Wombat · Jul 15, 03:18 AM · #

4. I have to mention Dharma Overground, where this stuff is the center of attention: http://dharmaoverground.wetpaint.com/

   Posted by: karen · Jul 15, 04:00 AM · #

5. The samadhi as in nondual connection, the big neverending space of no fear and no desire but yet energised by the link to everything: the dropping off of body/mind? Or sumfin else?
   I fall deathly asleep with silent meditation, where is the focus for mind on one-pointed, is there a practicum for that? I need one!

   Posted by: Gregor · Jul 15, 11:59 AM · #

6. I recognize I’ll draw some ‘dualism’ backlash from you here, but: Had you not been concentrating on the physical and mental sensations that come about through the practice, and on linking them together? I suppose a person could concentrate using just about anything as a hook, but most of the rest of the stuff becomes boring. It becomes boring to me, anyway. Or maybe you’re talking about concentrating on nothing particular, just like dear old Patanjali.

   Posted by: Carl · Jul 15, 12:29 PM · #

7. Carl, this is a great question. I actually follow the breath. If it’s a new posture or something is very different in my body, I shift to muscle sensations.

   I’m taking a poll!

   Where do you place your attention during practice? Anyone, please answer. Any length of reply is good.

   Also Carl, note that I’m ignoring your wrongness about Patanjali. You’re just trying to make me fuss at you for never doing the reading!

   Wombat, thanks for writing. This is great. About the previous post making sense, thanks too. I do think there is something to the argument: there IS a kind of misplaced mystery. What I find nonsensical about the below articulation of it is that I was being emotionally dishonest. I’ll make a note of what I mean by that below.

   More here in a bit…

   Posted by: (0v0) · Jul 15, 01:17 PM · #

8. Oh, links.

   Leigh Brasington He’s a student of Ayya Khema.

   Shaila Catherine speaks at google.

   Shaila Catherine’s book

   Ayya Khema’s autobiography

   Mainline Theravada discussion of absorption states

   The best short, practical, honest discussion of access concentration

   The first, second and last are all easy to take in and potentially revolutionary.

   Posted by: (0v0) · Jul 15, 01:29 PM · #

9. My answer to the question “where do you place your attention during practice?” Sort of like what I did during summer vacation… Anyway, my attention moves as the procatice progresses. It begins with sound: breath — mine and others, the opening chant, the beeps of a garbage truck (which can take on incredible harmonics — think Virginia Woolf hearing the birds speaking Greek), etc. From there, my visual field comes into play and it’s kind of hallucinatory in a synesthetic (if that is the adjective of synesthesia) way. That is, I see what I see, but there comes to be an overlay of maps. Yep, maps. From this point, until the end of practice, I look at the maps, which look like a cross between Google Earth and Thomas Guide. Mainly european cities that I know well. It’s tremendously fun and quite pretty. I don’t think this has anything to do with what you’ve been talking about, but you asked.

   Posted by: KNL · Jul 15, 03:38 PM · #

10. That’s the best absorption state ever. You’re a sattelite!

    I really only learned to look straight at my “mind’s eye” this week in retreat. Throughout the day, there is often a very fast stream of images there and I’m not even aware of it because I’m listening to myself talk. Teasing the image out of the emotion and talk is fascinating… I’ve been checking in at intervals all day to watch the machine do its thing.

    Here’s a trick that helped me “see.” Close the eyes and “think of” a person. What form did the thought take? Where in space was that thought (in image form) located? Close the eyes again and think of the whole room. Where is that located? Finally close the eyes and think of your own body. Where’s that located?

    These are the different corners of “image space.” To begin to tease apart the visual aspect of thought from emotional and discursive aspects, I learned to attend to that whole “space” and watch for content to enter in to, move around, and leave it. Then I learned to attend to how that movement interacted with what was going on in the emotional and discursive spaces. In Shinzen’s model, these three spaces combine to form subjective experience, the sense of self, and what is usually taken as “thought.”

    Shinzen’s teaching on this topic (and it’s only one of five general kinds of meditation in his schema) is that feel, image and talk combine to create subjectivity. Usually they amplify each other to create what we take unreflectively as “thought,” and because it comes from all sides, the subjective experience is overwhelming. But when we learn to separate the three strands of subjectivity, their combined effect as experience becomes merely additive, rather than multiplicative. He likes to say:

    Feel x Image x Talk = Prison. Feel + Image + Talk = Home.

