Description

One of the functions of silent sitting practice is to allow presence & being to work on every aspect of your body-mind system in the most direct, intimate and unmediated way possible.

This work, while inclusive of the conceptual mind, is not managed or driven by it. Rather, it is fundamentally an energetic process that gains steam as we make increasingly deeper levels of contact with our felt-sense.

How does this deeper contact feel?

Here, poetry and similes often serve as better pointers than progressive checklists and complicated techniques.

The first thing we can say is that contact with the energy of presence happens through a profound receptivity. It is popular now to emphasize the attentional components of this receptive state. Yes, it contains alertness. Yes, there is a steadying and stabilizing of attention. At the beginning of practice, it may feel like this is all you are working on, which is fine and appropriate.

But even then, it’s important to remind yourself that attentional development is in service of something else. That something else is the direct experience of the energetic aspects of true nature.

We train alertness, stability, sensitivity and vividness so that we can be totally and completely receptive to energy. This receptivity and softness in turn seems to further amplify the internal energy to the point where it seems like the entire body-mind system is being soaked completely through. As surrender and concentration deepen, presence becomes almost substance-like,  penetrating into the marrow of our bones and reorganizing the system in ways that are difficult to describe in language.

If this kind of experience is actually available to humans, what the hell is stopping it?

The most significant hurdle we make in moving the energy of presence into conscious awareness is the mind’s tendency to discount subtle feelings and movements. The keyword here is subtle. The mind hates subtlety!

The conditioned mind, like all things that are rooted in fear, is unstable. 
Things that are unstable are loud.
They are loud because they are always moving.
And they are always moving in the same basic ways: 
They compulsively move away from things (fear/avoidance).
They compulsively move toward things (desire/grasping).
And they compulsively move against things (anger/resistance).

This is a lot of loud, unsettled, and unstable movement. If the habit is to have your attention completely fused with this stream of mind for years and decades, it is going to be strange to change the channel and listen to something else, let alone trust that something else.

Many teachers and methods will sell the shifts of attention taught in meditation as a relief, but we think it's also important to say that, for most people, they can equally evoke boredom or disorientation.

Compared with the activity of the mind, the sensations of the inside of the hand are kind of…. meh!

Particularly if we have a very rigid, two-dimensional view of the body, what the hell is the point of a bunch of hand sensations? We’ve got real problems to think about! Dramas! Dreams! Grievances! Some tingling in the hands is just honestly not that compelling compared to that stuff.

The thing is, we’re not looking for some kind of PhD in hand sensations, or breath sensations at the tip of the nose, or anything like that. What we’re looking for is a bridge. And anything in the system that we can directly feel, that is neural to pleasant, and that tends not to accrue/carry trauma or emotional charge, can be that bridge.

You can find a bridge just by sitting still and asking yourself:

Show me where awareness wants to settle and stabilize.

Then just relax, let go, and track how the attention is being subtly moved or where it is being subtly drawn. If you are worried that you are interfering or being too directive, give yourself a breath, reset, and say the inquiry again in your inner voice, slowly, with sincere intention.

Do this as many times as you like.

After a certain point, you will recognize a kind of subtle, involuntary movement. This movement has a unique signature that is yours. You will not really be able to describe it to anyone in a way that does it justice. It’s like you just invite the awareness to do what it wants to do, and something clicks into place.

It is common in the literature to say that this will be a single physical location, but it is not always like that. The word we like is signature. However fleeting, there is a momentary flicker where your wisdom-intelligence is showing you the most optimal way to settle and rest within your own energy system.

Whatever you feel as the result of the inquiry, and however subtle those feelings are… THAT is the bridge. That is the beginning… the seed.

To grow the seed, we give it relaxed, consistent and surrendered attention. What does that feel like in practice?

It feels like marinating or soaking something.

Whether we have 5 minutes or 5 months to practice, the attitude is the same. All the pointers, teachings and cues are there to support the personality structure in getting out of the way of presence & being. Cueing that in your inner voice at different times during the day can be powerful:

I allow presence to work on me in a complete and uninhibited way.

Say that, and then let the internal energy do its work. Have the attitude that the body itself is like an empty shoot of bamboo that the sensations and energies of the system are effortlessly moving around and traveling through.

The great Burmese meditation teacher Sayadaw U Pandita said: “most people don’t get beyond the mind.”

This is true.

And because it is true, we can say that one of the greatest art forms of spiritual practice is skilfully supporting the mind and personality structure in seeing that it is safe to get out of the way of presence & being.

The thinking mind initially processes most heightened states of presence as threatening because it is not generating, and therefore cannot control, the experience of energy. Moreover, it processes the invitation of deep states of presence - which is essentially to rest, heal and be renewed - as some kind of annihilation experience.

Here, it is important to remember a feature of many traumatized systems - they refuse to deactivate (the finger always stays on the “on” button). We are of course very familiar with this at the psychological level, from people who can’t stop talking or “telling you things,” to people who always need to know where other people stand before they make even the smallest point, to people who collapse around even very small things that are being asked of them.

What do these examples have in common? A part of the personality is “stuck on ‘on’” around a certain defensive strategy, and usually it was a strategy that worked well at an earlier developmental stage.

But in the absence of directly sensing and being guided by true nature, those strategies have a way of “going global.” They begin to make appearances in situations they are not well suited for, and at times that feel misattuned. Working with them is basically a slow renegotiation process where we convince them, through repeated experiments, that there is something else (true nature) that can manage and direct the situation in more skillful, safe, fluid and rewarding ways.

In so doing, we invite the part into non-doing and resting in an area of life that it has been compulsively trying to maintain authority. In other words, we invite it to experience cessation. And what happens when we do that?

Renewal, joy, lightness and a sense of possibility. Far from being “killed off,” the part finally was able to deactivate, rest, and cease participating in life in ways that were misattuned, unsatisfying and toxically stressful.

Whatever conditioned habits you are specifically working with, it can be very important to frame deep stillness through this lens: 

Each moment of soaking - of marinating in the energies of presence & being - is a kind of education for the aspects of personality that are skeptical of true nature (the inner parent).

Soaking is the process of becoming gently and thoroughly familiar with the trustworthy nature of the inner parent and its ability to guide the life via wisdom and compassion. 

Evidence for and comfort with presence comes in glimpses which naturally extend, widen and deepen as you stay with your inner process.

Do not rush, but at the same time, gently question any tendencies to Self-abandon or ‘put off’ what matters most to you.