Rope Burn: Recent Episodes
Ryan Lowe
It can seem as though we live in two Worlds, one with eyes open (the "real" world) and the other with eyes closed (an imaginary world). But a pawn closer inspection of how our brains render our sensory input, it can be possible to see that both of these are actually the same. Playing between the two with eyelids filtering just a small amount of light in can reveal the illusory quality of our visually perceived reality. The knowing of not only visual perception but all experience as being illusory in this way is similar to realizing that you're sitting in a movie theater watching light on a screen. Settling back into pure awareness is like noticing you're watching a movie but the movie is your moment to moment experience. Then the practice becomes maintaining contact with that awareness even when the script of your life twists and turns and ways that would otherwise completely suck you back into believing in the solidity of phenomena.
The danger with thinking is that it easily becomes the primary lens through which we experience reality. The advantage to thinking is that it's a powerful tool with which we can navigate the world. The time to think is only when it's necessary, on an as needed basis. The rest of the time we can luxuriate in the experience of whatever's happening, which will include the bubbling up of random thoughts.
The feeling of rushing is a signal that "the factors of enlightenment" are out of whack. And so it can help to slow down and be with the pressurized feeling of purposefully slowing down.
This is a guided meditation in which we use labeling to extract ourselves from identification with the six aspects of experience: sight, sound, body sensations, visual and linguistic imaginings, and emotions. Once freed of identification with the above, we abide in/as the space beyond it all.
You would still be you, because everyone is always "I" and feels just as much "me" as anyone else. We all are this mysterious "I" in different costumes.
How will I know if I'm fully enlightened? I think it can be a strong signal that the finger is pointing at the right moon if, during hard times, the mind remains as beautifully joyous and radiantly happy as during easy times.
If you worked out yesterday, how can you tell you worked out? If you have no memory of the experience, what of that experience leaves residue on the present moment?
Reality is already perfect in every moment exactly as it is, it's only when I bring my own preferences and desires into the picture that any unsatisfactoryness at all is capable of existing. But prior to all of that, everything is perfectly okay.
Nothing whatsoever is to be clung to as "I" or "Mine". Those who have heard this have heard all the teachings. Those who have practiced this have covered all of the principles.
When we ask the question, "Who am I?" and wait in the not-knowing of the question itself, not turning to thought for an answer, the not-finding itself becomes an experiential resolution to the question.
Buying reality in "as is" condition has the potential to end stress and unhappiness. When we practice leaving all sense perception, thought and emotion as is, we relax our reactivity and come into harmony with what is.
Last night I had a full-blown awakening experience without the help of psychedelics or extended meditation or breathwork. I was however, on the tail end of an IFS session and this certainly had me in the right neighborhood for magic to happen.
When I was high and experienced oneness with everything, I looked to see if there were stepping stones back to this perspective in sober consciousness. What I found was that the breadcrumbs were hard to see because absolutely everything was a breadcrum, and so became hidden as separate "things". It's almost too simple to see because we expect it to be something else or more complicated than it is.
I've made a recent discovery that my mindfulness practice wasn't working because what I thought was mindfulness was actually recognition. True mindfulness needs to be free of aversion and clinging. What I was practicing was recognition without an awareness of my attitude toward what was being recognized.
It seems as though the only way for there to be some suggestion of my existence as a separate "self", it can only be hinted at through assumption. The second I start looking for it in my direct experience, it vanishes.
Coming out of a few weeks of fairly potent sadness and overwhelm and depression, I've gained a little bit of insight as to what I can be doing as unpleasant thoughts and feelings arise (alarms) two more skillfully triage my taking action into "now", "later" or "never."
The last time my wife and I were really high together, we came up with a saying that seemed to capture the feeling of being completely open to everything that was happening. Now, that same saying is a window which either opens to happiness or closes, and keeps happiness out.
Somehow I thought all the spiritual practice had put me in a position of being immune to overwhelm, burnout and feeling stressed out. Turns out, I was wrong.
We are fortunate in that we can actually conditioning service systems to become more accepting of unpleasantness while simultaneously accessing states of relaxation. This means external circumstances are no longer what govern our sense of "things being okay," and instead we find ourselves in a position where we can gradually increase the territory of what we consider to be "okay."
In this meditation we're going to be practicing noticing when we have been carried away by trains of thought, and simply getting off each train. We will be shifting our attention to the in-breath, and abiding in a state of mental tranquility if it arises.
As I record this episode I'm in the middle of feeling resentment and anger. Normally, these feelings would be directed at another person. But the deeper truth is that I am the problem.
