This is Post 28 in the ‘Meditation Guidance’ series. Summaries of the articles in this series can be found by clicking here.
Each of the four Quadrants of the mandala can be a point of entry into the experience of embodied Consciousness. Each is distinctive, and each is as powerful and as important, as all the others. The Western Quadrant, which we have been examining in the last few posts, takes us into the mystery through the experience of the evaluative and discriminative psychological function of Feeling, which the Buddhist tradition calls the samjñā skandha. The distinctive red male Buddha of the Western Quadrant, who is always seen with his hands resting together in meditation posture, is Amitābha – the Buddha of love, or mettā, or Loving Kindness. The invitation of Amitābha is that we rest as Consciousness and evaluate our experience from that place – to relate to others and evaluate our experience not from egoic Feeling, but from the Feeling aspect of Consciousness, which the Buddhist tradition speaks of in terms of the Discriminating Wisdom, and in terms of mettā.
Pandaravārsini, the female Buddha partner of Amitābha is an archetypal figure of enormous spiritual importance. While we can say that Amitābha personifies the extraverted aspect of love – love poured out towards others – Pandaravārsini personifies the subtle introverted counterpart of that, which is love received. So, Pandaravārsini is a personification of that in us, which is able to rest as Consciousness so completely that our emotional life (the somatic energies of our Emotional Body) are taken over by mettā. She could therefore associated with what may be called our ability to ‘love ourselves’, but this a crude conceptualisation. More accurately, she is that in us which recognises the source of love within with instinctive confidence – and who, through absolute Faith and devotional receptivity rests always in a state of uncaused happiness. Pandaravārsini represents ‘the confidence that we are loved’ in the most absolute and impersonal sense of that notion. The principle that Pandaravārsini embodies is so absolutely foundational for the meditator (and for humanity), that I have chosen in these articles to give this Dharmic principle of primordial contentment, this introverted dimension of Loving Kindness, its own name – Uncaused Happiness.
Consciousness does not evaluate like the egoic mind does – it does not simply distinguish between that which it ‘likes’ and that which it ‘does not like’; or between that which it values and that which it de-values. It might seem, at least at first, that Consciousness makes no evaluation at all. When we allow ourselves to rest as Consciousness however, and familiarise ourselves with Consciousness and with the experience of the Emotional Body through meditative enquiry, we notice that Consciousness is indeed evaluative – but it evaluates unconditionally. It seems that Consciousness unconditionally values everything in our experience. We might say that, paradoxically without lacking discrimination, it feels everything, values everything, accepts everything, embraces everything, loves everything – and even perhaps, is happy with everything. This attitude, and this transformative state of alignment of the Emotional Body layer of our somatic anatomy with the great love that is inherent in Consciousness and inherent in the universe, is what the Buddhist tradition calls mettā, or Loving Kindness.
Resting as Consciousness with the mandala wisdom as our guide, everything falls into place at last.
I hope you enjoy my articles. The various inter-related categories of my writing are described below, and my coaching and teaching work is described below that. Hover your mouse pointer over the categories in the top menu above to reveal the drop-down sub-menus, and to see listings of the articles in date order.
There are currently 41 articles of in this introductory series on the psychology of the mandala, which I called ‘Meditation Guidance’. Although this series of summaries is still incomplete, the first 30 of them are now available – by clicking here, or on image below. For more information on this series see my description further down this page.
Click on the title above to read the first article in a series of twelve articles. Together they take a very deep, broad and detailed look at what recognising the emptiness of the rūpa skandha, or Form, might mean in practice. The fact that the rūpa skandha is associated, in the Bardo Thodol, with both the Mirror-Like Wisdom and the Buddhist Hell Realms, establishes a very clear archetypal association between the rūpa skandha and the Thinking function of the mind. Rūpa, though rendered as ‘Form’, is frequently associated with ‘the body’. These articles aim to recover the great power of the Buddha’s ‘Five Skandhas‘ teaching by addressing this area of confusion. Brief summaries of each article in the series can be found here.
