《2023靜坐大綱》

2023.01.07► [Q&A] 出离恐惧／出離恐懼

• All the effort it takes: instead of expending energy on reacting, do so on being aware of the empty nature of the screen

• You take the self to be something perceivable, graspable, describable...you've forgotten your noble heritage and magical abilities

• Carrying a precious item makes you conscious of it, and in the same way you're conscious of／apprehensive about the self

• An indispensable factor of fear is thought; the nature of thought is to resolve itself; Paper tiger, rope snake, mirage; All images of the same texture

• The spirit of adventure and confidence

• An indispensable factor is feeling; the nature of feeling is to resolve itself; the ripples fluctuates but you're the ocean

• Thought is of the nature that, once reflected upon, disappears; that, too, is the nature of mind/mental stream

• All it takes is the Awakening at this instant; there's nothing that can truly harm; you're beyond what difficulties can touch

2023.01.28► [Q&A] 转化欲的炼丹师／轉化欲的煉丹師

• The renunciation vs the fulfillment paths; Ajahn Chah's suicidal tendencies

• Scarcity mentality; moralistic denunciation; suppression of pleasure and emotive expressions: the subtle resistances

• Scarcity mentality: the non-rushing; the allowing of sensations; the trust in one's inner abundance

• Inner Peace as a more compelling truth than can be captured by any legalistic formulation; this is why the Dhamma is hardly ever a legal document but more about the living embodiment; This continual and consistent surrender to truth gives meaning and purpose; meaning and purpose gives clarity and happiness

• Have compassion and understanding; There's so little control over things, and so focus more on that tip-point-present moment relating to experiences

• Transmuting the sensation of rushingness as contented fullness; getting used to being in such a state

2023.02.04► [Q&A] 从注意力和动机 明了无为／從注意力和動機 明瞭無為 

• Look at attention, its focus; the focus is where you input intention

• Look at intention, its drivenness; the drivenness is what disrupts innate peace

• You have never left the field, but the exercise of attention and intention gives rise to the impression that you're always in motion

• Attention and intention are what gives shape to consciousness; they are what makes you susceptible to karmic imprinting and swaying

• Meditate on awareness that is devoid of attention or intention; attention and intention are primal expressions of craving

• This doesn't mean an active suppression of the two;

• The source of the two; how the two invariably go back; their arising is origination, and disappearance, dissolution

• It's not that you've arrived at your destiny, but that you're the destiny; notice immediacy and dissolve fraving immediately; it's only the individual instances of deluded attention; they are interwoven together into a self narrative due to attention and intention

2023.02.11► [Q&A] 解脱门中的角色挪移／解脫門中的角色挪移

• Look at this character that believes in a self; you are that which guides her and delivers her

• The inevitable return and the renewed effort at resisting; the latter is exertion and therefore is “porous"; Reality is not porous

• When you're identifying with the character, learn to entrust and become established in awareness; learn that you're but a thought that will return, and is being thoroughly pleated by awareness

• When you recognize that you're the awareness: You have no sins or merits, whereas the manifest is always defective; and you patiently looks upon this character with bemusement; the connecting and propagating effect of a deluded thought

• Your refuge is never outside yourself; your child is always within your bosom; the universal search for a parent, and the universal woe of guilt

• You might complain about feeling confused; but there is no self in the all the Dhammas, the Mind; only the thought that reflexively believes in its self

• I do nothing, and nothing affects or perturbs me; but doing nothing, I constantly guide and incline all thoughts toward me

• The worshipped, worshipper, and worshipping are all one

• Selfing is just a tangled bunch of desires/insecurities, insignificant; a struggle against that which is, and is inherently stressful;

2023.02.18► [Q&A] 如何浸泡在禅(禪)悦中 

• dopamine 多巴胺 vs Serotonin 血清素

• Procurement vs immersion; stimulation vs contentment; addiction vs dispassion; excitation vs tranquilization of activities; tension vs relaxation; stinginess vs generosity; scheming vs integrity; costliness vs sustainability; short term pleasure vs delay gratification; intensity vs durability; fluctuation/habituation vs steadiness; inducing fear of separation vs freedom from fear

• Jhanic pleasures are not primarily from concentrative tips, but from wholesome mental states and lifestyle; you can then learn to expand them and immerse therein

• In doing so, do not approach it with a sense of control; instead, approach it as if they are something you can entrust yourself in, be content in, surrender to, rest in, surround yourself with...

2023.02.25► [Q&A] 诸行渐次远离／諸行漸次遠離

• Withdrawal from...all those that you can enter into a relationship with ; SN22.79

• The aggregates are activities; beings are activities; the Dhammic categories deal with activities

• Form, feeling, perception

• Memory, projection, attention, intention

• Consciousness, awareness...