Inviting all aspects of experience into the traveller's inn of awareness, and tending the fire of awareness that illuminates them all.
Rumi (an ancient enlightened poet) was asked, "What is Sufism" and he replied, "Joy in the face of sudden disappointment."
Border Collies need to be challenged physically and mentally in order to thrive. If neglected, and left to their own devices - this breed of dog is inclined to misbehave. The excess energy becomes destructive and the potential for that energy to have been spent skillfully is squandered. Our minds are similar, and in this guided meditation we will give our "dog minds" a job to do.
I've always tended to separate formal meditation from tedious and mentally strenuous tasks like those encountered on my laptop at work. My question at this point is how do I maintain an awakened mind during heavily left-brained tasks which by their very nature require my full attention, leaving not much additional RAM for paying attention to attention itself.
The space between thoughts is all we need to notice during meditation. This silence is the non-dual state, where we have not become identified with thought.
A line from the Bhagavad Gita can guide us to the insight needed to skillfully participate in our worldly activities while maintaining an open heart.
Just returned from a 4 day Zen retreat, trying to communicate what it's like at the moment.
If you don't know how to get out of your own way, the practice of releasing all effort may be wild new country replete with opportunity.
We work our asses off to have these enlightenment experiences and then what? What does practice look like on the other side of seeing that you are indistinguishable from the rest of the universe, and the Avatar of our "self" was never actually there in the first place? Oddly, it comes down to satisfaction. If we can ask ourselves if we want anything in any given moment to be different, and for the answer to be consistently "no", then it really doesn't matter what kind of practice we have. As far as I can tell, this type of mind will inevitably realize the same kinds of things that our great Mystics have always pointed to.
Internal Family Systems (IFS) seems to overlap with Zen in one very significant and helpful way: it provides a system for disidentifying from our own challenging emotions and becoming merely aware of them. The surprising part is that we become unburdened by that which we simply notice, versus that which we "are". In the end, it seems increasingly true to me that the less "self" is present (and the more the contents of experience can just do whatever they're doing) the lighter and freer we're going to feel.
For whatever reason, early in my practice I really had a hard time complying with the instruction to always sit straight while meditating. My thinking mind could form all kinds of arguments against it and so I wanted to practice meditation in all these different positions. But as my practice has matured a little, I'm seeing more clearly that the structure in traditional seated meditation plays an important role for supporting some of the more advanced states that can be encountered in meditation.
In the first written Zen document, the Hsin Hsin Ming - a Zen Master warns us that the greatest mistake is to pursue Mind (nirvana/enlightenment) with the thinking mind. In the shadow of this statement lurks a direct pointing to a meditative technique which we can use to open us up to glimpse the infinite.
How we think about our meditation practice can actually get in the way of true meditation. The ability to discard the identity of the "meditator" and to really just continually come back to just paying attention is the antidote to struggling to meditate consistently.
Our starving ancestors used to spend days chasing antelope across the fertile crescent. Their hanger served them well enough to get us to where we are today, and so I'm not so sure we should want to turn our backs on this evolutionary gift.
I've been spending time with ChatGPT trying to rebuild a 1989 computer game. During the process, AI and I have accidentally produced a hero paint brush. And with this hero paintbrush, I unlocked an uncertainty epiphany.
Considering the possibility that our thoughts are totally inconsequential can offer utter release from being implicated by them. At first, thoughts are like a finger tracing a line in water. As we practice, thoughts become more like a snake uncoiling and slithering away. As our practice matures, thoughts become like thieves breaking into an empty house. By giving those thieves nothing to steal, we rob them before they rob us.
Despite the obvious fact that we will always experience setbacks in our day to day lives, we tend to have some underlying expectation that "one day" things will be just the way we want them. How do we free ourselves from this fantasy and engage directly with the freedom already available in on this bumpy ride of life?
Your suffering is directly linked to the fact that you think cars are real. In this episode we will deconstruct a car in search of its inherent "car-ness". For anyone who is able to successfully complete that thought experiment, the latter portion of the episode will walk through a deconstruction of what we think of as our "self" / "ego" / "personality". The big promise I make here is that the failure to discover an inner "self" comes with a profound sense of well-being and freedom, as well as a dramatic downturn in one's ability to suffer in the conventional sense.
Making decisions based on desire is, at best, only going to work in our favour part of the time. So how can we do what's best for us, and for others, more consistently?