    The great thing about learning this little breakdown in the context of silent retreat is that not having to engage in the constant project of doing-being myself allows this constantly interactive three-way system to calm down a little bit. Usually, feel-image-talk is always working to sustain a sense of self vis-a-vis the world. It’s reactive. Once you bracket the self, though, unless you’re doing nondual absorption or whatever, the feel-image-talk system is still working. It goes from reactive mode to proactive mode. It just idly sits there and generates selfhood. That’s a much more tractable mode to learn to watch the process go on and begin to see inside it. This is what yields the “insight” in so-called vi-passana or insight meditation.

    Again, this is something totally different and MUCH more interesting and subversive than just watching yourself think, which is all I’ve ever learned to do at previous retreats.

    Shinzen’s tagline is that meditation increases your baseline levels of:

    concentration
    clarity
    equanimity.

    The post above is about the concentration piece. This analytical stuff—being able to see thoughts work mechanistically—is the clarity piece.

    I imagine the very idea of deconstructing one’s own thought process will really offend some people here. Kind of like it’s disrespectful to our essence, or some kind of morally corrupt synaptic pornography. Or maybe that it’s a violent offense to meditation itself, which is supposed to be about killing thought and embodying peace, like on the magazine covers.

    Gregor… does this very analytical, active (often super fast and crazy) form of “meditation” (hardly the peace-out stereotype of practice) sound like something that could keep you engaged? It’s actually QUITE entertaining…

    As for one-pointed concentration, what about the breath? It’s not so bad if you do some asanas at the same time…. Listen to the google talk above though; it might sell you.

    Ok, I haven’t responded to Wombat, Grim and Fatou but I need to go to the beach now. God I love this stuff…

    Posted by: (0v0) · Jul 15, 05:31 PM · #

11. Placing attention, hmmmm. Well it’s changed, when I was on a roll With Primary I would attend to the breath in the Sury’s and in standing do the Zen, let thoughts flow through freely kind of deal. In seated I would be focussed on the breath again but it would become more of a Vipassana thing, I’d notice something and try to attend to that till the end. In finishing I would be back to the breath, long slow exhales.

    That changed with Intermediate as I didn’t have the same flow. At first I’d be focussed on getting the asana pretty much right then once I knew them I would try to keep myself on track by focussing strongly on the breath, not allowing my mind to wander, grim determination type of thing to get me through.

    Recently following the Vinyasa Krama stint I’m playing with the breath more, as a default focussing on the exhale a pause while engaging of the bandhas, attending to my rectum as Ramaswami put it (much to my amusement). I try to fit the breathing to the asana more, lighter, shorter inhales on binds for example and much much more bandha work. Intermediate has become less of the Zen/Vipassana style meditation practice I used to go on about, and probably more of a focussed yogic practice. I’m trying to get up earlier now to do some Vipassana afterwards to make up for not doing it throughout the practice.

    Been skimming through my Visuddhimagga to check out all the Jhana references, knew I’d come across them somewhere. They’re more tools of the trade right? Is this what your saying, that the concentration we develop in Yoga by focussing on the breath say, is akin to a jhana that we develop and can then use in Insight meditation to attend more effectively. Which goes back to my first comment on the differences between Buddhist and Hindu view on Samadhi. In the Buddhist sense, the concentration/first jhana that you develop in Yoga say brings you to the point where your able to PRACTICE insight meditation to gain PERIODS (that increase in ‘length’) of Insight whereas from the Hindu perspective Yoga can bring you to a state where your able to experience Samadhi, which is the goal, everything else dropping away to become one with Brahma.

    My leaning is to the Buddhist approach, interested in the use of jhana as tools, the Visuddhimagga was talking about using one jhana (happiness say) for a period and then dropping it and using another…. not very clear in that source need to look at your links, thanks for those.
    Think that must be why my ears pricked up when I first came across them, you know how Heidegger loves to go on about tools.

