Author: barryschade@gmail.com

This is a copy of a talk I gave on November 9, 2023 at the Blooming Heart Sangha

A Key to Liberation: The State of Jhana joy – take three

November 9, 2023

I would like to begin with breathing.

• I invite you to experience what it feels like to breathe and become aware of your breath.
• Pause to be aware of your breath…….
• Experience the breath as known
• Feel the joy of knowing your  breathing.
• Remember how you have experienced other moments of joy, pleasure and delight.

This is what happened to the Buddha

• Remember how the young Siddhartha ( who had not yet become the Buddha ) was resting in the shade of a rose apple tree
• Sitting there under the tree he spontaneously entered a state of deep concentration, satisfaction and ease.   
• He would later remember that pleasant experience.
• He decided he would cultivate those naturally occurring states as the means for awakening.
• He went on to teach his followers how to harness the power of a unified, happy mind.

I want to talk about my practice of cultivating and expanding those moments of joy.   Based on breath, the breath as known.

• It is the practice of the 5 jhana factors, the precursors and precondition for the deep state of absorption:  Jhana
• The 5 Jhana factors are the path of deep concentration leading to: Jhana, samadhi.
• I first talked about this several years ago, and said I had a 6 month plan to explore the 5 jhana factors.
• I’m still exploring.   I’m still on the path, I’ve experienced lot, but still practicing.  I constantly see and experience the path differently.  While this is my current experience, the core approach is the same.

Summary: The 5 Jhana factors are steps along the path to cultivating deep concentration.  = samadhi

• A path of deepening joy.
• I’ve seen Thay refer to Jhana, but I haven’t seen him discuss the 5 steps I’m talking about.
• Thay does talk about the factors and about the state of absorption.
• I have relied on authors like Shaila Catherine and Leigh Brasington  for clearly identifying the path as the 5 steps

The first two steps are the hardest.   You already know this.

First Step: Connecting

• I direct my attention to a chosen object: the breath as know
• Not the breath itself, but the breath as known.
• Connecting begins with the intention to know and become aware.
• Connecting relies first on relaxed, natural awareness of the physicality of the breath.
• Then moves to focus on the breath as known.  Focus on the occurrence of breath. 
• Equivalent:  the inviting of the bell.

Second Step: Sustaining

• Sustained attention on the chosen object:  sustained attention on the breath as known
• Starts getting harder
• This sustaining of attention allows concentration to deepen
• Equivalent:  the reverberating bell, the steading hands of a potter.
• May often have go return to the first step, Connecting
• Good news: Next step is easy: do nothing

Third Step:  Rapturous interest

• Surrender to entrance of inner bliss; allow it to happen naturally.  
• Natural feeling of lightness and pleasure when the first two steps occur.
• A sign that the first two steps have been taken, success.
• I said it is easy, BUT:  the first time it happened to me it scared me so much I was in my Doctor’s office the next day talking about the possibility of a stroke.   
• I’ve decided that this surrender to rapture is a developed skill;  I now do it multiple times a day, without fear.  It becomes easy with practice.
• Not some kind of random rapture; it is rapture out of attention to a specific object (for me: breath as known or some other tactile experience as known:  eg. Momentary touching the chair fabric, the top of the desk, the hand of someone next to me,  a deep hug)

Fourth Step:  Joy

• Enduring deep ease, pervasive contentment
• Mind is bright and undisturbed
• Sustain rapturous, but at lower level; not as intense as the third step
• Equivalent: settling into a warm bath.
• No urgency to finish…..nice

Fifth Step: One-pointedness

• A feeling of intimacy that rivets attention
• Sets the stage for absorption
• Can be experienced by focusing on the breath as known, by focusing on the hardness of the chair, by focusing on the touch of someone near you.  
• 5^th step has a feeling of certainty; stability of concentration. 
• I think: A summary of all 5 steps in one.  

These five are the 5 Jhana Factors

• Set the stage, are prerequisites for Jhana absorption……absorption that can support insight or action, but it is not the same as insight or action. 
• Admission: I still linger on these 5 factors;  They are where I am; still working on them, getting familiar with them.
• Jhana absorption is mostly out of my reach, though I sometimes think I see it in a distant mist.
• My experience of absorption is brief;  by definition, now quite jhana     
• I talked about the five as steps, and some authors, like Shaila,  present them that way:  1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5
• In true Thay fashion: I think if you really experience any one of them, you experience them all. All at once. And that is very  nice.
• Like 5-sided dice. 