If you've ever been curious about psychedelic states of mind, but have been hesitant to try anything because you're afraid of losing control, psychedelic breathwork techniques might be the perfect alternative. With psychedelic breathing, deep states of awakened consciousness can come online and we glimpse profound "big picture" insights about our own lives. It's important to notice that this type of pursuit is best approach from a therapeutic angle. Psychedelic breath work isn't really something to try for thrills or fun, it's best thought of as a tool that can allow us to see into the depths of our own minds. This type of exploration can be profoundly emotional, sometimes frightening, and often extremely cathartic. Prioritizing safety, comfort, and privacy (perhaps with a trusted friend or guide) as well as setting an intention for what you hope to discover during your psychedelic breathwork session is the best way to set things up to go well. That said, even the challenging or upsetting sessions are not without value. As with other psychedelic experiences, it tends to be the case that we are shown what we need to see, not necessarily what we want to see.
In developing the conditions for our enlightenment, it helps to have both offensive and defensive strategies. Our offensive approach is to pay attention at all times. Our defensive strategy is to be on the alert for when we are living from a state of autopilot. When we notice that this is the case, we can flip back into a state of paying attention.
I just stumbled across some really critical information around the direct path to enlightenment. One must simply pay attention at all times. But how can I possibly absorb all of it, at once, forever, for the rest of my life? Would I even want to it? Sounds exhausting. One thing that can alleviate some of that upfront resistance is the realization that there's no need to actually capture all of it. You just need to pay attention to whatever happens to be in the spotlight of focus. The critical point is: this is not a state of distraction. It is not being carried away by trains of thought. Thoughts arise and are seen. We do not become enslaved by them, our attention is too strong to be captured. It is a dragon burning through the fetters of delusion.
True freedom is accepting things, exactly as they are, even as we work to improve our situation. Problems don't exist; they're simply a failure to accept things as they actually are.
There is a feeling that we all experience, on a daily basis, that has enormous potential for allowing us to taste a deep sense of personal completeness. That feeling is restlessness. How does that make any sense? How can restlessness be something that through which we're able to discover a deep sense of well-being, and a profound feeling that we are all ready complete, exactly as we are? Restlessness can feel like the opposite of that, it can feel like nothing's okay until I go into the fridge and get something to eat or pour a coffee or turn on my phone. Like, there's just this itch, this existential angst, I just got to do something.It's the feeling that comes on at the end of the day, when I've kind of finished up everything that I had on my to-do list, and I don't really know what to do, but it's not time to go to bed yet. So there's this, doldrum of time, or yeah, I can feel like hours that can just yawn forth in in my imagination, as being unspoken for, unplanned for. And restlessness then springs upon me with this frenetic energy, almost demanding that I do something. But when we sit still and allow ourselves to be pushed around by restlessness, curious about how intense it can get, and perhaps even enjoying the turbulence, that's when we begin to need less distraction. We're okay! Even in the face of restlessness. And in that okayness an even deeper sense of completion can surface.
Meditation can produce stretches of radio silence where the thinking process stops. This can be startling, and for me it was even accompanied by some fear. But as we learn to trust this silence, there is the potential for our identification with thoughts to release. And if meditation is about anything, it's about letting go.
Mu is exactly the way everything already is. It is becoming transparent, yielding to, and just being what is here, now. Simultaneously, there is a falling into the spell of thought. In those moments, the thought is all there is. And so I am the thought. But when I notice I'm caught up in the spell of thinking, which often itself is more thinking, albeit less identified.Can mu be entered willfully? For me, it seems to arise on its own, if the conditions are suitable. My practice then, is to cultivate the appropriate conditions with patience and equanimity - for as long as is needed. Mu brings a similar feeling as a low dose of mushrooms. There is a content, relaxed, and heavy feeling to the body.It's as though there is much more awareness of the body and my inclination is toward just being. The desire to do is greatly diminished. I noticed the mind going toward action with a menu of thoughts and yet this contentment is too good. I am happy, just to be like this for as long as it lasts.
Like the process of breathing, thinking is, at best, only somewhat controllable. Most of the time, the thinking mind is on autopilot. If we aren't our thoughts, we are free to relate to thinking as an impersonal process. This new orientation opens up new tools for practice, and creates the space needed to work skillfully even when our thoughts feel out of control.
Why is it important to slow down and do things as mindfully and as deliberately as possible with careful, attention, paid to whatever it is that we're spending our time doing - however mundane In that task might be? The comparison that I found very helpful actually is drawn from bodybuilding. When you look at the distinction between training for power and training for muscular hypertrophy and growth, the difference is in efficiency.
What comes to mind when you hear the word contentment? Is that a feeling that you are very familiar with? Are we able to immediately pinpoint in ourselves? What if we were already feeling this every day, and just haven't been noticing?