During the last couple of years, I have also been working on a new series of articles on the ten deities of the Dharmadhātu mandala that were described by Padmasambhava in his Bardo Thodol teachings (which became known to Westerners as the ‘Tibetan Book of the Dead’). I have taken as my starting point, the central five verses in the ‘Inspiration-Prayer for Deliverance from the Dangerous Pathway of the Bardo’ (which you can read here). I have found these verses inspirational ever since I was introduced to them nearly 40 years ago – and I hope you will find them the same. In this series, I am aiming to show meditators how each one of the five male Buddhas and five female Buddhas of the Dharmadātu Mandala can be felt in the fields of the body as profound suprapersonal sources of somatic healing and wisdom. Those who read the whole series of articles – and it is intended that these articles should be read in sequence – will be able to incorporate these reflections into their meditation practice in a systematic way. The first article in the series can be found here, and brief summaries of all the articles can be found here.
The “Meditation Guidance’ series of articles, which were my main focus in 2017 and 2018 can be accessed via the ‘Meditation’ menu above. My approach to meditation and mindfulness draws on the spiritual psychology of non-duality; on the mandala-wisdom of the Buddhist tradition, which is reflected in the psychology of Carl Jung; and on the meeting of Quantum Physics / Quantum Biology with Neuroscience in the brilliant Penrose-Hameroff hypothesis in regard to the nature of the brain-Consciousness interface – a hypothesis that is steadily accumulating experimental support. Brief summaries of the articles in this series can be found here.
Although I am most strongly influenced by Buddhist thought, I have tried as much as possible in this series of articles to address the general reader. I have also been a passionate student of the deep humanistic psychology of Marshall Rosenberg (founder of Nonviolent Communication – NVC), and of Eugene Gendlin (founder of the ‘Focusing‘ self-empathy/self-enquiry dyad practice), and have woven these perspectives into this Mandala of Love approach to meditation and self-enquiry.
This series of articles aims to bring fresh insights into several common approaches to meditation (the Mindfulness of Breathing, Mettā Bhavana, and the Zen ‘Just Sitting’ practice for example). The initial framework for the Mandala of Love approach, and for this series also, is provided by the four brahmavihāras (Loving Kindness, Appreciative Joy, Equanimity and Compassion) – a four-fold meditation-cycle and self-enquiry framework from ancient India, which played an important part in the Buddha’s teachings. Central to my approach is the conceptualisation of meditation practice as ‘resting as Consciousness’, and the recognition of the brahmavihāras as ‘attitudes of Consciousness’.
By re-framing meditation and Mindfulness practices as expressions of ‘resting as Consciousness’, there is an opportunity to set them in a non-dual context that is, I hope, much more true to the Buddha’s teaching than many of the modern derivatives. The Buddha bore witness to the impersonal nature of all psychological phenomena, and to the non-locatable nature of Consciousness, and urged his students to take these insights as the foundation of their practice. When we step out of the egoic perspective, we can re-discover meditation as an activity whose purpose is to reveal our true nature and recover our natural state – the compassion and intelligence of our natural humanity.
If you have enjoyed the ‘Meditation Guidance’ posts and would like to read an additional series of in-depth articles that take a broader and more explicitly Buddhist view, and explain my overall approach to that series, please click here to see summaries of my uncategorised articles, or here to read the first of the ‘Overview’ articles.
Since the beginning of 2019, I have been aiming, in my articles, to provide some in-depth analysis on the Five Wisdoms; the Buddha’s ‘Emptiness of the Five Skandhas‘ teaching; the Four Foundations of Mindfulness; and on the male and female archetypal Buddhas of the Dharmadhātu mandala. I have created a new menu category for some of these articles, which I have called simply, ‘Buddhism’. A reverse-date-order listing of these articles can be accessed by clicking here, or on the title above.
You can access brief summaries of the articles in this ‘Buddhism’ series by clicking here, and you can access the first post in the series by clicking here.
I have been a passionate student of Marshall Rosenberg’sNonviolent Communication (NVC) model for over twenty years, and have taught several courses during that time – courses based on both NVC and on the work of Eugene Gendlin, the originator of the ‘Focusing‘ self-empathy dyad practice. I have also developed an innovative approach to the NVC model, which I call the NVC Mandala, and which sees the ‘four components’ of Rosenberg’s model as a beautiful example of the universal mandala wisdom that we find in Tibetan Buddhism, and in the psychology of Carl Jung – though Carl Jung, it should be noted, borrowed much from Tibetan Buddhism in the creation of his mandala model of the psyche.