• Look at what you're leaning on as you practice withdrawal; the jhanic cushion

• The goal is to eventually dissolve all relationships

 2023.03.04► [Q&A] 甚麽是活在当下／甚麼是活在當下

• To know the present is to know the present activity; to know activity is so to change and rise above activity; you do so by being able to read feedback and adjust accordingly, and to recognize subtle exertions

• The straining that may be involved in living in the present

• Additional reason for living in the present: You can't experience deep happiness if you're looking forward or reminiscing

• The role of contentment and gratitude; the unforced resting in the present; detect the activity of straining, that which stresses/wrinkles the mind; it's not the sound or image or other external circumstances that cause you to suffer

• The entry of relationship happens when there's no unforced resting in the present

• The perceptions of empty space, mirror, fish net, pure receptivity...

• Train in letting go of experience as soon as they arise; detect resistance and grasping; no accumulation or rejection

• Heedfulness; not so much about striving and exertion; more about “heed” and carefulness about not falling for old habits

2023.03.11► [Q&A] 念住中练习禅那／念住中練習禪那

《增支部8.63》： “『我將住於在身上隨觀著身：熱心的、正知的、有念的，調伏世間中的貪婪、憂後。』比丘！應該被你這麼學。

    比丘，當你的這個定這麼被修習、被多作時，比丘!從那之後，

這個定：有尋有伺你應該修習、無尋唯伺你應該修習、無尋無伺你

應該修習、有喜你應該修習、無喜你應該修習、悅意俱行你應該修

習、平靜俱行你應該修習。”

023.03.18► [Q&A] 欲的升华与心行休息／欲的昇華與心行休息

• Two models: the sterile rehab center vs using wisdom to abandon fears／alienation

• Some are inclined toward renunciant cultures, others, toward playful examination; the depressive tendencies and feeling dejected about spiritual practice

• So long that you love the truth more than anything worldly, there's no need to shun categorically

• Pacifying sankharas by relying more on inner peace and bliss; enjoy vs joy

• The subtle activities of: increasing exposure; holding onto; shutting down certain senses as to magnify others; using imagination and thinking

• These are not necessarily having to be abandoned right away, and in fact can be used to establish oneself in kinds of pleasure; but keep the general direction in mind

• Sublimation starts out with your interest to know and arrive at ultimate gratification, and refusal to settle for that which doesn't truly satisfy

• Getting closer to the texture of the mind

• While pleasures are happening...joy and enjoy, the root of "en"; no bird trails vs leaving a karmic imprint

2023.03.25► [Q&A] 单纯的八正道／單純的八正道

2023.04.01► [Q&A] 阿难(難) 我多行空

• REM; you've only experienced awareness; the sense of journey comes from wandering attention

• Emptiness as a phenomenological description; it's not the philosophical position that's important, it's whether it conduces to dispassion and cessation

• "not-a-thing" has been variously described as the highest nondual state, the second highest, a description of release...

• Of the eight winds, what can hurt you?

• Through imagination and resistance, what are otherwise empty phenomena become ossified in their patterns

• At first, it was the imperturbable texture that's the focus; then, even the magical display does not detract oneself from rest

• Painting in sky and water

• Discriminating the quality of one's activities vs non-discrimination

2023.04.08► [Q&A] 三善寻的内在逻辑／三善尋的內在邏輯

• AN5.26: going into jhana while listening, pondering, speaking, memorizing the Dhamma

• One can pacify physical or verbal/mental activities to arrive at jhanas

• Vitakka and sankappa; the typical vitakka/sankappa of non-meditators, characterized by worry and hankering

• Going into jhana via skillful vitakka; the vitakka that leads to a harmonious mindset

• 離欲尋 無恚尋 無害尋

• All three are about leaving behind the sensual realm: the first is about craving; the second is about the aversion that comes when craving is impeded; the third is about the rivalry/competitiveness/scheming involved in craving

• Examine the effects of all thoughts; and with the state of thoughtlessness, ensure that it is pervaded by dispassion and inspiration

• Examples of renunciation thought gratitude; contentment; coolness of body when unburdened; appreciating simplicity

• Examples of non-aversive thought: impatience; boredom; agitation; grudges; discontentment

• Examples of non-harmful thought: non-exploitating non-competition/rivalry (my pleasure is not derived from beating others, outshining others...); my presence and mode of living inspire others and are not a threat to anyone

• Now, give attention to the resulting coolness, peace, satisfaction, ease, seclusion; ensure that your pleasure comes ever closer from an immediate and effortless source

2023.04.15► [Q&A] 於 诸识 灭而不增／於 諸識 滅而不增

• Origination and dissolution of consciousness; The continuous need for a frame; invested in a dream, but couldn't remember it; coherence, continuity, and logic of a character

• 雜阿含46：「不顧過去識，不樂未來識，於現在識生厭、離欲、滅患，向滅，滅而不增，退而不進，滅而不起，捨而不取。

• …滅而不增，寂滅而住；退而不進，寂退而住；滅而不起，寂滅而住；捨而不取，不生繫著；不繫若已，自覺涅槃。」

• Nothing has a chance to become accumulated in me; nothing has a chance to become interwoven into a narrative in me (papanca); nothing has a chance to perturb this indifference