Wrap up:

The 5 Jhana factors are a way of deep concentration; also a way of deep joy.

• They are for me a key to liberation.
• Can move me in a couple of directions:  Concentration / no content ( samadhi) or insight  / content (vipassana)
• 5 Jhana factors rely on awareness of the breath:  the breath as know
• In my practice, I add many other tactile experiences that I become aware of as known.   
• However, for most, the breath is pivotal, the breath is foundational; the breath teaches what it is like to experience breath as known  

This is how I use the breath;   What about you?

• How do you use your breath?
• How does the breath fit into your practice.
• Experience?

Recognizing that my world is a social construction just went to a deeper level for me. I’ve been generally aware of how I am surrounded by countless forms of cultural forms and expectations. My awareness of what is going on around me is constantly shaped by expectations, mine and all those I have absorbed from my culture. However, listening to poet Clint Smith talk about the world being a social construction helped bring my awareness into sharper focus.

All the world around me has been shaped by social initiatives of humans. Nothing occurs or exists outside the social constructs shaped by humans. The very physicality of the world shows the mark of human social perspectives. If in remote places the shape of what I see doesn’t have the mark of human intervention, then the way I see it is shaped and focused through a lens of human perspective.

For me, it is not only the landscape that has the marks of social construction. For the most part, the landscape has been altered by social efforts to meet human aspirations and perspectives. Most strikingly, the whole life-supporting bubble to which we have evolved has been reshaped, constructed anew by human intervention. The impact of social construction is apparent in the climatic changes that promise chaos for humans. There is nowhere in the earth bubble, nowhere in our home, that any of us can go where the impact of human construction is not likely to be felt. This is tending to be disasterous.

Social construction is a huge force in the way humans interact. Hardly anything we do is outside the realm of social construction. The shootings, the robberies, the human suffering, the great accomplishments, the demonstration of compassion are all shaped by a mixture of social influences.

Nothing we do to one another is outside the realm of human intervention and influence. Every human interaction has meaning only when seen in the context of social construction. Nothing humans do to one another can be truly understood or has meaning apart from the inclusion of the social construction that has shaped that interaction.

It is a challenge for me to keep in mind the dominating influence of social construction. I am glad to have some appreciation of its influence.

A talk on “My Skeleton” helped me appreciate how my bones are a time capsule. I am aware that my bones capture a story of my past 82 years. They are my own personal time capsule. My bones also tell the story of the several hundred million years during which the configuration of my skeleton has evolved. My bones tell the story of the creature I have become, and perhaps hint of the future as well.

My bones capture it all, in addition to giving shape and support to what I have become. My bones tell a story that goes back to fishes swimming in an ancient sea several hundred million years ago. Paleontologists outline the bony traces of how the structures in those ancient fish foreshadowed my bones. Those ancient bones in fish gradually evolved into the many bones we see today in all bony animals including me. My skeleton tells the story that captures the millions of years bones have evolved. My skeleton is a time capsule that spans many millennia.

In my view, my skeleton captures time in such a way that time no longer has meaning to my mind. It is hard for my conceptual mind to understand what those hundred million years are like. The best I can do is think of the rapid changes that took place in my yet unborn body as I developed in my mother’s womb. I think of how those rapid developmental changes in the fetus hint at and reflect those dramatic modifications that took place in the evolution of bones in bony animals.

There are faint hints in my skeleton of what the future might involve. My knees are no longer functioning well and may need to be replaced. There is foreshadowing of the future in my bones, just as the fins of bony fish many millions of years ago foreshadowed all the unseen skeletal limbs yet to come.

It all blends together in my bones. My bones capture time, and they also capture my connection to all other creatures with bones. My bones bring together materials from the far reaches of the universe. All is inter connected, an expression of interning. My bones are not just a capsule of time. My bones are a capsule of all that time touches. My bones tell me a story of all that I can perceive.

Sometimes I feel like I am walking around in a bubble. This is an experience that mainly comes when I am focused on my legs and the pain that I feel.

I noticed this yesterday when I walked down Nicollet Avenue, slowly making my way along the 3 blocks from the bus stop to the light rail platform. Each step was a grumpy reminder that one or both my legs were not happy with what I was asking them to do. My focus on my legs and discomfort put my awareness squarely on my leg movement. I was only slightly aware of the activity around me. I walked in my own private bubble.