The ‘NVC Mandala’ that becomes clear when Marshall Rosenberg’s ‘four components’ model is arranged with Observations and Feelings at east and west, and Needs and Requests at north and south, is all the more remarkable for the fact that his developed his model without any knowledge of Tibetan Buddhism or the work of Carl Jung. The obvious connections between the non-dual psychology of the Tibetan Buddhist mandala and the practical psychological analysis of thought and language that is provided by Marshall Rosenberg, provide the basis for an extremely rich synthesis of ideas. The posts in the ‘NVC’ series will be of great interest to anyone with an interest in psychology; in spirituality; and in harmony and compassion in their relationships and communities – and to anyone who is interested in the Buddhist ideals of nonviolence, compassion, and creativity, or in the many Buddhist insights that support the Nonviolent Communication approach to communication and self-awareness.
You can access the first post in this ‘Communication and Relationships’ series by clicking here, or by clicking on the ‘NVC’ menu in the top menu.
The Mandala of Love website started as a book project called A Mandala of Love: Consciousness, Ethics and Society. I have published some of the sections of that book in the form of articles in the ‘Book Sections’ series.
You can access the first post in the ‘Book Sections’ series by clicking here.
This is a longer piece of writing from 2012, that I have published as a page on this website – even though it is not quite complete. To access it click here, or the title above. I am hoping that this article will provide inspiration and guidance to students of both meditation and non-duality. I find the story of Hui Neng to be one of the most beautiful and illuminating in the whole of the Buddhist tradition. Among the many deep themes in this rich and multi-dimensional story, you will find, I believe, the essence of Zen.
Those who have been reading my articles on the mandala-wisdom in the ‘Meditation Guidance’ category on this website, will find that Hui Neng’s story brings us back, in a fresh new way, to the traditional point of entry into the mandala: the blue Eastern Quadrant; the Mirror-Like Wisdom; and the brahmavihāra of Equanimity.
I can provide individual meditation guidance and coaching sessions. My Mandala Innerwork approach to coaching is a form of self-enquiry that students of meditation will find very supportive. These sessions are also especially valuable to students of the ‘Nonviolent Communication‘ model, since these sessions focus on the development of the attitudes and skills of self-empathy, which is foundational to that model. I am particularly keen to work with those who are interested in the Mandala of Love approach to self-enquiry, meditation, and self-empathetic innerwork, and who would value my support to apply the principles that I have been exploring in my articles.
My approach to innerwork draws on various sources of inspiration, but makes extensive use of the work of Eugene Gendlin, and his student Anne Weiser-Cornell. I have also completed the 9-month online training of Jerry Donoghue, an NVC teacher who is based in Ashville, North Carolina, in the USA (www.innerpresencecoaching.com), who is also engaged with integrating NVC with non-dual wisdom.
Jerry Donghue and I also share the conviction that the practice of self-empathy, which is a foundational element of the NVC model, requires the acknowledgement of psychological parts – a theme that I have addressed frequently in my ‘Meditation Guidance’ articles (including here, here, here, and here). Indeed the self-empathy / self-enquiry approach that I have come to call Mandala Innerwork is founded on my observation, over several decades of my own innerwork practice, that the ability to self-empathetically recognise and work with psychological parts is an essential self-awareness skill, and a necessary skill if we wish to become more conscious; to recover an authentic self; and to integrate non-dual wisdom.
In the context of my individual coaching sessions, I like to integrate my meditation and self-enquiry work with my facilitation of self-empathetic innerwork. Both skills take the idea of ‘resting a Consciousness’ as their starting point. Indeed my coaching work is best characterised as a form of self-enquiry facilitation, or of Mindfulness with the goal of Insight – seeing through the self-illusion. The depth of that enquiry depends on the choice of my clients, but my own personal framework is rooted in the rich and powerful psychology of the Buddhist non-duality teachings.
For more information on Mandala Innerwork, Inner Presence Coaching, one-to-one Meditation Teaching, and facilitated self-enqury please click here.
I welcome enquiries. Please contact me via the Contact Form here.
This is Post 27 in the ‘Meditation Guidance’ series. Summaries of the other articles in this series can be found by clicking here.
When we rest as Consciousness, the Feeling aspect of that experience is the brahmavihāra of mettā, or Loving Kindness. Mettā is associated in Buddhist tradition with the colour red, with the end of the day, and with sunset. Although, in Western tradition, the Feeling function is associated with the water element, in Indian tradition it is associated with the element of fire.