• Consciousness is by definition that which holds onto, that which accumulates, that which replicates, that which remembers; but I am not consciousness

• Papanca. All story revolves elements of one's desire

• We're fearful when the body is threatened; how do you know that you're clinging to the body. The sensation of living in/clinging to the body

• Five aggregates as activities; SN22.5: delight, seek, welcome, remain fastened to... aggregates

• In the passive aspect, being bombarded and having to pick up consciousness is stress; In the active aspect, being a producer and a consumer is stress

• parasitism── the relationship between mind and phenomena

2023.04.22► [Q&A] 九次第定的内在逻辑／九次第定的內在邏輯

• Knowing suffering is about becoming sensitive to how intention is exertion

2023.04.29► [Q&A] 无色境中观察心行／無色境中觀察心行

• The unexamined meme of I am the body

• Whereas body disappears and reappears, and one's relationship with it changes, one can always rest in space: boundless, without burden, without being hemmed in I

• First, the reaffirmation of the newfound state

• If I am space, why do I relate to space? Notice that relationship is fabrication

• Notice that other than the delighted-conditioned attention, there's no separate "me"

• The example of the mind-based satipatthana

2023.05.06► [Q&A] 动静相依的身体／動靜相依的身體

• Complexity of jingjie; body based satipatthana a way to simplify; sensations is the foundation of jingjie

• The attitudes that will foster letting go

• Look upon your jingjie as consisting of sensations and reactions (and their permutations; e.g. the sensations that result from compounded reactions)

• Motion and stillness; the stillness aspect is primarily about relaxation; the motion aspect is primarily about pleasant stimulations

• Riding on natural motion of the breath; don't fixate on a contact point, but rather enjoy the overall effects of massage

• Preparing oneself for the formless; the idea of earth/matter/resistance is a gross concept; is weightiness really material in nature? Or is it mental in nature; is reaction to weightiness really material in nature...Is this texture, image...material in nature?

2023.05.13► [Q&A] 投影机 与 法念住／投影機 與 法念住

• The grandmother in a room; The hologram projections; impermanence perception not just directed at generic change, but to the “activity-generated world”

• Aggregates as activity

• The dhamma-based citta-series should be applied at this level

• The lack of passion and excitation are the hallmarks of not-self perception and not just profound philosophical analysis

• Let insight help the experience of peace; the real test for the understanding of not-self

• The zeal that doesn't rile up the body

2023.05.20► [Q&A] 宽坦质直 心念住／寬坦質直 心念住

• The subtle straining of "staring inside"; the tactile approach as applied to the mind

• The non-creasing of the mind; it is that which both creates the problem

• The non-conceptual "touch" of mental flow; the intuiting of the flow as the very definition of suffering, non-recognition of the surrounding air

• The meaning of mental bhavana

• The entrusting attitude toward all mental phenomena: fearlessness; immediacy; all-inclusiveness

• Harboring no schemes, deception, complexity...

• The jhanic quality of expansiveness, non-obstructiveness, smoothness, lucidity, non-substantiveness, transparency, non-resistance

• The approximation of the awakened mind: the benefits of even hearing about the awakened people's mind

2023.05.27► [Q&A] 不费心耗神的快乐(樂)─受念住

• Self reliance

• Why is it that without sleep, one would die? Why is it that the mind is in constant search of happiness? The conflicted nature of happiness

• Liberation conducive moods are inherently blissful; fortunate sons and daughters...; worrying about the crows

• Keep refining your enjoyment by pacifying mental exertions

• Happiness that is: without guilt; without worry; without accumulation; without looking forward; without looking back; without hurry; without control; without distance; without striving

• Let this grow into jhanic intensity, and let yourself dwell in that where no mind can be felt, where no separation between happiness and you is felt, and where there is no more hunger for happiness

2023.06.03► [Q&A] 距离感孳生渴爱／距離感孳生渴愛

• Attention is as if directed at something away from the mind; this activity is craving

• Even your so-called self holds a distance from you

• Inner directed and outer directed; inner=conceit, outer=sensuality

2023.06.10 ► [Q&A] 颠覆主从的止观／顛覆主從的止觀 

• Calm and insight: neither one precedes the other, and neither one is predominant

• In fact, it is more useful to think of calm as a natural result of curbing craving-craving being the turning away of mind from mind (being carried by such a torrent is craving; obliviously being lulled into the process is ignorance); the path involves arriving at less and less fabricated calm

• Calm is its own reward; Don't think of innate peace and happiness as dramatic; what is always present but possibly veiled?

How is it veiled? The turning of attention to what seems outside (objectifying happiness), the ignorance of the true source of happiness, and that of the fleeting nature of external happiness/fabricated happiness

• What is the calm that is not forced or the result of fabrication?

