Intro to meditation: Class 5 notes

Treating others with compassion

Two weeks ago, we discussed a trick for increasing self compassion: pretend you are someone else and give yourself the advice you'd give someone else facing the same situation you are. Have you used this in your everyday life? In your meditation life?

If you've found your self compassion increasing, consider whether the decreased tension and stress you feel as a result is helping you be more compassionate towards others.

Being more compassionate towards others is one of the foundations of moral behavior. Tucker Peck's book Sanity and Sainthood explores "sanity" (relating skillfully to reality) and "sainthood" (becoming a more moral person) as long term effects of meditation. Strong recommendation.

Sensation and equanimity

In meditation, equanimity refers to non-interference with sensory experience. Whatever arises in any of your senses, let it be. Accept it. Don't chase after or cultivate the good feelings, and don't avoid the bad ones. For example, in a highly developed state, this may look like pain still feeling painful but no longer causing you much suffering. While you're unlikely to chance into sustained states of high equanimity at this point, you may find moments of it here or there.

The above applies to all five senses—and to a sixth. Following the Buddhist tradition, we'll consider your perception of your thoughts ("mental formations") to be a sixth sense. Rather than thinking too hard about whether you think this is correct, I encourage you to try adopting this as a stance whenever it serves you. One way to cultivate this stance is to try to let thoughts pass by as if they were sounds—a realtime stream you can tune into. If that doesn't make sense to you right now, that's ok. Just stick to the usual five senses and come back to the mind-sense another time.

Note that the non-interference of equanimity refers to perception, not to action. If you're burning your hand touching a hot kettle, you still ought to move your hand. You can be extremely equanimous and still actively engaged with projects to improve the world.

If none of this made any sense to you, don't worry about it. Revisit these ideas periodically as you deepen your practice. This skill can take longer to develop than the other two (concentration, sense clarity).

Open awareness instructions

The instructions for this one are easy: sit and observe everything.

There is a lot more to be said about this practice, especially how it relates to equanimity, but I suggest just trying this practice for several hours over the course of a few weeks before thinking too hard about the details. Some notes that may be useful:

If your mind wanders, observe that. Don't resist it (unless it get totally out of hand; even then, consider letting it continue). It's just another sense.
See how many sensations you notice per second.
In all meditation, but especially in this practice, I encourage you to hold onto the technique with a light grip. Don't try to force it. Over time, let "trying to do open awareness" relax into something like "sitting with the intention for open awareness to happen".
Once you have some practice with this, try paying attention to the scope of your attention. What causes it to expand? What causes it to contract?

Group sit: open awareness

30min group sit, lightly guided. Open awareness.

Followed by around the room discussion of meditation experiences in the past week (including this class's group sit).

Comparison with concentration practice

I mentioned in Week 3 that in concentration practice, it's ok to let sensations from the peripheral awareness to arise. That it's best not to grasp too tightly at the object of concentration.

I also said that, in open awareness, to observe expansion and contraction of the attention. So, sometimes, you will be concentrated on some specific object.

So what's the difference? For now, think of it this way:

In concentration practice, start with attention on a specific object. As your sensory clarity grows, you will naturally have more peripheral awareness.
In open awareness, start with a broad sphere of awareness. As your natural tendency for expansion develops (you aren't too-often contracted), bring in some appreciation of specific phenomena—but remain equanimous.

It's a difference of primary instruction versus elaboration with development.

Closing around the room

What is one thing you will focus on in your practice this coming week?