In the poetry and imagination of India (and that of the first nation peoples of North America) fire is the element that turns the gross into the subtle, that cooks and transforms things, that extracts bright metals from dull ores. When the body is cremated, fire helps the soul on its journey to the heavenly realms. Fire is the element that radiates a nourishing warmth – but we instinctively recoil from it when it threatens to scorch us. It is the upward-rising and aspirational element that dances, and appears to reach up to heaven. All this fire imagery provides eloquent symbolism of the Feeling function. In India, the Hindu religious ascetic, or sannyasin, will usually put on robes that are the colour of fire when he or she abandons the worldly life – signifying the fire of their aspiration, and the self-transformation that they are undertaking.
In the context of the mandalas of the Tibetan Buddhist tradition, the fiery Feeling function in the red Western Quadrant appears to carry us upward from the earthy Sensation function in the yellow Southern Quadrant, to the airy function of Volition / Intuition in the green Northern Quadrant. The downward-flowing water element in the blue, or white, Eastern Quadrant, which symbolises the Thinking function, carries us back down to the yellow Southern Quadrant, the earth element, and the Sensation function, and so completes the cycle. The elements, in this context, are symbols of the cognitive-perceptual functions that Indian tradition calls the skandhas – something that students of the mandala wisdom need to be keenly aware of.
It is traditional among the Tibetan people to orientate their maps to the path of the sun, so they put the blue eastern sunrise point at the bottom of the mandala, and the red western sunset point at the top – so the way in which the element symbolism highlights the cyclical process of the mandala is unfortunately usually lost. While it is very much my wish to honour the Tibetan Buddhist tradition, I find the western-style orientation of the mandala, which puts the north-point at the top, to be much more symbolically meaningful.
The archetypal symbolism of the two axes – the two main pairs of polarities within the mandala – are so important. By placing the Earth-Air axis vertically, with the Earth Element, which in Buddhist tradition symbolises the basic and foundational skandha of vedanā (Sensation) at the bottom; and the Air Element, which symbolises the subtle and energetic skandha of samskaras (Intuition/Volition) at the top, we allow the mandala to express important truths that would otherwise be missed – important truths that in other traditions might be suggested symbolically by the dichotomies of Heaven and Earth, or Spirit and Matter.
A Four-fold Embodiment of Consciousness
The foundational stages of meditation practice require that we familiarise ourselves deeply with embodied Consciousness in all four of the surface bodies, and one of our best guides to this four-fold embodiment is the cycle of the four brahmavihāras. The Emotional Body is the third of the surface bodies, and is associated with the Western Quadrant of the mandala, and with the brahmavihāra of mettā. It is the Emotional Body that is felt most keenly in the region of the maṇipūra, or Solar Plexus Chakra, which is a point in the centre of the trunk of body just below the sternum, which I have written about in the previous post (here). Continue reading
This is Post 26 in the ‘Meditation Guidance’ series. Summaries of the other articles in this series can be found by clicking here.
It has been the experience of the ancient meditation traditions of India and Tibet that the internal space of the human body is filled with not one but seven different energetic, or somatic, fields – the seven auras, or ‘subtle bodies’. Many readers will already be aware that each deeper layer in the succession of auric layers is slightly larger than the last, so that the layers that are closer to the surface are enclosed within the deeper ones.
An important feature of this spiritual anatomy that readers may not be aware of however, is the way the polarity of the layers alternates between receptive and expansive – yin and yang – and in way that is opposite in the two sexes. I have outlined this phenomenon in previous posts (here and here) and will be returning to it – this understanding is essential, in my view, for the meditator, and provides wonderful insights into the very different emotional life of men and women.
An understanding of the ways in which these fields of our spiritual anatomy interpenetrate each other and interact, is very useful information for the meditator. Of the seven fields, by far the most important are the first four, which I have been calling the surface bodies – these are somatic fields through which our sense of ‘being a person’ finds a sense of energetic embodiment. While these four key subtle bodies, and the relationships between them, are most comprehensively described by the meditation mandalas of Tibetan Buddhism, the implicit description of embodied Consciousness that we find in the four brahmavihāras of early Buddhism (and in the pre-Buddhist teaching of the four brahmavihāras) gives us a much simpler ‘way in’ to this mandala wisdom.
