Meditation Experiences
- Two types of meditation experiences:
- Peaceful meditation experiences
- Rough meditation experiences
- Three types of peaceful experiences:
- Clarity
- Joy
- Non-conceptuality
- Two types of rough experiences:
- Agitation
- Thoughts
- Emotions
- Dullness
- Thoughts
- Sleepiness
- Agitation
- Two ways to deal with peaceful experiences:
- Do not be attached to them
- Appreciate them
- Attachment is related to two things:
- Permanence
- Singularity
- Meditation experience comes with a taste, realization comes without a taste.
- Rough experiences are good for realization.
- Peaceful experiences are good for inspiration.
- Rough and peaceful experiences are not obstacles to meditation. They are signs of progressing in meditation.
Quote
“For a mind that is really focused on meditation and focused on the dharma, the outside circumstances do not matter much.”
— Milarepa
Inspiration and Discouragement
- There are four possibilities for a yogi:
- The body is in the mountains but the mind is in the city.
- The body is in the city but the mind is in the mountains.
- Both the body and the mind are in the mountains.
- Neither the body nor the mind are in the mountains.
- With these four, the key point is that we should do our best to stay focused on the practice, especially when we are on retreat.
- In order to prioritize practice, we need to change our habits.
- The time and environment of practice does not really matter. What matters is the quality of the practice.
- A few days of sincere, heartfelt practice in retreat can be life-changing.
- If you cannot go to the mountains, make the city your mountain.
- In the beginning, it is important to do short retreats.
- By doing short retreats you will build up experience.
Example: Changing the Direction of a Train
If a train goes forward very fast and you would like to change the direction, first, you need to slow down. Similarly, if you want to change your habits, you need to first slow down and then implement changes one by one.
Common Pitfalls in Retreat
- One of the easiest mistakes to make is being lazy in retreat.
- Being attached to meditation experiences is a common mistake.
- It is important to make room for and allow mistakes to happen.
- Failure is the mother of success: When you attempt more, you will fail more, but this is how learning occurs.
- Do not expect your retreat to be all wonderful and fantastic.
- Stay with a clear structure of sessions and breaks.
- Instead of being discouraged by your mistakes, appreciate them.
Common Retreat Challenges
- The biggest challenges in retreat are internal.
- The biggest internal challenge is the waterfall experience: the experience of agitated thoughts and intense emotions.
- First, recognize the waterfall experience. Secondly, appreciate it.
- We are attached to our unhappy situation, not because we particularly like it, but because it is familiar.
- Feeling uncomfortable in retreat does not mean that something is wrong; it means that you are perfectly normal — this is what happens when we make changes to our environment.
- You can use your sense of discomfort or loneliness in three ways:
- As a support for awareness
- As a support for loving-kindness and compassion
- As a support for emptiness
- Do not expect your difficult emotions to disappear right away. They will come back again, but slowly their power over you will diminish.
- Try to appreciate the challenges you experience in retreat as opportunities to learn and grow.
Energy Movement
- Energy movement are related to four things, two of which are deceptive and two of which are not:
- Sensory distortions — False
- Sensing energy — False
- Emotions are going up and down — True
- Physical body sensations — True
- Do not take having visions of Buddhas, hearing special messages etc. to be true; simply view them as you would a movie.
- When energy movement occurs, simply know that you are not enlightened and you are not crazy. It is just energy movement taking place.
- Meditate for short times, many times and also do walking and standing meditation.