When I finally stood on the platform waiting for the light rail train, I noticed the family almost pressed up against me. All had brown skin and they spoke soft words of spanish. The young five year old boy and I exchanged looks occasionally. They otherwise were nestled in their own bubble. But my own bubble had somewhat dissolved.

I watched carefully as each new person came on to the platform. Almost all with skin tones darker than mine. Heads turned to see where the harsh and loud words were coming from, a loud and upset man walking behind us. I was more interested in watching the watchers.

On the train, a few students trickled in as we approached the university. I felt more and more immersed in a cultural and economic milieu I hardly ever experience in my limited corner of the world. The platform I stepped onto at the university east bank station was a mix of students, and I was aware that I had entered a whole different mix of humanity. Culturally and economically I had, in just a few steps, become aware of a new surrounding.

My legs still hurt, but my bubble had become less isolating. My bubble had begun to dissolve when I shuffled up the incline to the down town Minneapolis platform. I gradually became more attentive to people all around me. I may not yet be ready to fully embrace them, but I had become more aware of my people. Perhaps my bubble simply got a little larger.

This is a talk given at the Blooming Heart Sangha on Sept. 7, 2023

Like you, I live in an experience of time, …….or at least I think I do.

• I often wonder: What is it like to live in an experience of the timeless.
• My watch and my phone often remind me of the experience of time, or what I think is time.
• On the large scale, time is based on the observation of the rotation of the earth:  we break down the rotation into hours and minutes and seconds.  
• An atomic clock allows time to be based on the observation of very small particles.
• Time is annually based on the observation of the movement of the earth around the sun.
• Time is sometimes based on observation of the red shift in the movements of stars and we can conjecture the beginning of the cosmos……when did it happen?

Actually, I am not observing time, just the movement of large bodies, or small atoms.

• My mind creates time
• Time is an artifact of observation.    Time, unlike gravity, doesn’t really exist, except in our minds.
• So how big a step would it be to move from time to the timeless.  
• Actually, it seems quite large, but I think I do it routinely;   we all do.  We do it right here.
• I think we experience time routinely;  we experience the timeless in mindful practice;  in the mindful experience of the here and now, in the experience of the mindful present moment 
• I think that living in the historic realm is easier to imagine, but the ultimate realm is within reach

We have a clue to this transformative leap, this transformative experience in the five remembrances……you know about them.

• It was Bro Phap Hu who pointed out, for me, a new and deeper meaning in the 5 remembrances.    
• The first four rembrances all refer to the passage of time, things that exist in time:   We will die, get old, get sick, lose those we love.
• But the fifth remembrance speaks to what endures;  it exists out of time 
• Sister Chan Thuan Nghiem said: “I inherit the results of my actions of body, speech and mind. “  = 5^th remembrance.
• “My actions are my continuation.”   
• My actions endure.   They exist beyond my notion of time.   
• Embeded in the 5th remembrance is an invitation to step into and experience the timeless, an invitation to step into and experience the ultimate,

The 5^th remembrance reminds me how lasting transformation takes place, how transformation endures.

• Lasting transformation takes place right now, it takes place as we act in this moment.
• Linear time is a mental artifact.  Actions endure in the timeless.
• Here’s the big news for me: The historic and the ultimate are one and the same.
• I can see this when I break the mental constraints on the relationship between linear time and transformation.
• It’s not easy: Linear time is a slave driver, it presents an apparent ticking clock for transformation.  Hurry up!
• But lasting transformation happens now, in the timeless, in the ultimate.   Relax in the moment.

The first four remembrances point to the ticking clock.

• These things are going to happen in time, death, sickness, age, loss
• BUT. And ALSO, what endures is the transformation taking place right now
• What endues is taking place in the ultimate, and that is in the right now. = 5^thremembrance.

That is why, for me, what we are doing here right now is so important.   

• This is my place of transformation, of shaping the timeless.  
• What I do here is both in time and in the timeless, the historic and the ultimate.
• There is no difference, only a mental distinction.
• I am often thinking of how what I do now shapes the future of historic time, but there is much more to it. 
• There are consequences in the historic, and what I do now also shapes the ultimate, timeless.  
• My mind is fettered to the siren call of time, what will I do tonight when I leave, what will I have to do tomorrow, how soon will this talk be finished.  
• Mindfulness breaks that tie to time, allows the timeless, the ultimate to be experienced.

