Okay, I couldn’t resist Grimmly’s cold backbend challenge. I am obsessed with the idea of doing a dropback without any (or much) warm up. No idea why this appeals to me so much, but it does. Sadly, I have superstitions about backbending without a long warm up (primary series!). The other thing I want to just bust out without any warm up is durvasana, but that’s a post for another day (in the distant future!).
Grimmly said yes, one can do a dropback without a warm up. And he provided video proof! This is an idea being developed by the Brits, apparently, as Susananda is part of the devious scheme.
Liz and I expressed some surprise and delight (and fear) about this notion of cold dropbacks, but we can’t just leave it at that, can we? As I noted, the Brits are kicking American butt on The Ultimate Fighter even as I write this.
So we can’t take this sitting down!
Upshot of this is that I did dropbacks after standing yesterday. How weird was it to hop from virabhadrasana II to dropbacks? Very!
Still, it made me happy to pursue the idea. I could hear my fear (fearing, fearing, fearing) because of an insight meditation practice I’ve been trying for the past few days.
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Here’s a blurb from Daniel Ingram’s cheat sheet on insight meditation practice:
…a practice called “noting”. We make a quiet mental note of whatever we experience. We also try to stay with the sensations of breathing, either in the abdomen or at the tip of the nose when possible. If we notice the breath rising, we note “rising”. If we notice the breath falling, we note, “falling.” Similarly, we may note “thinking”, “wandering”, “feeling”, “hearing”, “seeing”, “smelling”, and “tasting.” When walking, we may note the “lifting”, “moving” and “placing” of our feet. We may also note such experiences as “fear”, “happiness”, “pain”, “boredom”, “restlessness”, “doubt”, “wanting”, “hunger”, “confusion”, returning after these to the noting of the rising and falling of the breath.
Let me tell you, this practice has been delightful! It is actually quite hilarious, in some ways. I am accustomed to zazen (which if I’m not mistaken, is pretty much the same thing as what insight meditation calls “choiceless awareness”), but this adding of gerunds is highly energizing and entertaining.
When I decided to try the practice, I actually wondered whether I should think about a list of gerunds, so I wouldn’t come up short on words for use during “naming.” I dispensed with that idea, and just went for it. And no worries — the words just popped right up in my head, and they were ones I wouldn’t have thought of ahead of time. I had lots of “hearing,” “hearing,” “hearing,” with little bursts of “thinking! I was thinking just then!” followed by “speculating,” “fearing,” etc.
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Amusingly, what I call “the gerund practice” pops up in “real life.” At work I suddenly thought “reacting” in the midst of some corporate drama. It almost made me laugh out loud.
I also was amused when I sent an email to one of the managers on my team (my highest performer! If you’re reading this, B, you know I mean you!). I used the title: “A thought” in the header of the message. Immediately she wrote back, saying the very thought of me having just one thought was a crack up.
But I want to have one thought at a time! It’d be so cool.
Here’s a little taste of Ingram’s book, Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha:
How freeing! Interpretation is particularly useless in insight meditation, so you don’t have to spend time doing it when you are on the cushion. Throughout this book I recommend reflecting on spiritual teachings and how to bring them to bear on our life, but not on the cushion. Thoughts, even supposedly good ones, are just too slippery and seductive most of the time, even for advanced meditators, though if you can avoid getting lost in their content they are as valid a stream of objects as any other. Try to limit yourself to a few minutes of reflection per hour of meditation. This should be more than enough. There are simply no substitutes for this sort of momentum in practice.
How fast are things vibrating? How many sensations arise and vanish each second? This is exactly what you are trying to experience, but some very general guidelines can provide faith that it can be done and perhaps point the way as well. Begin by assuming that we are talking about one to ten times per second in the beginning. This is not actually that fast. Try tapping five to ten times per second on a table or something. It might take two hands, but it’s manageable, isn’t it? You could obviously experience that, couldn’t you? That’s the spirit!
There are faster and slower vibrations that may show up, some very fast (maybe up to forty times per second) and some very slow (that are actually made up of faster vibrations), but let’s just say that one to ten times per second can sometimes be a useful guideline in the beginning. Once you get the hang of it, the faster and slower vibrations are no big deal. Alternately, depending on how you practice, conceiving of this as like a shower of raindrops, a pointillist painting in motion, or 3D TV snow might help. Reality is obviously quite rich and complex, and thus the frequencies of the pulses of reality can be somewhat chaotic, but they actually tend to be more regular than you might expect. Also, there are not really any “magic frequencies.” Whatever frequency or pulse or whatever you are experiencing at that moment is the truth of that moment! However, in the beginning you should go for faster vibrations over slower ones and then try for wider ones over those that are narrower.
Don’t worry if things look or feel solid sometimes. Just be with the solidity clearly and precisely, but not too tightly, and it can start to show its impermanence. Be aware of each exact moment in which you experience solidity and its beginning and ending. Remember that each experience of solidity is a separate, impermanent sensation! Many people begin practicing and really want to solidify something like the breath so that they can actually pay attention to it. They become frustrated when they have a hard time finding the breath or their body or whatever. The reason they can’t find it is not because they are a bad meditator but because they are having direct insight into how things actually are! Unfortunately, their theory of what is supposed to happen involves really perceiving something solid and stable, so they get very frustrated. You should now be able to avoid a lot of that frustration and begin to appreciate why knowing some theory is important.
It is also worth noting here that the frequency or rate of these vibrations may change often, either getting faster or slower, and that it is really worth trying to see clearly the beginning and ending of each vibration or pulse of reality. These are actually at least two different sensations! It is also useful to check out exactly what happens at the bottom, middle, and top of the breath if you are using the breath as an object, and to examine if the frequency stays stable or changes in each phase of the breath. Never assume that what you have understood is the final answer! Be alert! Explore carefully and precisely with openness and acceptance! This is the door to understanding.
One last thing about vibrations: looking into vibrations can be a lot like any other sport. It can be thought of the way we might think of surfing or playing tennis, and this sort of game-like attitude can actually help a lot. We’re “out to bust some vibrations!” as a friend of mine enthusiastically put it. You don’t know quite what the next return or wave is going to be like, so pay attention, keep the mind on the pulse of the sensations of your world just as you would on the wave or ball, and keep playing!
I highly recommend this sort of speed in practice not only because that is how fast we have to perceive reality in order to awaken, but also because trying to experience one to ten sensations per second is challenging and engaging. Because it is challenging and engaging, we will be less prone to getting lost in thoughts rather than doing insight practices. Our minds have the power to perceive things extremely quickly, and we actually use this power all the time to do such things as read this book. You can probably read many words per second. If you can do this, you can certainly do insight practices.
If you can perceive one sensation per second, try for two. If you can perceive two unique sensations per second, try to perceive four. Keep increasing your perceptual threshold in this way until the illusion of continuity that binds you on the wheel of suffering shatters. In short, when doing insight practices, constantly work to perceive sensations arise and pass as quickly and accurately as you possibly can. With the spirit of a racecar driver who is constantly aware of how fast the car can go and still stay on the track, you are strongly advised to stay on the cutting edge of your ability to see the impermanence of sensations quickly and accurately.
Eh. I guess the one thought at a time thing is maybe a little elusive, like cold dropbacks and cold durvasana. Still, this fast practice excites me no end! Vata power, for sure.
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Oh, and in backbending news, I am now hurling myself forward and to my knees from urdhva dhanurasana. I never thought I’d get my hands off the ground, but there you go. Hopefully I won’t note “crashing!” during any of these attempts.
