Author: barryschade@gmail.com

Entering the realm of focused concentration has been such a subjective experience for me. The approach changes from time to time for me, the outcome is highly unplanned, and I am often uncertain where I will go.

There are constant subtle shifts in how I am enveloped in concentration. My heart / mind keeps finding new ways of passing into that arena of deep awareness. Even while I often seem to be moving along a familiar route, no two incursions are exactly the same.

It probably should be no surprise to me that I am hearing different explanations on how to find my way into deep concentration. There have been many schools of thought around how to be mindful, and I think it is because the experience is unique for each individual.

People who have entered deep concentration draw maps for us to explain how to get there and what the experience is like. While there are common patterns, there are many subtle differences. While one teacher may urge joyful movement into these deep realms, others give warnings against the methods they have suggested.

I have pleasantly been a current student of jhanas, the realm of deep concentration. I am noticing that my teachers and commentators have different views and different ways of explaining what jhanas are about. There are common patterns of explaining what the experience of jhanas is like, but the outlines of the pathway and the experience differs from person to person. Each draws a slightly different map of where they have been, where students might go, and what contours shape the jhanas realm.

It is something like asking someone to draw a map of my garden and explain what it is like to walk along the brick paths. Everyone has their own unique version of a walk through my garden. They explain it in different ways, even while it seems to be the same garden.

The realm of concentration seems no different. I am struck how the maps are, after all, an abstraction. The map is not the way. The way is changing, unknown and unpredictable. I may sometimes take refuge and put my trust in someone’s map, but I can only know the way if I walk forward. I walk one foot before the other on ground that is both familiar, and unfamiliar.

I am aware that every meditation sitting has the feeling of a new beginning. The experience is fresh, uncertain, unpromising. Yet I feel like I have somewhat been here before. Trying to repeat a past experience, however, only leads to grasping, and that is neither effective or successful.

There is a basic map that I follow. I clearly outline my intention, I open my senses to my surroundings, I invite my body to be fully present in movement, I notice my place in the midst of my room and in the midst of people who have entered my heart, I surrender myself into a realm of deep feeling, I focus on my breathing.

I always yield to the uncertain flow and undulation of the landscape I occupy. Some experiences are familiar, but they seem to emerge on their own accord. They are invited but not compelled or pushed. There always is a point at which I put the map and familiar practice away, and I trust in a new way to go.

The new convergence of concentration may be subtly new and different, but it is almost always bright, relaxed and full of energy. Typically, a flow of pleasure and joy emerges, often with surprise and without notice.

I have received maps and they are useful and beneficial. However, they are not enough. They are not adequate to take me deeply into the realm of concentration. I think there is another guide.

For about three years, I have noticed my sensory relationship with the world changing. I’m not aware that my actual senses have changed, but my awareness of what they tell me has certainly evolved. I simply experience the information I get from my senses in a more lucid and penetrating manner.

Right now, I hear the music playing from my computer with a depth that goes way beyond what I once experienced. I am listening to the choral music of Dan Forrest with my whole body. I respond in a manner that approaches tactile.

Walking in my garden last summer was similar. I felt the plants, whether I was simply looking at them or brushing my hand across them. The sensory experience had apparently gone beyond my senses.

I now wonder what that experience has been about. Sometimes, I thought I was simply being aware that I was listening or seeing. That awareness of the sensory was what I was now more acutely experiencing. But now I am not sure.

I have been participating in an on-line course about deep concentration. It is a general introduction to jhanas, the deep absorption that results from focused and undisturbed concentration. The path to this absorption is lined with jhana factors that involve very pleasant experiences of joy, happiness and glee. That same path to absorption also includes a gradual withdrawal from sensory experiences.

Except for requiring a strong intention, it seems that all this happens with little or no effort of pursuit. It is the natural outcome of a relaxed, energetic and focused mind. Once isolated, secluded and free of distractions, the mind finds its way along the jhana path to a place of deep repose and contentment.

While I am only in the beginning stages of this adventure, I suspect that I have begun learning how to step back from a purely sensory experience and take joy in being aware that I am receiving sensory input. My mind has begun to experience people, plants and rocks as they really are, beyond the simply sensory level.

My more relaxed and focused mind is better able to hear the experience of Dan Forrest’s music with an awareness that is more than the simple listening to beautiful sounds and harmonies. My mind /heart is more engaged, and I can feel and deeply experience the beauty of the sound. I am more aware of the essence of the singing voices. The same is true of the flowers in my garden. I have visited them with more than sight and touch, and have experienced them with my whole body, my mind and heart.

I think that my sensory relationship with people, plants and rocks is but the beginning and gateway of my awareness. I am learning that there is so much more to experience in that relationship and reality. As my mind becomes more focused, I am distilling more and more of the sensory aspect from my relationship with the world.