    Posted by: Grimmly · Jul 15, 10:55 PM · #

12. I am almost embarrassed to write where I place my attention during practice. In fact most of the time, the attention places itself all over the place and I try to reign it in. As far as I can remember, yesterday my attention was on my shoulders and on how hard it is to keep uddiyana bandha in the move from chaturanga to urdhva mukkha and then it moves between different parts of the body in the standing poses, parts that seem difficult to maintain the correct allignement, which when I think about my Iyengar training. Once I get to UHP I usually think of Matthew Sweeney and how he said ‘we tall people don;t have it easy in this pose, just do it and it will come’ and then I start stumbling to which I react by being hard on myself and then I usually go into the unproductive thought called “i’m am not good enough or at least I am not trying hard enough” and then I think about my shrink’s theory about where these feelings originate and then I really try to reign the attention on to the breath and it works for a while and then for the rest of the practice I don’t remember, I usually am much more focused in the second part, after navasana, sometimes even from mary A onwards and then of course all hell breaks loose in savasana, yesterday’s was a nightmare. rethinking the recent painful events, to the point that I get a burning sensation in my stomach and then I try to relax, but it is not easy.
    Embarrassing stuff as I said.

    Posted by: Fatou · Jul 16, 02:00 AM · #

13. Breath & fuzzy vision.
    Physical sensation.
    Occasional image.

    And when the going gets rough, the 3 characteristics:
    All conditioned things are impermanent.
    All conditioned things are unsatisfactory.
    All things are not self.

    :-)

    Posted by: karen · Jul 16, 04:23 AM · #

14. Not embarrassing at all once you see it and dis-identify from it?

    I’m reminded of the Sri Larry line: “Watch things appear and disappear.”

    For Liz and Fatou, I wonder if Grimmly and Karen’s descriptions would be interesting. There’s already a lot of self-awareness and flow, so watch the starts and the ends of the sensations and thoughts. Shinzen calls this attending to the vanishings. Says where things go to is also where they come from, and gets a glint in his eye.

    That’s separate from concentration practice, as Grim notes, but it’s still pretty awesome and maybe a better description of where most people practice and gain some insight? Maybe watching impermanence is natural to this practice (or at least a default that can be exploited fruitfully), even moreso than traditional one-pointedness?

    I still have to come back to Wombat’s comments and Grim’s… have given me a lot to mull over. Also, Liz… contacts. SRSLY.

    Posted by: (0v0) · Jul 16, 04:35 AM · #

15. Oh my, I think I want to hug you for this. I read Daniel, after listening to Leigh, then reread your response and it all went click: your shinzen summary was perfectly clear to me, and I think i will try visualisation as the door.
    The concept of multiplication, and reducing it is fantastic. Vive la revolution. It pretty well lines up with 5th person perspective or somesuch, this discernment needs such concentration and clarity. I will skip work and go practice!

    Posted by: Gregor · Jul 16, 06:56 AM · #

16. <<<<<<NICE>>>>>>

    Yes, vision was the door for me.

    This shit is so fucking good once you click in. The book I linked, the author is like, Meditation is more fun than sex!

    I’m not taking it that far.

    Anyway, have to go teach now…

    Posted by: (0v0) · Jul 16, 07:44 AM · #

17. My teacher uses an analogy that helps me. The mind (or attention if you like) is like a child that we try to make sit on a chair. The breath is the chair. Just as we would with a child, we use a firm hand and patience to try and get the attention to stay on the breath. We do not berate it when it gets off and wanders around the room, we simply guide it firmly back… Sometimes I even picture my teacher coming along and steering myself (as a child) back to the chair/breath.

    For me, I place my attention as much as possible on the breath, and this highlights where else my attention meanders away to. So many places within the practice have become habitual cues for the attention to take a little break, but sloooooooowly I notice them and reign it in. Over the years this is probably the best skill that yoga has taught me. As you know, attention and concentration are a necessity in research and writing – just as my attention likes to go walk-about when I am nearing karandavasana, my concentration likes to take flight when I am faced with a stumbling-block in my work. The fact that I can now slowly bring it back before an hour or two is lost is a HUGE benefit!

    On a slightly different note – I was captivated by your above-below equation post in relation to the in- and out-breath. And I therefore have a new place to put my attention: on the balance between these two. It is a revelation! Over the years I seem to have swung between too much focus on the inhalation and too much on the exhalation. The balance that I am now cultivating (or attending to) is truly enthralling… It has refined my practice, and as you mentioned, given me energy.

    Thanks once again for shining a light on something right in front of me!

