This question came from a former mentee in the CIIS program in psychedelic sciences, now a friend and colleague.
Hi D,
I have been reading a lot of Ecknath Easwaren's books over the last year. I was curious of your thoughts about his advice on meditation. Here is the short run down:
https://www.bmcm.org/learn/getting-startedoverview/?home=True
Curious about the focus on a passage to train the mind vs. vipassana, or other methods.
Hope you are well!
T
Hi T
What a wonderful question!
You actually introduced us to the books by Ecknath Easwaren, we particularly like his commentary and translation of The Dhammapada.
I, and others, often think about meditative practices as being either “open,” or “concentration.”
Concentration practice is particularly good in the beginning, when the mind easily wanders, “monkey mind.” In Vippassana usually starts with feeling the breath, at the nose, or at the abdomen. Counting to 10, then beginning again, helps the concentration, so you know when you have stopped counting.
There are innumerous types of concentration practices, staring at a flickering candle, etc.
I did buy his book on passage mediation as well, on your mentioning his works last year. I think of this as a special kind of concentration meditation, more contemplative. More similar to a longer Mantra practice, or Koan practice. Or, reading a book that activates the contemplative mind.
A great teacher, can’t remember who, likens concentration practice to keeping the demon busy trying to straighten a curly hair over and over. That demon is our Ego mind.
We try to keep the Ego mind busy with something, so that something else might emerge.
That something else is what could be called baseline consciousness, “the enlightened mind.”
Now we start talking about fingers pointing at the moon…
Words start to fail, but we try anyway…
Each and every one of us have an enlightened mind, just sitting there, underneath the jumble of everyday Ego consciousness.
Meditation can quiet the Ego mind, psychedelics can do so as well, the latter with less control.
Open meditation “simply” is being open to whatever arises. You might be listening to the refrigerator running, or stopping, distant voices or noises, externals. Often our internal voice overwhelms us. We make up stories about the future or dwell on the past, the classic monkey mind.
In open meditation we let whatever arises, arise, but we do not let it carry us away. We let each thought go. Like clouds in the sky, we notice them and let them drift away.
With time the voices get quieter. Until they disappear completely.
There are many discourses on stages of the meditative mind.
I visualize the last stage as when the witness disappears.
This feels as “seeing through” the witness.
Then there is nothingness… and everythingness…
Empty fullness…
The darkest place, full of light…
Truth is only found in paradox…
There is no “I” that has ever existed…
That is the “baseline consciousness.”
We all share this same consciousness…
The entire Cosmos, every person, animal, vegetable, rock, and star shares this…
Within this, often great compassion arises…
Compassion for ourselves and everything, sentient and non-sentient.
That compassion arising often brings us back to our Ego selves.
There is nothing wrong with having an Ego.
Our Ego allows us to walk in the world, doing good.
Practice that allows a rest in the enlightened mind had been termed resting in a place of Wisdom.
Putting back on the Ego overcoat and doing good in the world has been termed walking in Compassion…
The key here is that you cannot get to this enlightened mind by force of will…
You can only get there by letting go of everything that gets in the way.
This has been likened to a destructive process, that can be very painful…
The Ego does not like to die!
As far as passage meditation, I like to think that each practice is a boat. If you resonate with a certain practice, has attraction energy, try it out. Give it a few months, or years…
Ask questions of your practice, does it get you to closer a place of peace, of wisdom?
Has it helped you to get across a river, perhaps, to the next practice?
Is it time to leave this boat behind for another boat for a different river, lake, sea…
Perhaps there is now a mountain to climb, or a cave to explore.
Practice is never ending…
There is always more to learn, and, particularly, to unlearn…
If that is the path you choose…
Whether you walk through life with love and ease…
Or walking thought life in pain and unease…
Each walk along the path is information, be open to it all…
(a very long answer to your question :-D)
Love and hugs
D
(PS- I’ll probably use this in my Blog without your name)
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(PPS-I am having difficulty learning how to post properly text in this "downgrade" of Blogger...)
Namaste to all this Holiday Season