For me the practice is about learning how to experience the timeless, the ultimate.

• Anything that invites me to mindfulness also invites me to experience the timeless, the ultimate
• I touch the 2 billion year old stone around my neck; I can’t  imagine 2 billion years and the touching reminds me how I am right now straddling time and the timeless.  
• We will soon listen attentively to what one another says this evening, that listening allows experience of the timeless
• I Attentively feel the shape of the chair or cushion, an experience of the timeless.
• I attentively sense the air around me,  that action allows me to experience the timeless if done mindfully.
• It is what we sometimes call living in the moment…..actually it is also learning to live, to act in the moment-less.
• Living, acting in the moment is also living, acting in the ultimate, the timeless.  

Thay speaks of standing on the other shore as a future event, and then he also says we are already standing there.

• This is it; we are already in the ultimate.   In this room, in this moment, I am sitting in time and in the timeless, in the historic and the ultimate 
• What I do here shapes both, what I do here is transformative in time and in the timeless.  
• I will die, I will get sick, I will grow old, I will suffer loss.   And what I do here will endure. 

I invite you to listen to one another as we do dharma sharing with the experience of listening in time and the timeless.    

• And then remember what that feels like.

I think that autism is like a wild card in the homo sapiens genome. It is out of line with what humans expect in the ‘typical’ or ‘normal’ deck. It appears in place of other traits and allows the brain development to go in a slightly different direction. That means something is lost and something is gained.

What is lost is some trait that humans usually consider normal, even desirable. It may have something to do with sociability, and the person with the wild card often doesn’t seem to fit into what has been seen as an acceptable social norm. What is lost may be something that has over time come to seem to bind humans together and make them seem to exhibit similar behavior.

Because it is so acceptable and fits the common definition of ‘normal’, a person with the normal trait has an evolutionary advantage. They are more likely to pass on their genes to another generation. People prefer to stay normal. So a very static, non creative but stable situation develops when normal people select to mate with normals. Not much changes. The human situation based on normals neither gets better or worse.

Autism throws a wild card into the mix. In the human deck, the human genome, there is a chance for a wild card to emerge. Some humans experience brain development that does not follow the dominant, normal pattern. Some features may be reduced or left out. But new features develop instead, and it is all part of what occurs in the human genome.

Those new features can be frightfully undesirable, perhaps including cognitive impairment. The new features can also be amazingly wonderful and the individual might have an expanded understanding of reality, something ‘normals’ might never imagine.

Many individuals who have been dealt this human genome wild card have shown up in history. Most of them have been a little quirky in that they did not fit in the normal mold. Many have been considered nerdy. And many of them have, because of their untethered grasp of reality so common to normal humans, shown their fellow normal humans how inventive the human mind can be.

These have included the intellectual greats who show up in human history. These have included the artists and inventors who were able to share their unique and new grasp on reality. Because of them, humanity has largely prospered and benefited.

Some of the great receivers of the wild card have not benefited humanity. Rather than bring inspiration and a better life, some have had the genius to bring destruction and harm to their fellow humans.

The normals have many times had to decide whether to include these inspired visionaries into the mix of humanity’s future. It is happening today and applies both to those who are beneficial or those who are harmful.

That ability that humans have to decide whether to welcome the wild card is specific to homo sapiens. Humans can knowingly and deliberately step out of the laws of evolution and consciously decide the future of the species .

Wild cards are opportunities provided by the human genome. Fortunately, humans have chosen wisely so far, considering the general success of the species. Even in this period of peril and fear of the future, it is possible for some of those wild cards to inspire and guide humans to a thriving future. It is possible if those wild cards are valued and followed.

A thriving future is not likely to be exclusively in the hands of ‘normals’. We need humans with special vision and insight, and they are likely to be wild cards on the autism spectrum.

I’ve been suspicious of “normal” for many years. That suspicion continues to grow as I get older. As I continue to look around me at the culture in which I am immersed, I am aware that what is considered normal is often restrictive, rigid and restrained. Normal gives a high degree of stability and offers the security of the status quo. Sometimes, it also appears somewhat toxic and stifling. Normal lacks creativity and innovation.

In many cultures, the trickster has played the role of disrupting the rigid normal. The trickster is often a welcome and expected part of the culture. I think that some of us who show up on the autism spectrum play that role in society.