• Using insight at the beginning of meditation; the trust in that all sankharas are to be let go, that awareness is not something to be objectified (only to dissolve into or rest in)

• During meditation, examine the calm; does it involve fabrication? Or is it the result of surrender to Mind, the result of taming all the edges?

2023.06.17► [Q&A] 心外无物／心外無物

• It is not a thesis; it is the experience; It is not an interesting view; it is for the sake of dispassion, which in turn is for the sake of true happiness

• The Mind is of one source; this is not a New Age cliché: Every individual thought is perspectival, finite, and conditioned by the matrix of particular angles, and therefore perceives different participants in the world the awakened perceives not one (not self) nor many, the Beyond/Unborn is the substratum in all instances of thoughts, including those that are perceived as belonging to others; no sorrows or fears of separation from loved ones

• The deluded perceives that certain people/things are conscious; the awakened perceives that consciousness contains no things

• From this flows all techniques leading to letting go; the following is an example

• When you stop interacting with the contents of thoughts, reveling in thinking...

• Not producer of thoughts, but watcher

• Retroactive appropriation of thoughts

• What is activity other than the noticing of tension, propulsion, and consequences? Examples of artistic creations, athletic skills, lofty thoughts...

• Retroactive appropriation of activities, of presumed personal manifestation

• Identification of the mind: lulled in by thoughts; mistaking the centrality of mind; assigning value and sentiments to thoughts and the thinker

• Clearing the karma: Let no ripples or imprints or swaying powers from the past perturb you

2023.06.24► [Q&A] 超越非我和真我 

• The Buddha's strong medicine; but usually not enough to simply divest the mind of phenomena

• The paradox of "locating the mind"; it is ultimately about the dissolution of intention, and

• so it is probably more appropriate to say resting in or surrendering to the mind

• The Hindu's Self is about being; the Buddhist not-self is about critiquing activities, as in "selfing"

• The Buddhist not-self divests the attention's obsession with objective contents

• The Hindu's: Looking at that which gathers all things; it has no distance from you; the best term for it is “self”; it's called self because of its closeness, immediacy, is-ness, at-rest-ness 

2023.07.01► [Q&A] 打到痛处的非我观／打到痛處的非我觀

• Not self perception should not remain a mantra like attitude; what are signs that you're not swayed by the movie narrative? Reactions; the movie analogy

• Exactly how to reduce reactions? Physically relax. Physically not participate

• What is the fundamentals of the three poisons? They are the reactions

• It's not about avoiding reaction. It's about removing its compulsion

• The vantage point of abiding with a main meditative topic

• The worry of not having planned enough; neuroticism/compulsivity vs grounded presence wisdom

• Observe reactions with a readiness to let go of them

• Empty yourself, of body, mind, concerns, wants, control...

• Know that all experiences have nothing to offer, and perish the thought of expecting anything from them

• See how the pacification of reactions makes you better aligned with innate happiness and contentment

2023.07.08► [Q&A] 明心

• Awareness, no age, the common denominator in all experiences; even the term knowing can barely capture its essence

• Consciousness is marked off by episodes and intermittent phenomena; People believe that awareness can turn off and on, because they conflate what is remembered with what is aware, and they conflate consciousness with awareness

• Consciousness is that which is wrapped up in name-form; name-form occupies consciousness

• Person-hood is the result of identifying with the contents of mind, which is consciousness

• When self identified as name-form, there's the interaction with the environment via the six sense media; via the six sense media is the rest of the dependent origination which is propulsion/repulsion of tendencies

• Awareness is not personal, nor is it delimited by attributes; it knows attributes and remains unchanged/untarnished by attributes

• The source of the I-am feeling is awareness; even though I-am is usually caught up with contents; this is because the I-am feeling is usually accompanied by sankharic entanglement with contents

• Understanding the mind nature means: you'll know the mistakes of mental movements that are helplessly duped into contents, or identify contents as self; therefore not the same as subtle conceit

• Contents include gross notions like personality, gain and loss, etc., and subtle notions like space, time, and even the liberation gates (though they are gates); and notions like inside/outside, subject/object (the grasper/grasped, the experiencer/experienced, seeker/sought...)

2023.07.15► [Q&A] 即刻脫苦的技巧

• The suffering that is concealed by culture and by ignorance

• Gently bring up a feared scenario, one that you've avoided; the warped body-mind; the analogy of an arrow embedded in your flesh

• other than pure sensory experience, there's the experience of intention--putting together things (intention, thought); being comfortable immediately; sensations vs reactivity

• Objectively assess the sensations; they're only so bad when intermixed with interpretation and resistance

• habituated reaction to run away as opposed to deeply relax; in relaxation, you'll understand the sensations of reactivity/exertion

• the tendency to run into a better scenario/intoxication/distraction, even though you can never leave the present, the mind

• Overcome the initial restlessness, aversion, inertia...

• don't blame yourself, but just notice such as a habit, an impersonal pathological phenomenon

• this immediate way to relieve suffering can lead to: jhana, letting go, realization of not self, understanding the nature of mind...