    Posted by: Sally · Jul 16, 09:47 AM · #

18. I wrote that post because a teacher who did 3S for more than a decade suggested I come back to the inhalation. My breath has changed so much this summer, and come to feel like such a amazing process. And FWIW, doing a mature sama vritti (which has taken years to find) seems to be the key that allows me to fall in to a place of allowing 3S to practice itself. I could write love poems to sama vritti. All of which makes it easier for me to focus on the breath intently. (Though last week in retreat, the breath disappeared. Kind of scary.)

    I do worry a bit writing about discussing the concentration thing for a reason you imply. Would some people start (1) forcing it (totally possible, but somehow generates tension over time) or (2) getting really mad at themselves (if I have gone through self-loathing in my practice, it is when I realize how far I’ve wandered).

    Shinzen’s thing for concentration (but not other varieties of meditation is to bring a gentle, firm, matter-of-fact attitude” to the practice.

    P.S. Gregor, Daniel Ingram’s Chapter 5 on his five years as a “One Technique Freak” (linked above is Chapter 3, on access concentration) is a no-BS, specific, super-useful take on this thought-deconstruction thing. You’ll love it.

    It occurs to me that none of this conversation is possible unless we all agree not to identify with our thoughts. Thanks everyone. Even just the willingness and flexbility to roll with that attitude (not my usual attitude) is freeing.

    Ok now lunch…

    Posted by: (0v0) · Jul 16, 10:26 AM · #

19. On not identifying with thoughts. It dawned on me as I read this comment that I don’t mind not identifying with the distracting and self-destructive thoughts (glad to try and let those go, albeit with difficulty), but a little sad not to identify with the good ideas (darn).
    And, Fatou, your description of where the mind rests (or doesn’t) sounds about like me.

    Posted by: Wombat · Jul 16, 12:26 PM · #

20. I’ve done my share of reading but I ascertain that there isn’t much value in attempting to glean knowledge from ‘scripture.’ One needs experience to be able to make sense of it, and to actualize it, and when the experience requirement is satisfied, scriptural reference would seem not to be so germane, anyway. Maybe I miss some things, but I gain some things, too.

    Posted by: Carl · Jul 16, 12:57 PM · #

21. I mostly focus on how my body feels, but I’m one of those people who feel happy moving their bodies.

    Posted by: V · Jul 16, 01:10 PM · #

22. Laughing because I finally got Wombat’s implication that we could use a Martin Luther of samadhi.

    Power to the people… but not all the people want power. :-)

    1. Contacts I made it through one upsetting, irritated practice. The temptation to look at others’ faces was roughly as distracting as having a jack-hammer crew in the back of the room. What a mess! Afterwards, the left contact (my good eye) was trapped in the upper right corner of my eye (from third eye driste?). It took 20 very upsetting min to get it out. I wonder if, in the beginning, the underlying reason I stuck with this practice was the relaxing experience of doing stuff while my vision was fuzzy.

    2. Is in woo-woo? No. It is the most analytical, least woo-woo process possibility ever. The non-normal stuff that happens (the jnana literature talks about an increase in energy, extreme happiness, mild hallucinations, which I understand, plus much other stuff I don’t understand) in states of deep concentration is not woo-woo in my book. I am sort of trying to act as a “scientist,” so view these experiences as part of nature. Admittedly, other ashtangis who have gone through “kundalini” opening (which the present literature calls “first jnana”) and other stuff often experience it as “spiritual.” That’s great too. I have at times identified with non-normal experiences and see others doing this too. There are long time practitioners walking around thinking they are enlightened beacause they can go in to absorption states on a dime. (Which is a great skill, naturally.) Hahahaha! Riiiiiiight. These are lifers, though: people who have done so many thousands of hours of asana practice that their minds have become really (beautifully) focused. I doubt most of the people reading this will know too many of the pseudo-enlightened ashtangi set. They’re wonderful people with sweet energy… just quite un-grounded and also… deluded with grandeur? The fact that so many mind changes might happen after a lot of practice (if people concentrate, maybe?) is another reason it’s weird to me that there is not more open discussion on these matters by teachers who have been there. But then… who would offer it? We’re kind of on our own here. :-)

    3. Tools My willingness to be eclectic with traditions and concepts and terms (see: the loose use of “samadhi” and lack of concern with whether I’m sourcing just the Hindu or just the Buddhist tradition or whatever) was originally inspired by the tools-at-hand sections of Being and Time. I’m sure I totally misunderstood Martin (sorry!), but he freed me up to play with ideas when nothing in my lexicon is working.