Each of the subtle bodies is felt most keenly at the points in the body that we call the chakras. So, as previously in connection with the Mental Body and the subtle Physical Body (which I described here and here), we will find it useful in understanding our experience of the Emotional Body when we are resting as Consciousness, if we look briefly at the traditional Indian description of the Solar Plexus Chakra, which is outlined below.
The Manipūra Chakra – City of Jewels
The traditional Indian name of the third chakra, the chakra at the Solar Plexus, is maṇipūra, which is a Sanskrit word made up of the word maṇi, which means ‘jewel’, and pūra, which means city or place. Maṇipūra gives us an image of a sort of paradise – a place of extraordinary wealth and beauty – sparkling and radiant. In this context, the image of a landscape glittering with jewels is being used to symbolise not only ultimate beauty and value, but also unlimited ease, grace, contentment and happiness – a world of pleasurable and joyful feelings. Continue reading
This is Post 25 in the ‘Meditation Guidance’ series. Summaries of the other articles in this series can be found by clicking here.
While there is much more that could be said about the brahmavihāra of Sympathetic Joy and the Southern Quadrant of the mandala, we need now to move clockwise round the mandala to the Western Quadrant, to the function of Feeling (the samjñā skandha of Buddhist tradition), and to the brahmavihāra of Loving Kindness, or mettā (Pali), or maitrī (Sanskrit). Although in general I like to use Sanskrit, the classical language of Indian spiritual discourse, and the language of the magnificent but no longer existing tradition of Indian Mahayana Buddhism, I prefer, out of habit, to use the more familiar Pali word mettā, for Loving Kindness, rather than equivalent Sanskrit word maitrī (pronounced ‘my-tree’).
Even those who are unfamiliar with the four brahmavihāras as a mandala map of Consciousness, such as I have been presenting, may well have heard of mettā, which is the most well-known of the four. And some will perhaps be familiar with a form of the popular Buddhist meditation practice called the mettā bhāvanā, or ‘Cultivation of the Loving Kindness’. Because of this, I have already written one post about mettā (here) in my introduction to the brahmavihāras at the beginning of this ‘Meditation Guidance’ series.
In that previous post, I explained that mettā is most frequently presented in a way that does not clearly distinguish it from karuṇā (Compassion), muditā (Sympathetic Joy), and fails to acknowledge the important connection between mettā and upekṣā (Equanimity). Because I believe so strongly that a deeper understanding the whole mandala of the brahmavihāras constitutes such a powerful framework for self-enquiry and meditation, I would like now to return to the themes of that previous post.
Distinguishing Feeling from Sensation
In order to fully understand and distinguish the nature of mettā, we need first to understand that function of psychological cognition that we call Feeling, and in order to understand Feeling, it is extremely important for us to make a clear distinction between Feeling and Sensation – something that not all psychological models achieve. Indeed these two words are unfortunately often used interchangeably in English and other languages – and this causes much confusion. The distinction I make between the perceptual sensing function of Sensation and evaluative and discriminative function of Feeling follows both Carl Jung and the Buddhist tradition. I also draw on Marshall Rosenberg’s Nonviolent Communication model and various others who have also recognised and described this universal four-fold pattern, which I have some sometimes called the Mandala of Love, or more simply, ‘the mandala’.
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We also need to recognise the limitations of psychological models that do not include either Consciousness, or the possibility of a somatic, or energetic, dimension of experiencing. Such Newtonian-Cartesian psychological models are usually forced to see Feeling merely as a form of Sensation – as a pattern of neurological and hormonal excitation in the abdomen and chest of an entirely physical body that has no connection to the Quantum field.
This assumption that there is no functional interaction between the Quantum Mechanical level and the Classical level within the nervous system is just that – an assumption, and one that is contrary to our experience. The spiritual gift of a century of rigorous experimentation in Quantum Physics has been the understanding that all of the phenomena of the Classical world that we call matter (including the human body down to the molecular level) rest inseparably in a perplexing but undoubtedly unitary field of energy and Quantum information that completely interpenetrates all experience. While the mental habits of scientific materialism have been slow to erode, it is clear to all those in the field of Quantum Physics, who have given deep thought to the implications of this new science, that the participation of Quantum Mechanical mechanisms in the brain and nervous system is necessary for there to be any actual experiencing, or knowing, or Consciousness in any perceptual process. This is the only explanation we have for the data of human experience.
