‘Meditation’ 2017 Sept-Oct

The Yin and Yang of Embodied Consciousness

This is Post 24 in the ‘Meditation Guidance’ series.

In order to understand meditation fully, an understanding of the way our psychology manifests somatically or energetically in the field of the body is essential. We especially need to understand the way in which female and male spiritual character manifests somatically. These are things that are extremely poorly understood, given their great importance as key factors that govern the level of harmony and fulfilment that we experience in sexual relationships. They appear to be difficult to consciously acknowledge and talk about, even though we are all very keenly aware of them.

This is perhaps partly because these phenomena are so difficult to conceptualise. The great Carl Jung, who developed a very sophisticated understanding of the way archetypal, or transpersonal, psychic forces shape male and female psychological character, also understood that the archetypal psychology of sexual difference manifests somatically – in the subtle energies of the body. He theorised that there was an energetic patterning of the body, or somatic unconscious, that shapes our psychology in a similar way to the archetypes of the collective psychic unconscious. Whereas the archetypes of the collective unconscious show themselves in our myths, stories, dreams, and movies, the energies of somatic unconscious can be felt in the body as energetic dynamics and states.

Our ability to know ourselves, and to function with psychological freedom and integrity, is closely related to our capacity to fully acknowledge this bodily-felt dimension of the inner world. Our engagement with the somatic dimension takes us to core of the human mystery – and to the core of how human beings embody Consciousness, or fail to do so.

The Qualia of Embodiment

In connection with the yellow Southern Quadrant of the mandala and the brahmavihāra of muditā, or Appreciative Joy, it is helpful to acknowledge that the experience of ‘Embodiment’ that we have been addressing is a ‘qualia’. The qualia are the difficult-to-define subjectively experienced phenomena that occur in connection with Consciousness. As a way of finding alignment at the beginning of a meditation session, try just taking a few moments to notice your experience of ‘Embodiment’. You are likely to find that when you look in your experience for ‘Embodiment’, you will find yourself being pointed to the experience of Consciousness. You will have a similar experience when you look for the experience of ‘Being’, which names another key qualia. Continue reading

October 17, 2017

Plato’s Cave Revisited

This is Post 23 in the ‘Meditation Guidance’ series.

Self-inquiry, meditation practice, and the practice that the English-speaking Buddhist traditions call ‘mindfulness’, all involve what can be described metaphorically as an inner drawing back, out of the egoic identification in which we find ourselves, into an identification with the field of Consciousness itself – and discovering the blessings that flow from that. We usually associate these practices with Indian and far eastern spirituality (and perhaps with a few Christian mystical traditions like the Quakers). It is important to understand however, that the same subtle spiritual knowledge was present at the beginning of Western Philosophy in the Platonic and Neoplatonic traditions that flourished before the Christian period, and then re-emerged in the Renaissance.

An Ancient Greek Vision of Spiritual Freedom

Socrates, the Classical Greek philosopher, who lived in Athens in the 5th Century BCE, was teaching on ethics and the ultimate nature of mind in the same century that the Buddha was addressing these themes in ancient India. If he did ever do any writing himself, none of Socrates’ writings have survived, so we only know of his ideas though the writings of his students Plato and Xenophon, and via the contemporary playwright Aristophanes.

There is much in Plato’s literary record of Socrates’ life and teachings, that is relevant to this series of posts on the brahmavihāras, but I would like to return to one of his teachings that I have touched on briefly before (here) – the Allegory of the Cave from Plato’s Republic. Set in the context of an wider discussion about the value of education and of spiritual knowledge, it appears to present a philosophical theory of human perception that is very similar to both the Buddha’s view, and that of Quantum Physics. Continue reading

October 1, 2017

Zazen – Just Sitting – Resting as Consciousness

This is Post 22 in the ‘Meditation Guidance’ series.

In very general terms, the classic Zen meditation practice of Zazen, or ‘Just Sitting’, can be thought of as a meditation that takes the body as a whole, and its environment, as the ‘object’ of the meditation practice. For those that have not experienced the practice, it can be difficult to understand how this seemingly diffuse and unfocused approach to meditation could, in a very natural and effortless way, give rise to strong states of somatic integration, where it appears that Consciousness is the unifying power that is producing the state of effortless concentration, rather than any willed concentration on a particular ‘object’. Indeed the ‘object’ of attention in Zazen practice, if there is one, is Consciousness – the field in which the experiencing is happening.

