Stage 4 - wisdom and freedom
This is the final set of instructions for these meditation lessons based around the anapanasati stages of breathing meditation. These instructions are pointing to some profound ideas so you'll need to bear that in mind - it may take years to fully appreciate them. If it all sounds like gobbledygook, then go back to a previous lesson or try something else for a bit.
1. Establish some form of samadhi or very calm state of mind. Ideally, you want the body and mind unified and everything stable (not wandering off).
2. Spend 15 minutes kind of blossoming and locked on to this state.
3. Notice impermanence. You might use the sensations of breathing in your mind to become aware of this, or you might use sounds. Your brain activity is never still, you are constantly in a state of change. This happens at a deeply molecular level. Things are constantly coming and going. Everything is in flux. Rest in the middle of this flux. Know it as known experience of yourself.
4. Next. Feelings of pleasant and unpleasant come and go. See the underlying desire of your being to seek pleasure and reach out to meet experience as it arises. Know this desire as a kind of empty longing. As you see this desire in your self to chase ephemeral phenomena, it will naturally subside. It feels coarse. There is something more pleasant in sublime abiding. See the desire to control experience fade.
5. (Still with me). Now we no longer chase experience, we recognise the whole cycle of arising and passing away. We relax deeper into letting go and experience is like sitting in a train going backwards watching things endlessly disappear. We know this is happening. Things are constantly fading away. Reality is no longer a separate thing. We are immersed in reality. Floating in it. Untethered.
6. We reach the end of the journey. We surrender. We let go completely. There is no you, I or this and that. The mind is a quivering membrane, part of a greater reality. Our whole perspective of reality is altered, we see things differently. There is a great relief at this moment. We don't need to be burdened by our stories anymore. We are free.
And then we come back into the room.
(I'm not claiming anything, by the way, so don't start that.)
1. Establish some form of samadhi or very calm state of mind. Ideally, you want the body and mind unified and everything stable (not wandering off).
2. Spend 15 minutes kind of blossoming and locked on to this state.
3. Notice impermanence. You might use the sensations of breathing in your mind to become aware of this, or you might use sounds. Your brain activity is never still, you are constantly in a state of change. This happens at a deeply molecular level. Things are constantly coming and going. Everything is in flux. Rest in the middle of this flux. Know it as known experience of yourself.
4. Next. Feelings of pleasant and unpleasant come and go. See the underlying desire of your being to seek pleasure and reach out to meet experience as it arises. Know this desire as a kind of empty longing. As you see this desire in your self to chase ephemeral phenomena, it will naturally subside. It feels coarse. There is something more pleasant in sublime abiding. See the desire to control experience fade.
5. (Still with me). Now we no longer chase experience, we recognise the whole cycle of arising and passing away. We relax deeper into letting go and experience is like sitting in a train going backwards watching things endlessly disappear. We know this is happening. Things are constantly fading away. Reality is no longer a separate thing. We are immersed in reality. Floating in it. Untethered.
6. We reach the end of the journey. We surrender. We let go completely. There is no you, I or this and that. The mind is a quivering membrane, part of a greater reality. Our whole perspective of reality is altered, we see things differently. There is a great relief at this moment. We don't need to be burdened by our stories anymore. We are free.
And then we come back into the room.
(I'm not claiming anything, by the way, so don't start that.)
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