The quantitative psychological methods of non-phenomenological models have tended to simply exclude a deep investigation of the nature of Feeling, because it is dismissed as inherently too subjective – and because it is subject to the limited vocabulary of most people in the general population in regard to feeling. We rarely describe feelings specifically, and the extreme variability in the usage of the standard ‘feeling words’ – the commonly used categories and sub-categories used to describe feeling – unfortunately makes them unsuitable for use in most types of psychological research.
The Feeling Function – Our Emotional Guidance System
Phenomenological approaches like that of the psychotherapist-philosopher Carl Jung, or the philosopher-psychotherapist Eugene Gendlin, have however recognised that Feeling is an enormously rich territory for psychological exploration, and for personality change. In my view the contributions of both Jung and Gendlin have been incalculable – and their legacies has been insufficiently acknowledged. I shall be drawing on both these perspectives in my next few articles, as well as once again drawing on the mandala-wisdom of various traditions (especially Buddhism), and on the seven bodies / seven chakras somatic model that is well known to meditators and healers. As I explained in my previous post on mettā (here), when we experientially recognise the way in which Feeling is associated with the Emotional Body in that model, we are given a valuable way of grasping the energetic dimension of the somewhat intangible psychological function of Feeling.
Marshall Rosenberg and the global community that created the Nonviolent Communication (NVC) model have also given us a useful way into our process of enquiry into Feeling – by suggesting that positive feelings arise when Needs are met, and negative feelings arise when Needs are unmet. Putting aside, for now, any attempt to define a ‘Need’, and also putting aside the fact that Feeling appears to be very much subject to Thinking, and clearly also related to physiological processes in our nervous systems and endocrine systems, this does nevertheless gives us a very good starting point.
The Feeling function, which Indian tradition calls the samjñā skandha, is clearly a form of cognitive discernment, or evaluative discrimination, and functions as a sort of ‘guidance system’. Whereas Sensation may be regarded as a neutral way of knowing our reality though the act of sensing, Feeling can perhaps best be thought of as the function by which we subjectively evaluate our experience via the subtle movements, patterns, and processes of felt-knowing in the field of body. Feeling, like Thinking, is a discriminative, or judging function – a function by which we make decisions – but is clearly a non-logical and subjective mode of discernment. Feeling, it would seem, draws on our accumulation of life experience, via a difficult-to-define subjective knowing, to make decisions that require an evaluative mode of discrimination – not a logical one.
The East-West Axis of the Mandala – Thinking and Feeling
In several earlier posts (here, here, here, here, and here) I spoke about the Eastern Quadrant of the mandala, and talked about the way resting ‘as’ Consciousness allows us to step back out of identification with the beliefs and points of view, which are the Thinking aspect of the egoic patterns – allows us to draw back into Consciousness, and into a place of objectivity and Being. We also saw that this place of objectivity and Being was relational and creative – capable of rational creativity, solution-focused collaboration, and mental stability in the face of challenges.
As we now address the Western Quadrant and cognitive function of Feeling, I hope to show how resting as Consciousness can allow us, in a similar way, to step back out of identification with our emotions, moods, and subjective reactions, which are the Feeling aspects of the egoic patterns – can allow us to draw back into a place of rational subjective discernment or felt knowing.
As we saw with the Thinking function, the ability to rest as Consciousness changes everything. Just as Thinking only becomes capable of objectivity when it is truly a ‘function of Consciousness’ rather that a function of the egoic illusion, so Feeling only becomes capable of providing accurate evaluation, discernment, and guidance when, through resting as Consciousness, we have learnt to dis-identify from the vast accumulation of egoic conditioning that is patterned into both our somatic anatomy and our neuro-endocrine system.
The Feeling function is sometimes characterised as having an orientation to the past (whereas the Thinking function may be thought of as an orientation to the future). Only by allowing the Emotional Body to rest as Consciousness in the present moment, can we start to free Feeling from past conditioning – conditioning which usually entirely shapes our felt experience and our emotional lives into the future. In reality, all forms of conditioning are an orientation to the past. Without Consciousness, which gives us an orientation to the eternal present moment of felt experience, everything that we are as conditioned egoic beings marches relentlessly from the past into the future – always reacting from past conditioning, endlessly repeating old patterns of relationship, and always tending to bring the same old emotional tone in our new experiences.