• The skill here will generalize to other scenarios, and remove fear altogether

 2023.07.22► [Q&A] 終极(極)包袱──我慢

• How to understand conceit? The way you are embedded in a new character in dream

• It's not simply a perceptual function. The perceptions are passionately maintained

• The gamer's instinct about the interface; the baby's instinct

• Why did you shed off the character in waking hours in the first place?

• Temporary disconnection with sensory input; conversely, this means that the waking character maintenance requires that you weave together and cohere sensory input within the frame of a character

• Merely listening, seeing...the two polarities and the between

• Don't be daunted by the seeming difficulty; gradual shedding leads to great benefits

• Don't be afraid to lose "everything"; remember the mind source

• Pushing and pulling, with regards to conceit

• The baggage and problems with holding on to conceit

• The mind's inherent freedom from frames

2023.07.29► [Q&A] 渐次达至无为／漸次達至無為

• How to reconcile the goal of non-fabrication with the need for striving?

• Being chronically tense means that you identify with tension/fabrication, and treats it as a default

• It's not the abandoning of activities per se; it's a change in your relations with it until they don't induce suffering

• Realization of the mind is a direct result of intuiting activities and their resolution

• Don't assume a familiar state to be the default state; treat it as a potentially sprung-up/potentially tense state

• Fabricating wholesome efforts, gradually aligning with that which is naturally endowed

• Wholesome fruits have a contenting and pacifying effects that are closer to what is intrinsic

• Examples: patience and persistence; sila and non-harm; goodwill and compassion; feeding happiness; gratitude and contentment

• Fabricating the efforts in such a way that it aligns with "I am happiness...etc."

• Fabricating the efforts in such a way that one is dispassionate and aware of the three marks of fabrication

• Fabricating the efforts in such a way with the sight on the goal being non-fabrication, non-gaining, non-becoming...

• Noticing what is no longer needed for the sake of peace and gratification 

2023.08.05► [Q&A] 空─毒药或解药／空─毒藥或解藥

• Philosophical emptiness vs experiential emptiness

• The sutta's description of arahats after death; the hinayanist label; negativistic attitudes

• Not a single entity; no objective thing that exists elsewhere; not an iota of graspable or relatable substance

• A way to understand the mind is that there's only pure subjectivity and no objectivity

• The so-called body and minds only derive their distinctness because of thoughts, and because of their seeming graspability

• Dispassion even toward mind-consciousness

• Mental phenomena, when not inhabited, no longer make a coherent and substantive thing; a game world would be meaningless to, say, a cat; intention fills in the blank, infuses meaning, renders interactive interface, imagines, injects with hopes and fears, gives dimensions and depth and temporal flow...

• Treat mental contents as they are; not allowing them to arouse interest or a sense of substantiality

2023.08.12► [Q&A] 空──注意力的销(銷)融

• The question about investigation of states; why it should not be categorically pacified

• whatever emptiness contemplation you practice, always discern stress; though the moon in water is illusory, and all objects are mental objects...pay attention to the pressure of the current, and not to the reified borders of the current

• Another way to look at craving: when attention is seizing a thing, versus when reality appears on its own cat responding to screen; the boundary-creating activity; the seizing activity; the gazing with interest activity; disinterest to all experiences

• It's really not a thing that's seized; the same texture as consciousness, the analogy of a ripple; only a thing to the extent that attention has performed this seizing activity

• The I-and-Mine-conceit has this attention as undergirding; identification is simply a function of this attention; it's not that there's really a self that abides anywhere; the misguided notion that I rest in awareness/nibbana: what is this separate I? How is this I extracting pleasure from this separate thing called awareness/nibbana? It is just this function of attention, tinged with love-delight

• understand the nature of this attention: the way it acts as a searching antenna rather than as a mirror; dissolve attention; rest in awareness

• You're not suppressing attention; Notice the seizing, searching, allocating...notice the exertion of mind...notice the disturbance and sense of movement (when in fact awareness never moves) as attention acts; notice with dissolution of attention, with dissolution of love for attention, there is no identification, no things, no traveling

2023.08.19► [Q&A] 不死境：未呈显之识／不死境：未呈顯之識

• Landing of the light, it's not a separate dimension

• Witnessing the emergence of consciousness from deep sleep; witnessing the emergence of dream; this means awareness has to be there, prior to consciousness and dreams; the reason that we sleep: selfing is not our default mode, just as having one's arm raised is not our default mode

• Awareness is not generated by the dream character, for that you're equally aware of the dream character as well as dream space and time; in the same way, awareness is not generated by a thing, or from a location; the observer is not within the dreamscape, but is observing the dreamscape; if not so, how can you wake up from a dream?