My balance between purely-sensory and beyond-sensory is shifting. It is a relaxed, bright and joyful change.

I woke up this morning, and no one seemed to be sounding an alarm. So many things seemed seriously close to disaster, and there was no alarm. Even I, so aware that so many things could have gone wrong, am not alarmed.

I am once again amazed that my body still functioned through another night of sleep. My heart still pumps, my lungs have been taking in air, the blood vessels in my brain have stayed intact. All the rogue cells of my body have been kept in check such that I have no apparent problems.

All my essential systems, any one of which could have failed or might soon fail, are apparently working. I am strangely not alarmed of the danger pending or momentarily avoided.

Today, none of us seem alarmed that the earth is spinning so fast that people at the equator are swishing along a thousand miles an hour. The earth is madly rushing around the sun at tens of thousands miles per hour. And everything goes on as normal.

All over the earth there are people who know how to make atom bombs, and could in a moment’s whim release the destructive force. There are thousands more who, given the chance, would in an instant turn that awesome power against their fellow humans.

We wake daily into an environment more hostile than the day before, aware that humans have put into motion a chain of climatic events that will make it more difficult for them to survive. I am aware that my generation has enjoyed favorable relationship with my environment, and the generation after me is already unaware of that perilous loss. I seem scarcely alarmed.

All across the earth, humans have become so numerous that they no longer live side by side without killing one another. In cities, on borders, we push up against one another, in constant peril of being killed by our neighbors.

Small groups of individuals, all around me, are constantly taking more than their fair share. They suck resources from their fellow humans, much as ants tend aphids so that they might devour their honeydew. None of us are sounding the alarm that most of us surrender the fruits of our efforts to feed the greedy appetites of the wealthy and powerful.

Each morning, like today, I have been awake for awhile and no one has sounded the alarm, not even me. Instead I sit on my pillow, fully aware of my perilous situation. I absorb it all, one breath after another. My mind is focused, energized, balanced beyond disturbance. I enter into the peril , aware but without alarm.

I sometimes wonder about this.

I notice how so many men seem lost without a woman in the center of their life. I don’t think that this is exclusively true of men, but it seems much more common among men than women. I remember my own intense anxiety each time I became separated from a prominent woman in my life. I quietly wondered whether I could survive on my own. My confidence in myself was weak. Each time, as it turned out, I did just fine.

I experience a great cultural divide between men and woman. In spite of all the apparent male bravado around me, I mostly see my male friends dependent on a central woman in their life. The dependence may even extend to their being taken care of by a woman. However, it mostly has more to do with what I think is an acute dependence on feminine virtues and strengths present in women. The men don’t cultivate or rely on those aspects in themselves.

Exceptions to this pattern are those men who are more in touch with their own feminine aspects. These aspects are those parts related to the liberal arts. These exceptions are those men who have learned to rely on their own hearts for guidance and strength.

I find it interesting that I spent 17 years immersed in an all-male culture, and their lasting impact on the living part of me is minimal. The real and significant impact on my living self has predominantly been by women I have known outside that male environment. Each day I invite the presence of specific men and woman into my life, people I know now and have known in the past. The women out-number the men 5 to 1.

I am grateful for all the individuals, mostly women, who have been my teachers, guides and inspiration. I am especially grateful that so many of them have influenced my life without creating a lasting bound of dependence, even when I might have desired it.

I have grown up in a world that has encouraged me to rely on an emotional and spiritual dependence on women. I have resisted that pressure, and fortunately I have known a number of women who have not encouraged that kind of dependence.

I am grateful that I am very comfortable in an atmosphere of feminine virtues and strengths. It is a world that I both admire and constantly venture into. Above all, I am grateful that I am slowly uncovering, discovering and encouraging my own feminine side.

I remember very well what it use to be like each morning. I fumbled for my glasses, managed to get them arranged on my face, and the world instantly came into focus. The blur sharpened into sharp outlines, what had seemed a haze became distinguishable and recognizable objects. Thanks to my glasses, my vision improved and my world came into focus.

I had a similar experience when I had cataract surgery a little over three years ago. Every day became a new kind of experience. Now, even without glasses, it seemed as though a new world had come out of the fog. Book titles on the spines of books across the room became readable. The three-dimensional aspect of the room seemed to be deeper and more intense. What had appeared as creamy-white was all of a sudden a brilliant white.

As I was becoming accustomed to the new vision gifted to me by cataract surgery, my mind was also changing how I saw things. Actually, all my senses seemed to find a new sensitivity as the awareness of my body and the reality I came up against shifted and grew. As I became more skilled and at ease with being present and aware, everything I was aware of changed. The way I saw and experienced the world changed.