Conscious Thinking and Feeling – Differentiation and Reconciliation
The East-West axis of the mandala reminds us that Consciousness allows us to differentiate Thinking (East) from Feeling (West) and to reconcile these two principles at a higher level. As we learn to rest as Consciousness we recognise that truly objective Thinking arises in the context of a shared experience of existence, or Being – so truly conscious Thinking is always relational, and always serves connection, communication, and creativity. A capacity for conscious non-reactive Thinking is as foundational for our relationships and collaborations as is our capacity to be consciously ‘loving’. Indeed the two are inseparable, and each without the other is incomplete, unbalanced, and hides the unconscious shadow of its opposite – and is therefore not achievable.
Similarly, Consciousness allows us to experience and communicate Feeling objectively, so that it profoundly supports connection with ourselves and connection with others. This objectivity allows us to experience Feeling as much more than a form of subjective emotional response. Instead it becomes a capacity for objective discrimination – a subtle mode of discernment and evaluation in the context of our communication, our relationships, and in areas of life where aesthetic and ethical judgement is required. Similarly in communication, the ability to accurately and objectively observe and describe our feelings opens up vast new self-empathetic and empathetic possibilities, which lead to a deepening of relationships and to psychological and social healing.
Consciousness – Our only Protection against Shadow Projection
The way in which the axes of the mandala give us a visual image of the way the functions of Consciousness (Feeling and Thinking – at west and east; and Intuition/Volition and Sensation – at north and south) are experienced as oppositions on the egoic level, but are reconciled and complementary on the level of Consciousness, is a key feature of the mandala wisdom, which is of enormous importance for the meditator – or for anyone who wishes to become more conscious, especially in their relationships.
This wise mandala-psychology, which I have been calling the Mandala of Love alerts us to the ever present danger of the unconscious opposites in ordinary egoic functioning. I have talked previously (here) about how egoic Thinking, instead of functioning as a capacity for relational objectivity, inevitably tends to express shadow Feeling qualities – frequently becoming emotional, judgemental and punishing, when Consciousness and the balancing quality of fully conscious Feeling are absent.
Similarly, until the ability to rest as Consciousness is established, egoic Feeling will, instead of functioning as objective discernment through felt knowing, can always tend to show the complementary opposite, or ‘shadow’ qualities of moodiness, compulsiveness, and depression – experiences and behaviours that relate directly to an inability to reflect and relate objectively and affirmatively to felt-experience. It is only with the help of these Thinking-related functions of reflection, objectivity, affirmation, thoughtful communication and relatedness, that Feeling can function in a fully differentiated way – as a function of Consciousness.
The Mandala Map of Consciousness – Our Shield against the Shadow
Without Consciousness, the polar oppositions between Thinking and Feeling (at East and West), or between Intuition/Volition and Sensation (at North and South) collapse into an unconscious egoic fusion, that is reflected in unconscious patterns of thinking, language and action. Only Consciousness can provide the spaciousness in which we can hold the tension between the opposites. Consciousness supports the necessary processes of differentiation and reconciliation, protecting us, and freeing us from our unconscious tendencies and from the inevitability of shadow projection – psychological dynamics which make us ineffective, which keep us stuck, and which cause us much harm by undermining our judgement and damaging our relationships.
Readers interested in this built-in egoic tendency towards internal fusion, division, and shadow projection, in the egoic patterns, may be interested in my previous post on this (here). An awareness of the psychodynamics of the personal and collective Shadow are essential for anyone who would wish to be become conscious or to function harmoniously and ethically in their relationships and in society. One of the greatest gifts of the mandala archetype that these Mandala of Love posts are exploring, is its ability to highlight the unconscious Shadow and bring it into consciousness – knowledge of the mandala dynamics is our shield against the Shadow.
William Parker 2017
These articles are best read in sequence. To go to the next article in the series just click the ‘Next’ button at the bottom of the page. For an overview of the whole sequence of articles, with short summaries of each one, click here.
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This is Post 24 in the ‘Meditation Guidance’ series. Summaries of the other articles in this series can be found by clicking here.
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 the 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 the 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 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
This is Post 23 in the ‘Meditation Guidance’ series. Summaries of the other articles in this series can be found by clicking here.