• Coma and deep sleep are taken to be evidence that awareness doesn't last; but that's due to your identification with mental contents; the way memory is formed is that contents are registered, and registered around a meaningful frame

• We identify with mental contents because...apparently we are only aware of this character; but this is the same in a dream, where you're only aware of a character

• When we say, "not self," we mean that this awareness doesn't belong to the character, when we say, "Self," we mean that this awareness is the most intimate and inseparable substratum of your being/experience

• What is normally taken to be fundamentals of reality: space-that which is perceived as the distance between; time-that which is perceived as the distance between change; the same perception of space time occurs in dream; what happens when the dream character try to trace its origin within that dream?

• Don't live as a mortal, as a combination of dead matters, as objects that are perceived; that is recipe for fear and suffering, that which is, need not be apprehended, figured out, subjected to a conceptual category; but its glory, fullness, and peace can be lived

2023.08.26► [Q&A] 禅(禪)那的身心內容

• The body when it's in deep sleep: contented, blissful

• Nothing special; natural instinct to fall into it; trust and surrender, and nothing to be scared of

• First, the task of jhana; then, the symptom, of jhanic mind

• Don't fall into a trance for its own sake; the theme of jhana is satipatthana; the deep, non-distracted immersion in a satipatthana approach is the core of jhana

• The essential aspect of a seemingly complex activity: that which is what we really chase after in pursuing an activity; e.g.: the leisure at a vacation, the freedom from worry at a movie, the feeling of being accepted and nourished in a loving relationship

2023.09.02► [Q&A] 念住 禪那 趨向無為(例一)

• Theme of jhana is satipatthana; the range of activity should include a main topic and what it conduces to

• Since those themes invariably revolves around knowing, shaping, and releasing the mind, the jhanic symptoms are essentially the benefits reaped from doing so

• This theme may initially involve: analysis, complex relations, words...

• Then moving on to dropping any or all of these, and one simply focuses on a greatly pared down theme

• The example of self identification

2023.09.09► [Q&A] 念住 禪那趨向無為(例二)

• Personality changes as result of jhanic immersion: receptivity to the Dhamma; non-contentiousness; judiciousness; readiness to let go; seclusion, physical and mental; inner clenching; wholesome esteem (why traditional practices like dana and sila work)...

• Don't force or concentrate; what is natural, simplified joy? What is the contented pleasure of an awakened life?

• The example of relinquishing the idea of an agency

• Continue to simplify the technique so long that meditative resolution is not compromised; gradually pacify analysis, verbalization, dependency on joy and pleasure, dependency on will/attention...

2023.09.16► [Q&A] 未曾出生 未曾流浪

• How is intention separate from the Mind? Is it not exactly the same texture of the Mind?

• Whatever analogy you use to describe that texture, is it not also itself the very same texture of the mind?

• This idea of separation is it not just the content of that thought/attention? Are you the content of such? Or are you aware of the passing/arising of the content of such?

• How is that content meaningful...what is it like...when you buy into it? How is that content meaningless...what is it like...when you do not buy into it?

• What about this very thought? The thought that you're confused...that you've understood...that you're bound...that you're liberated?

• An equal, open regard

• How is it that there's an intention that's aimed at investigating the Mind? Is it not strange?...now that there are two minds?

• Is not intention perfectly at home? Arising from and falling back to its home?

• Conceit? How is it anything other than an instance of intention?

• Rest, in the very dissolution of that intention that which is searching; Settle, into the emptiness that is not graspable; trust, in the conviction that there's not-a-thing

2023.09.23► [Q&A] 念住 是如此产(產)生定力

• Instead of waiting for a special technique to drastically induce jhanas...what are our default states?

• Jhana founded on wholesome psyche as opposed to concentrative techniques

• Catastrophizing vs resilience

• Mentality of abundance vs poverty

• Readiness to let go even more

• The qualities of persistence, patience, surrendering control, enjoying the process

• Wisdom helps serenity: the insight into how awareness can never be overwhelmed; Living as if the mind is not a substantive or real thing; abiding with dispassion toward the mind

• Your relaxation is not merely a brought on muscular exercise; it's also the result of your attitude: trust, and entrusting

• Don't concentrate; instead, gladden the mind, suffuse the body with ease...

• How much distance are you traveling to arrive at what you're aware of? How far is the sense of being? How much straining? What are you expecting or anticipating?

2023.09.30► [Q&A] 无(無)色界 是 看待觉(覺)知 的 取角

• Three realms as degree of wandering from Awareness; solitary buddhas and the purification of the lineage

• The stages of the Formless Realm as vantage points of self looking at awareness

• I am space, consciousness, not-a-thing, non-perceived...

• One of two things happens when this is established: 1. ontological commitment and relishing in that state; 2. the dissolution of any self-reifying intention

• One can practice this as a formal practice, and reach cessation of corresponding concepts and thought movement; or, living as if you're really embodying space, consciousness...