This change in vision has not come from any special effort or work on my part. Mostly, I have simply let go of my usual way of seeing the world and relaxed in the new experience.

It is what happens when I wake up in the morning now and I slowly welcome the experience of the walls of my bedroom. I may see the walls with my eyes, but it is as though my whole body is aware of the walls and ceiling. I feel the covers on top of me just as they are and allow the sensation to settle into an awareness that fills my whole body. The rough but soft texture of the carpet meets my feet with a new awareness of the floor I never experienced three years ago.

It is a slow, unfolding process that may go on for tens of minutes. Gradually, it brings my whole body into an alertness that will follow me through the day. It is a different world I now live in, that I am at ease with. I meet it in a different manner in the morning now. It is an easy world to settle into as I sit on my cushion in front of a candle, bell and incense burner.

When I sit this way, I am instantly aware of a formless dimension that my at-ease body no loner resists. I quietly slip into an awareness that no longer relies on the sensations that brought me here. My nearly-formless body is aglow with ease and joy. The memory of that formless aspect of reality lingers at the margins of my attention hours later, ready to come back into focus when I remember to summon it.

My vision has definitely changed, and continues to change. I don’t think that the world around me has changed, but my encounter, my experience certainly has. I see people, rocks and flowers differently. I look at them with more penetrating, welcoming and aware eyes. Perhaps, in that sense, my reality has changed. I like my changing vision, my evolving world .

This is a time of year when the invitation to be present can be so very strong. Paradoxically, it is also a time when the distractions and disruptions of the same seasonal celebrations can keep me from being truly and authentically present.

I am trying hard this year to be more intensely present to myself and to those with whom I spend time. This is a time of remembrance, especially a time to remember what I have done in the past. Decorations tell stories of years past, and the memories of past times and ancestors seem more vivid and fresh.

It has also been a time of heightened distractions when I struggle with thoughts of what to buy, preparations to make, activities to schedule, visits to make. It seems that this year I am especially aware of all the emails and advertisements that urge me to buy one thing or another before it is too late.

More than anything else, I think it is a time for me to be present to myself and those around me. For some people, it is a time to live a time of intense presence with family members. For me it is especially a time to experience the intense presence of friends, including the members of my sangha.

I see myself as an intense island of presence. I want to be fully present to myself and to those I choose to encounter. In some ways, I want to be an island of resistance to all the forces of society that would distract me from being present. I want to be a refuge of presence and seek out others that are islands of presence. Together, we will resist the current of society that pulls at attention and creates distractions.

Simply by present, I will be a source of light, like the returning sun. When I sit in a restaurant that offers few options for vegetarians I will ask them to expand their menu offerings. When I look into my closet, I will resolve to go another month without buying more clothes that I know I really don’t need or can go without.

Not only will I be a refuge and island of presence to my friends, I will also be an island of authenticity as I brush up against the winds of my culture. It is not always easy to know what it means to be fully present, but I will attempt to do only those things that feel authentic to me, that allow me to feel like I am really present.

While I use concepts like heart and mind to explain what happens in me, I think they are both the same reality.    Each notion is simply a different aspect of what I think is my core essence.    Perhaps my heart is like the vast, throbbing, energetic part of me, like water is the ocean.     My mind and constant thoughts are the waves on the surface that give an apparent shape to the water below.   

When I think of how my mind and heart relate to one another, I remember what it is like to stand on my cabin dock at night.    When the night is cloudless, and there is no wind, the lake is without ripples.    The surface is as smooth as glass and it reflects the sky above.     The moon and stars are all reflected with clarity.   When everything is still, the lake is a perfect and a clear reflection of the sky.

My heart is similar to my lake.    When it is calm and the surface is smooth, I can see with clarity.    When my mind is in repose, it is easier for my heart to be engaged with my world.    All becomes clear.   

For my heart to be engaged in this way, my mind must be free of disturbances and distractions.     There can be no ripples.    If there are ripples, then I see a fragmented image of reality.     Things are not so clear.    

Clarity comes when my mind is still.   When my heart is relaxed, it sees and understands better and with more clarity than when it is rippled and disturbed.     

Like my thoughts this morning, my life is spent wandering.    I have a sense of where I have been, but only a vague sense of where I am.    It is my hope to be of some help to my companions as we wander together in the virtual darkness.   I rely on my companions to be of help to me and discover what lies beyond my senses.

What appears to my eyes and other senses as light is but a small window into the unseen.    For now, the rest is darkness.    There is so much that I do not see that I might as well be wandering in darkness.    What lies beyond my senses is a world of reality I have only begun to discover.    So much remains unseen.    

Some people speak of us living in an illusion.     I think that what we see and directly experience is real.    It is no illusion, unless we mistake it to be all of reality.   Like me, many others wander in a world of darkness.    We have the illusion that I can see, but what I see is only a fragment of reality.    I rely on a very limited sensory experience, and I might as well be a blind man stumbling and wandering through a world I can only partly sense.    