Sympathetic Joy – the Zen of Embodied Consciousness

In the last few posts I have reflecting in different ways on the brahmavihāras or muditā, which is usually translated as Sympathetic Joy. In the text of my writing I have been translating muditā as Appreciative Joy, which is more accurate, and which I prefer, but in the titles and section headings I have be using the more frequently used translation of Sympathetic Joy.

Although it is by no means limited to Appreciative Joy, Zazen practice obviously has a close connection with Sympathetic Joy. The characteristic boundlessness of Zazen, while simultaneously paying attention to the felt experience of the body, means that the practice also has much in common with all of the brahmavihāras, and with the approach to meditation that I have been presenting in these ‘Meditation Guidance’ articles.

I am aware that Zen Buddhism has different associations for different people, and different schools of Zen have different emphases. In this instance, I am making reference to Zen to highlight an approach to meditation practice that is characterised by a sense of embodiment, expansiveness, appreciation, contentment and gratitude, and a deep and fearless willingness to fully inhabit the body and the sensory world as Consciousness – attitudes that are characteristic, in my view, of Appreciative Joy. Continue reading

September 23, 2017

Zen and the Art of Human Life

This is Post 21 in the ‘Meditation Guidance’ series.

As previously, when reflecting on the brahmavihāras, I feel a need to emphasise that muditā, which is often translated as Sympathetic Joy, but better translated as Appreciative Joy, is not merely a mental state, but an attitude of Consciousness, and a way of being that gives expression to Consciousness in relation to the practicalities and specifics of human life. While we need to acknowledge that it is a cosmic attitude, it is also the attitude that an individual person can come to embody if they choose to adopt the practice of resting as Consciousness. It involves being in this physical world in way that is informed by, and supported by, the healing, evolutionary, and compassionate energy of that transpersonal source.

Muditā is perhaps best understood by contrasting it with its egoic counterpart, which is the ordinary egoic Sensation function. Through meditative self-inquiry we come to recognise that we bring multiple assumptions to the experience of Sensation and the experience of being in a physical body – assumptions that we come to recognise as untrue. Foremost among these incorrect assumptions, is the way we take the physical body to be absolute evidence of our ultimate separateness. This sense of separateness and the ways in which we live with that, or seek to overcome it, is fundamental to, and characteristic of, the experience of being human.

The Human Realm – Separateness healed by Appreciative Joy

Of the Buddha’s Six Realms, which I have talked about briefly in a previous post (here), the realm associated with the Southern Quadrant of the mandala, is the Human Realm. This Human Realm, in which we find ourselves, occupies an archetypal position in the mandala of egoic styles, and can be regarded as the egoic counterpart, and polar opposite, of Appreciative Joy. The Human Realm is regarded, in Buddhist tradition, as a very special and fortuitous place to be reborn, but it is also the realm associated of the egoic Sensation function, and has particular problems for us, and a particular style of unconsciousness, which we need to explore and become familiar with. Continue reading

September 3, 2017

Appreciative Joy – an Attitude and an Energetic State

This is Post 20 in the ‘Meditation Guidance’ series.

Each of the four brahmavihāras is a doorway into meditation and a doorway into a key aspect of spiritual truth. Muditā, which is usually translated as Sympathetic Joy, but would be better translated as Appreciative Joy, is a particularly important doorway for us however. As I have been explaining in the last two of posts, the body, because of its seeming obviousness, is easily misunderstood and overlooked, when in reality it is our entry point into the mysterious somatic dimension, without which meditation and the experience of embodied Consciousness cannot be understood.

The Body – our Doorway to Somatic Transformation

I have talked in a previous post (here) about the importance of acknowledging and becoming deeply familiar with the seven subtle bodies (and the seven chakras) – especially the first four bodies, which correspond to the quadrants of the mandala, and which we may call the four surface bodies. The subtle bodies are important because they provide us with a way of understanding that, while meditation takes the apparently physical body as its starting point, its power is in the fact that it gives us a way of engaging directly with these ‘subtle’, or non-physical, dimensions of our experience, which are nevertheless felt in the body.

Using the map that the mandala provides, these energetic or somatic dimensions can be distinguished and discerned in meditation. When we first start to meditate we experience the way the subtle bodies have a felt quality that reflects the psychological parts that we have fallen into identification with. As we learn to rest as Consciousness however, the energies of the subtle bodies can start to transform. Even if we only practice resting as Consciousness for short moments of time whenever we remember to do so, this is very significant, because we come to recognise our choice and our power to transform ourselves in this way. Continue reading

September 1, 2017