2023.10.07► [Q&A] 在家人的离(離)欲之道

• The forced adoption of religious models

• Sensual pleasures; mental stimulation; Alzheimer's and liveliness

• the benefits of brahmacarya and the roles intimacy: bonding; joyful exploration; activation of creative energy; therapeutic

• Not so much a matter of whether to enjoy good food and intimacy; but a matter of whether it impedes your readiness to always swap better nutriment for the worse and the ability to discern such

• The jhanic basis and less vulnerability to addiction and dependency; The busy and eager attention perturbing inner peace

• The litmus test: in the absence of sensual pleasure; the subsequent hollowness; inner undistractability

• Not a moral problem; but possible practical problems and dissatisfaction

2023.10.14► [Q&A] 与解脱道相应的慈心／與解脫道相應的慈心

• The four reactions to suffering: fight, flight, fawn, freeze (plus confusion and habituation); these take the resources and hijack the entire nervous system up all

• When locked in these modes: personality disorders; lack of self insight; lack of integrity and candor

• Categorically "niceness" and its detriments; Friendliness is not always useful; maternal love could be insecure and possessive...

• Why samvega and nibbida are not the same as apathy, though in theory it makes sense that they lead to it

• Treat the four as one feeling, and four skillful responses, and fluid flow between them

• Brahma as sound, light, avatar...and Brahma as identification

• Brahmaviharas as the instigator for samvega and nibbida, and not as the final goal; the reason for this

2023.10.21► [Q&A] 会(會)被遗(遺)忘的 和 不被遗忘的 修行

• So what if all this is forgotten? The fear of losing all that one's collected...all sankharas are inconstant; futility of the perfection path is being aware fabricated or not? Is reactive tendency, projective thought, and identification fabricated or not?

• Initially, yes to the former and no to the latter; later, no to the former and yes to the latter

• Just being "me" is not something remembered; your forgotten self in sleep and in death

• What changed? Habitual tendencies and mental defilements are removed; the "I am awareness" no longer takes effort of identification

• The implication of shedding off rather than building up; examine whether your inclination is toward that which is unfabricated

• There's no more fear of forgetting something; something that is not acquired (and therefore is "me") cannot be forgotten, even if all that's fabricated will be

• Trust in the eventuality vs vigilance

• They are removed to such an extent that even the contents of fleeting thoughts cannot captivate your attention

2023.10.28► [Q&A] 受念住 与(與) 食

• The stir that galvanizes action; the diminution of stir that constitutes peace; a peace that is not forced through concentration, but arrived at by proper feeding

• An analogy: first find relief from heat in an air-conditioned room, then find pleasure in a comfy spot...progression from coarse to subtle food is progression to deeper samadhi

• Search for nutriment; even the impetus to jump from thought to thought is motivated by this; the busy-ness, the willingness to participate in samsara; the Buddha's explanation that the aggregates are not clung to with no reason

• Look at the entertainment that you're feeding on

• How restless, bored, discontent are you at this moment?

• How steady? How content? How secluded from hindrances? How does it contribute to luminosity, to lightness, to deeper understanding of the nutriment and its dispassion

• A slight tweak: absence of hurriedness; adjustment in attitude; thoroughness of one's enjoyment

• Both sensual craving and conceit are hunger-driven search for pleasure; crazy wisdom vs vigilant training; a pleasant abiding in the here and now that leads to liberation

2023.11.04► [Q&A] 忆念涅盘 受用涅盘／憶念涅槃 受用涅槃

• The meaning of ji-mie; rid of latencies, and non-transactional; no issue of "is there anything higher”

• What are natural phenomena/movements? As opposed to sankharas? Sankharas are clinging and resistance, the very force that creates suffering

• What is unfabricated peace? What is fabricated peace, that requires production and maintenance, and is subject to fear of its dissolution?

• The person complaining loudly while searching for quietude

• Unfabricated peace: When there's no pushing or pulling momentum, when there's no captivation by thought, when there's no assumption of self

• Every exertion eventually dissolves into space, whether or not the exertion is renewed or sustained; intermittent enjoyment and oblivion

• Look for ways to tranquilize exertion; but rest in the former conviction, even if there's no angle for tranquilization—that's actually. tranquilization

• How far are you from it? How hard do you need to strive for it? Let your practice move from striving to steady letting go to letting go naturally

• Let your practice be like rest

• Whatever your pursuits are, don't forget your ultimate objective

2023.11.11► [Q&A] 无(無)常丶苦丶非我─逼迫想

The dilemma of pulmonary hydrops

Helping a codependent to break free from her oppressor, forcing her apart doesn't work; gaining a new perspective might

That which we identify as self is our oppressor anicca, dukkha, anatta is about that new perspective

Anatta is not based on a philosophical justification, but on entering a new relationship; in the same way that breaking free from one's oppressor is not due to philosophical reductionism

That new perspective is not just directed at wealth/fame...but also at subtle objects such as a religious experience? This is why Buddhism talks  of the aggregates and the faculties

In the end, does this new perspective merely instill another idea? Or does it uproot conceit?

If conceit is not uprooted right away, is it at least questioned, recognized, shaken up...?