    Time to go do some yurt yoga with the shamanic strain of ashtangis up in Ojai… XOXOXOVO. Admittedly, there will probably be some woo woo happening.

    Posted by: (0v0) · Jul 17, 12:46 PM · #

23. Woo woo, is the sound that owls make. This is coincidence??

    I read chapter 5. The level of discernment required to poof thoughts into confetti is quite exciting. I like his metaphors, and I trust the sense of encouragement he brings to it all.

    So as a byproduct of all this, will I still have to do Ashtanga? I already eat yoghurt, lentils and kale, and I have a very soft spot for girls who smell of patchouli. No, no, I think I know the answer already…

    Posted by: Gregor · Jul 17, 07:43 PM · #

24. Oh my my my. I almost leapt out of my leopardskins when I saw the previous piece of well-sprung wiseacering in this little corner of the hundred acre plantation! What you all seemed frighteningly close to understanding was that the question ‘What is is Yoga?’ is the hamster-wheel that y’all are SUPPOSED to keep running, wired up as it is to the cash-generator par execellence of dukha-dangled dimwits in search of a bit of melting peace. YOU are there to get soaked by US, the Laghu Lords of the Olde Church Science of Asset Absorption.

    Fortunately, you have been enticed back into this brain-bifurcated version of spinning class. Viva Vivarana! as they say down Karnataka way, or Ole! as they do at the St Elsewhere of your splintered sadhanas.

    Oh my God, you should not be querelising directly about samadhi!. I was discussing this with a relatively well-known teacher of the New York caste just the other week. He told me that a student of his once had the affrontery to press him direct (though not as pelvically tilted as he would prefer, one suspects)on this very topic. ‘Honey, you get samadhi when my pension fund’s good and ready, and not a single monthly shala fee before!’ was his answer, he claimed. Actually, he is also a proponent of the accretional approach. Apparently, ‘Level I TT + lvl II (200hrs) + Advanced TT (500hrs) + Advanced Plus TT (1456 hrs, EXCLUDING Swadhyaya) + SquishyRishi retreat(3yrs continuous@ $14,000/annum) + ‘In-house Apprenticeship’ (indeterminate length) = 20 credits on the way to the laundry house rough and tumble of Jivanmukti stain-cleansed adamanitine mindlessness. Which is what samadhi really is, lets face it.

    Anyway, I was somewhat surprised to see some trifling discrepancies between the world’s most accomplished non-deified Yogi expats, er, experts on this thorny little bit of the old burnin’ bush of bending lore. Yee old Rodney reckons that ‘samadhi’ is a seafood dish of Okinawan origin, whereas young Duncan is convinced that it is just a minor character in Streetfighter II or Tekken or whatever he’s enthused with under the strobe-lights this semester; Ask Anna Forrest and she’ll frown you towards a minor branch of the Iroquois nation but Richard Freeman will simply begin the extraordinary engineering project of winching his left eyebrow up towards his foppy-flopped fringe. At least the bankroll burgeoning iconoclast of Byron Bay pointed me towards one ‘Sam Hardy’ of the University of Queensland but, really, I think he’s taking his revisionism a little too far.

    Bewildering I know, but as the good folks as YJ wil tell you, ‘Hey, it’s all Yoga, it’s all good!’

    I am, however, a little nostalgic for the gandharva-graced days of yore when there were only two types of samadhi up for grabs: ‘seeded’ or ‘unseeded’. Now, personally speaking, as an ashtangi, I preferred the nutty roughage of the seeded variety. Unfortunately, those little sesame-esque bits were obdurate enough to pass right though the alimentary classes of mulaville and didn’t half itch-out the old nuthuggers.

    I still like to knock back an unseeded now and then with my morning amrita Daquiri but, you know, only when there’s none o’ them yogini chicks to chomp on. Yum.

    Posted by: CATYGAY · Jul 18, 08:52 AM · #

25. hi (0v0), thanks for writing about this. finding similar centerdness was easy for me in Calif, with Zen and Vipassana so easily available. it’s not so easy here. and yet all of this stuff came thru here to the West, historically.
    hugs
    Arturo

    Posted by: arturo · Jul 19, 05:41 AM · #

26. I’m glad I don’t read those kinds of overly adjectival lit that lead one to inventive, opulent hyperbolism in their comments on other people’s blogs.