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 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 in this series (here) – the ‘Allegory of the Cave’ from Plato’s Republic. Set in the context of a 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
This is Post 22 in the ‘Meditation Guidance’ series. Summaries of the other articles in this series can be found by clicking here.
In very general terms, the classic Zen meditation practice of Zazen, or ‘Just Sitting’, is usually 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. I could be argued that the ‘object’ of attention in Zazen practice, if there is one, is Consciousness itself – the field of Consciousness in which all our experiencing is happening; and Consciousness as it is experienced in the field of the body. Zazen therefore, is a prime example of the practice of ‘resting as Consciousness’.
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 these articles, I have mostly been translating muditā as Appreciative Joy, which I prefer. I can see that the translation of muditā as Sympathetic Joy is in some ways more appropriate when we are describing the extraverted aspect of muditā – our relational response to the wellbeing or achievement of another – but when talking about our relationship to our own experience, Appreciative Joy is definitely more appropriate.
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.
While all of the brahmavihāras can spontaneously arise during Zazen meditation, but I believe the practice has this especially close connection with muditā. This is because muditā, or Appreciative Joy, is the brahmavihāra that arises in connection with the skandha of vedanā – the brahmavihāra which arises as our relationship with the vedanā skandha begins to take on a less personal and more universal character. There is a natural refinement of our relationship with our internal sensory experience as we learn to dis-identify from our experience, while simultaneously recognising our experience as ’embodied Consciousness’ – and this more refined and objective experience of vedanā is called muditā, or Appreciative Joy.
This is Post 21 in the ‘Meditation Guidance’ series. Summaries of the other articles in this series can be found by clicking here.
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 a quality of the universal Consciousness as we relate to the practicalities and specifics of human life. While we need to acknowledge that it is a cosmic attitude, it is also an attitude that individual people will often embody in rich personal ways even if they are not choosing to adopt the practice of resting as Consciousness. Muditā involves being in this physical world in way that is informed by, and supported by, the healing, evolutionary, and compassionate energy of our transpersonal source – so if we express this consciously it is extremely powerful source of blessing and creativity.
Muditā can perhaps be better understood by contrasting it with its egoic counterpart, which is the ordinary egoic Sensation function, which Buddhist tradition speaks of in terms of the vedanā skandha. Through meditative self-inquiry we come to recognise that we habitually and unconsciously 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 it, or seek to overcome it, is fundamental to, and characteristic of, the experience of being human. Buddhist tradition speaks of this habitual perception of separateness and the associated preoccupation with ‘looking after number one’ in terms of the klesha of māna, which is usually translated as ‘pride’, and sometimes as ‘conceit’.
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 egoic unconsciousness, which we need to explore and become familiar with. Continue reading
This is Post 20 in the ‘Meditation Guidance’ series. Summaries of the other articles in this series can be found by clicking here.
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 is perhaps 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 examining this bodily-felt dimension through meditative enquiry, the universal blessing which is our experience of embodied Consciousness cannot be fully received and 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 meditation, while it takes the apparently physical body as its starting point, 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 – and learn to break our identification with psychological parts, if only in brief moments of Mindfulness, or in periods of meditation – 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 can be very significant, because we come to recognise our choice – and our power to transform ourselves in this way. Continue reading
This is Post 28 in the ‘Meditation Guidance’ series. Summaries of the articles in this series can be found by clicking here.
This is Post 27 in the ‘Meditation Guidance’ series. Summaries of the other articles in this series can be found by clicking 
This is Post 26 in the ‘Meditation Guidance’ series. Summaries of the other articles in this series can be found by clicking 
This is Post 25 in the ‘Meditation Guidance’ series. Summaries of the other articles in this series can be found by clicking 
This is Post 24 in the ‘Meditation Guidance’ series. Summaries of the other articles in this series can be found by clicking 
This is Post 23 in the ‘Meditation Guidance’ series. Summaries of the other articles in this series can be found by clicking 
This is Post 22 in the ‘Meditation Guidance’ series. Summaries of the other articles in this series can be found by clicking 
This is Post 21 in the ‘Meditation Guidance’ series. Summaries of the other articles in this series can be found by clicking 
This is Post 20 in the ‘Meditation Guidance’ series. Summaries of the other articles in this series can be found by clicking
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