Does this new perspective help with seclusion? With more firmly establishing oneself in a better perching ground, such as contentment, awareness...? With more dispassion/disinterest with regards to the bother? With more peace from not fastening to sth?

2023.11.18► [Q&A] 身念住 与 空无边／身念住 與 空無邊

• Steps 1 & 2; the music filled chamber; setting up the atmosphere; putting aside covetousness and worries

• What is body? Body as embodied emotions and reactivities vs as neutral phenomenon; Sensations and impressions are  moving, but I am not

• Pattern tracing of embodied emotions and reactivities

• Is it autonomous, or is it directed by you? If by you, what do you mean "you"? How is it interfaced? Breathing does it on its own, but there's some measure of apparent interface

• Don't suppress bodily enjoyment; stepping in and out; the relief as opposed to the exclusion

• How do you enter into thought/belief ? How do you fit into a body? Adoption, entrance, abiding in awakened space

• The space I reside in is not just an imagined impression, but the shedding off of burden, the abandoning of selfing and ownership

• Selfing and ownership as contraction; who's the owner

• The less closing off, the more you understand peace, contentment, effortlessness, non-ownership...

2023.11.25► [Q&A] 我与非我─做自己／我與非我─做自己

• Controversies about the self; suffering is toiling, plotting, and going against what's natural

• The common parlance of "being yourself' means being at ease and comfortable; it's the opposite of forcing something

• Non-sentient cannot "be itself'; only sentience can "be itself'

• Being someone else requires forcefulness, willfulness, and exertion 

• "being yourself" is a good way to understand the cessation of sankharas

• Sankharas are exertions that disrupt the natural peace and self completeness of "being yourself'

• An investigation of the meaning of "being yourself': no distance; no building up; naturally remain still

• Why integrity and honesty are important: you might fool yourself into thinking that you're already being yourself

• Develop dispassion toward sankharas

• This means: disinterest; not reacting with exertions; not identifying

• The subtle activities of carrying, maintaining, tying up with sankharas

• Even if you haven't truly arrived at the self, being closer to it will bask you in jhanic bliss; the euphoria and deep relaxation; the body feels like it's in deep rest and buzzing with comfortable sensations; the mind revels in the inclination toward withdrawal

2023.12.02► [Q&A] 我 与 不动／我 與 不動

• The three marks and traditional notion of self

• Your sense of self is that which can withstand an overpowering situation; swept away by forces

• A self is not defined by what is done or can be done; it is beyond and outside forces and always remain immobile

• A perching place is one where one can find seclusion from some measure of fatigue, weariness, and motion

• You've witnessed the birth and death of what is not self, but never that of the self

• Self is perfectly still, at rest, not shaken, silent, not going along with motion...

• This imperturbability is not forced, and is always present

• Witness how all motions are resolved and transcended; magic happens here

• Being yourself is not having to strain, to force, to exert...

• Keep examining if you're mistaking some motion or exertion as your self

• Your perching space grants you a safe haven, a comfortable vantage point, where you can "not act out" and "not care"

• Eventually such a perching activity comes to cessation; eventually you're no longer this separate intention that perches on something, this happens when all the passion you have for sankharas ceases

• When being yourself is the letting go of all activities; bliss is defined by comfort and nonaction

2023.12.09► [Q&A] 禅那的极简易说明／禪那的極簡易說明

• The why

• The qualification

• The approach: understanding what is left behind, and what is passion; being

• convinced that it's readily accessible, renewable

• Allowing it to seep into every aspect

2023.12.16► [Q&A] 我是觉知 的 导引／我是覺知 的 導引

• The jhanic foundation; the establishment in the Eightfold Path

• The perception of "other"; What is "other"? The doing; the five clinging aggregates is the sum total of doing, of stress, of what is alien...

• Identification means adopting of first person reference

• There's only allowing and resting; the sleep/dream analogy

• Relinquish doership; abide in the wisdom about doership; enjoy the vacation/seclusion from doership

• look upon  all instances of doing as another expression of allowing and resting

• Making letting go the object of concentration

2023.12.23► [Q&A] 心念的发动─无明缘行／心念的發動─無明緣行

• The potential to not being still, to hold interest in signs, to think that I am the thinker...

• The eagerness, happiness, readiness, oblivion...to enter, to take up, to affirm...

• The samvega, nibida, dispassion, cessation...

2023.12.30► [Q&A] 别被念头(頭)拐走

• If mind equals the Deathless equals nibbana, then who's the one suffering and in search?

• Intentionality is the only thing that separates you from nibbana

• When thoughts arise, who are they talking to?

• The nature of thoughts is quiescence, unless they are intervened by other thoughts

• Caring and believing are the fuels of thoughts; not caring and believing is the same as cutting off craving

• "consciousness, consciousness"; but some say it is not to be found; how to make sense? Only at the moment of caring about and believing in the thoughts does it appear real, compelling; only then is the momentum of the river felt; otherwise, peace everywhere