    Posted by: Carl · Jul 20, 09:04 AM · #

27. Carl, is that why you don’t know fine writing when you see it? I believe the resident heartthrob has been quaffing youtube, not the n+1 magazine it list.

    Not that I agree with him. If spiritual materialist yoga can get you hooked in to the breath, it’s better than hamster-spinning. In such form, it contains the seed of its own obsolescence.

    The yurt was excellent, btw. I have been swimming in the Matilija river and lying out in a mountain meadow reading The Prophet. It’s good to get out of town sometimes.

    Posted by: (0v0) · Jul 20, 09:32 AM · #

28. “inventive, opulent hyperbolism”

    Woohoo! Thomas? Thomas Pynchon? Is that you?

    Posted by: karen · Jul 20, 11:40 AM · #

29. Oh, your agreement is somewaht less delicious than the spry share of your stipend placed by your tiny rapper-tappers in those modest bits of Meissen come payday and far, far less nibblesome than your hriddlesome homebaked fayre, sui generis labelled for sale in the shraddha aisles of Santa Monica. In such form, it defines the need for its own obsolescence. Yum.

    Churl, honey, I do declare that you’re quite right in limiting the soggy semaphore of your own ‘opulent hyperbolism’ to the rattling redoubt of your own blog. Tip top tapas.

    Posted by: catygay · Jul 20, 11:43 AM · #

30. Owl stew? No good. And it's true I cannot cook a whit. (Right now I’m eating eight kinds of greens with olive oil and seeds... ‘senough for this rabbit.)

    Anyway, I aver that somewhere between Lot 49 and Against the Day, CATYGAY became comfortable in the leopardskin nuthuggers and too fell for the easy question. What is yoga? It is nothing less than contemplative capitalism. Looks juicy, but once you get a good whiff, you'll want to send it back to the kitchen and go raw.

    Something from yesterday,

    Posted by: (0v0) · Jul 20, 12:14 PM · #

31. You guys obviously never learned to stare unblinkingly at candles in 70’s decor yoga ashrams.

    I don’t think anyone used the word Drishti in this whole comment thread. As Richard Freeman is fond of saying, “you just look”.

    Posted by: Jamie · Jul 20, 01:58 PM · #

32. I think Richard got the idea from shikantaza to attempt to re-explain the obvious – so ‘just sitting’ isn’t enough for ya, try ‘just looking’. Oh that word ‘just’ is a bastard for discernment purposes!

    Posted by: Gregor · Jul 20, 02:15 PM · #

33. Jamie, do you mean trataka? The exercise ideally is supposed to be done by looking at the rising or setting sun, when it is positioned at the horizon and looking at it won’t cause retinal damage. Candles are prescribed, but I personally find they allow an inferior experience. The problem is that they must be placed close to the viewer, such that there is a tendency to converge the eyes to the candlelight. I find it’s difficult to completely release tension in my ocular muscles because of that. When looking at the sun, the eyes may remain parallel and focused to infinity, and it’s comparatively easy to release tension that way.

    Posted by: Carl · Jul 20, 02:25 PM · #

34. That’s a relief, I thought maybe Richard got it from Nike. Makes sense because to barely look or merely sit undercuts the spiritual profit motive. Yes, I was cheekily referring to tratak. I too vastly prefer gazing at the horizon to glaring at candles.

    Posted by: Jamie · Jul 20, 06:39 PM · #

35. There is some vestigial candle-glaring built in to the Yogaworks teacher training program. Don’t ask me how I know that.

    In any case, I’m not sure how “just look” jibes with this whole “tristana” business. Just look, breathe and squeeze? I’m not sure if that’s shamatha practice or just a good mindfuck.

    FWIW, Shinzen’s line is that zen says too little and vipassana says too much. Guess I’m holding up the tent for the “too much “ school…

    Posted by: (0v0) · Jul 21, 10:29 AM · #

36. Staring into a licking fire works beautifully, too. But then, that’s not really staring; it’s more like relinquishing ocular control, and just taking up the imagery, sans darting, squinting and blinking. I presume this is not as YACYGAT would have it, however, so I await his/her correction.

    Posted by: Carl · Jul 21, 03:27 PM · #

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