I am thinking more and more how being on the autism spectrum introduces a trickster element into society. Perhaps that slightly unhinged element of society is actually the more flexible, evolving aspect of humanity. What we typically consider normal is locked in, rigid and inflexible. Normal is not about evolving but preserving. I think we benefit from both.

I’m noticing that trans individuals, especially young people, are challenging the rigid, inflexible notion of what gender is. They are pointing out that there may be no such thing as normal when it comes to gender. The natural world of animals and plants already point this out. I think it is up to humans to examine more closely the artificial notion of what is gender normal.

I have always had the feeling that I didn’t quite fit in. I have even resisted elements of what others considered normal. I guess being typical has not ever felt right or appealing to me. Now I think being one of the divergent individuals is just fine. My not being typical is becoming more my notion of what I am contributing to those considered more normal. I like that role more and more.

When I am silent and close my eyes, I can feel the humming. I could say that I hear it, but I actually sense it with my whole self. My whole body feels the humming. All my senses lean into the humming and get carried into it, riding the gentle powerful wave that flows thru all things. I become the wave, the humming.

The humming I feel is not limited by time or space. It vibrates beyond my senses while touching all of them. It is the soft, swirling, surging music of the universe. It is the energy that animates all things.

The humming is in the wings of the cardinal, the glow of the goldenrod, the boldness of the stones. I am carried by the same humming and it enters and enlivens every part of me. It invites me to plunge into the ultimate realm where its presence is unfettered by my senses. It beckons beyond all appearances.

As often as I can, I turn and focus on the humming and it becomes the force and substance of my momentary experience. For me, it is real and all else becomes suddenly ephemeral. In a moment of attention, the humming is all there is, beyond shape and thought. It is everything. It is enough. The humming simply is.

I have been thinking a lot lately what it means to live in-between. Today I have only a short time to write about it. I am hovering inbetween the needs of my garden and my wanting to write. I am hovering inbetween in many other ways as well.

In eastern thought, there is the theme of bardos, the time-space that we enter when our bodies cease to function and we transition into another kind of existence. I think that same kind of existing inbetween is a dimension of my whole existence. It manifests in so many ways, even before I die.

Between desire and the object of my desire, there is a space that is neither a longing or a possession of what I long for. Actually, it is a combination of both, but not either. It is a coming together but not actually touching, it means living in the gap and absorbing, feeling the strong gravitational pull of each.

For me, it is a realm of emptiness, of free-fall, of totally letting go but containing all things. It is a place to be in-between, a place to live unhinged and unattached. It is a place of entering into the whole messy affair, all at once.

Language encourages me to take sides, to be this or that. There is no inbetween language, even while poetry attempts to create that space. Language encourages binary thinking and relationship. Black is not white, this is not that, here is not there.

Gender distinctions pull me into a binary world that doesn’t actually exist. It pulls me into an illusion that is not based on reality. Gender does not allow for inbetween living. Trans young people are helping me to see that reality is not binary but it is inbetween. I can no longer see myself as one or the other, and I am attempting to live in the inbetween reality.

Living inbetween means letting go of most of my concepts and paradigms. It means entering a space that floats outside of time. It rides on a deep sea of non-binary reality and invites me into a deep connection with all things. But it means surrendering to free-fall, no longer relying on a world defined in a binary manner. It encourages me to see black as being white, this as being that, here as being there. It invites me to live a paradox.

Perhaps it simply means becoming unhinged. I find that becoming unhinged is strongly attractive. Living in-between is the closest I have ever felt to being in touch with reality.

It is a common image in the world of mindfulness. To approach the observation, peeling and eating of a tangerine becomes a practice of sensory exhilaration and mindfulness. In some sessions of training in mindfulness, raisins are passed out and the participants are urged to observe and savor them in a mindful manner. The texture of the fruit is noticed and felt with the fingers and with the tongue. The crushing of the raisins between the teeth is an exercise in explosive delight.

The same kind of mindfulness can also be present in a sexual engagement. The same focused attention given to the tangerine or the raisin can be brought to the touch of someone close. As with the tangerine and raisin, all the senses can be brought into play with deep attention and mindfulness. Mindfulness can be a way of deep intimacy and energy in anyone we touch with our senses. Mindfulness can be part of any form of awareness of our own bodies.

Tangerines and raisins invite deep attention and mindfulness. So does everyone and every thing around us.