With my eyes, I can only see the visible spectrum, a fraction of the wavelengths surrounding me.   It is so illusory that I think I can see all of reality that I inevitably stumble.    There is so much more that exists beyond  my field of vision, and I could see only a small part of that even if my field of vision were  doubled.    

The unseen is vast and beyond anything I can come to understand, even with the assistance of devices we use to convert some of the unseen waves into something I might understand.    

I naturally shake my unbelieving, disappointed head at those who cannot or refuse to see what to me and to others seems so apparent.   Right now, that is especially the case for all the indications I see of the changing world climate.    Then I realize that we are all wanderers making our way in a darkness that we can neither grasp or understand.     With many others, I wander in a darkness that has yet to reveal what reality lies beyond what I can clearly see.   

It is hard for me to remember that the unseen is as real as the lights on the tree outside my window, which I think I can clearly see and discern.   I have simply not yet figured out how to see that reality.  

 I sometimes call “spiritual” those parts of me and my world that I cannot see.    It is as though that unseen reality is something unlike the people, plants and rocks I can see and touch.   The unseen is simply a reality beyond my sensory array.    It is as real as anything I can see and touch.   

I may be a wanderer in a sea of sensory darkness.    That, however, does not limit my field of awareness.    The darkness holds many secret realities, and I think there may be ways to experience them.    

I can’t imagine what it would be like otherwise.    Each day is so conditioned by all the days that have gone before.    Any openness  I have to a spiritual world has not suddenly happened.   It has been developed for as many years as I can count.    My comfort with walking in an unseen aspect of the world is no new discovery.    This is not a recent development.    It is the result of having visited that familiar place so many times and in so many ways since my youth.    

Being able to be absorbed in to the unseen essence of things is a conditioned awareness.   It is not the product of some mental construct, or figuring something out.     It is a conditioned experience, a familiar encounter.

I have been in touch with a saved, unseen aspect of reality since I first smelled the scent of incense in a church.    Now, when I light an incense cone in the morning before I meditate while sitting on a cushion, I know I am about to enter familiar territory.   It is somewhere I have visited often since I was a young boy.   My heart lightens up.  This is a familiar place.   

My open gesture to the world when I bow to others is anchored in and is a repetition of all the times I entered into an unseen reality with ritualized gestures as a monk.   I often allowed my self to feel the hidden reality then and allowed it to penetrate and soften my heart.    The path is well-worn.

Now it is becoming an easy and familiar thing to open my inner self, my vibrant heart, to someone else when we exchange a bow.   It has become a gesture that is more deeply felt since I focused more on it during a retreat this past summer.    The path to that intimate place now has deeper grooves.  

These are not just learned motions I am able to make with ease, like having learned to ride a bicycle.   It is more of a felt expression of openness to a familiar reality only implied and not so obviously present.

I have been conditioned to have an open acceptance, awareness and absorption with the unseen.    I continue to be conditioned  more day after day.   

What is it about trains moving on a track that stimulates the feeling of absorption for me?    I have the same penetrating feeling when I think about or actually watch my model train move along the track as I do when I get absorbed in the essence of my night stand.   It is the same feeling I get when I am absorbed in the presence of a plant in my garden.    When I am intensely aware of someone, I feel the same sensation of being totally absorbed.     The feeling just comes more habitually with my trains.

In each of the situations, whether with trains, plants or people, I find myself standing by them in a solitude that seems without limits.   I am not sure if I am absorbing or being absorbed.    There is a felt unity that drenches my whole presence.

I may be aware of their solitude and mine, but I feel bathed in a permeating glow of benevolence.   I want them to be all that they are.    There is no resistance, no expectations, no reservations.     I do not want them to change except to unfold.    Their wholeness and mind are merged.    In that instant, we share a fate.

With rocks, plants and people, I have discovered the same feeling of letting go and being absorbed as I have when I feel wholly engaged and absorbed in the movement of my train along the track.    There is the same thrill of being part of a reality I do not fully understand, but in which I am immersed, absorbed.

Between me and my train, my garden, my deck, or my friends the absorption in awareness seems to be dominated by my consciousness.    Even while awareness may be natural, I am the entity that seems more engaged.    With another person, however, I am often fortunate to feel the awareness as a mutual experience.    Our consciousness meets at a more engaged, reciprocal level.   We can be jointly aware as only humans can.

The absorption feels like a blending of the heart, not something only physical or cognitive.   It is a blending of inner life, a sense of our mutual desire to protect, enjoy and benefit.

As much as I can feel absorbed in the presence and movement of my train, it is in no way equal to my absorption in my companions.