I guess you could just leave it at that. To the awakened Self, no experience is better than any other experience. All experiences are impermanent and transitory. But I think that there’s more to it than that. The distinction that we make between this and that reveals our cleft minds. Making this good and that bad shows a whole part of our minds that we are not accepting, whether it is our angry neighbour, or a long lost love. All these things show where we haven’t accepted the universe the way it is. And the reality is, it is just like this just now.

In creating a sense of self, we have separated ourselves from the universe. And the universe has become divided in our own minds. Without beginning or end the universe rolls on ever changing, but eternally just present here and now. Causeless and containing cause and effect, because these are just paradigms. And in our sense of self we got lost in cause and effect as we seek to hold on to some experiences and deny others, yet all of them impermanent.

Life is not two. And neither is our mind. All experiences are contained within our mind. Not separate from experience, not imprisoned by experience. Hence Bodhidharma’s “You ask. That’s your mind. I answer. That’s my mind.” Wherever you look there’s your mind.

The Essence of Zen by Sekkei Harada is well worth the read. I found it accidentally in Borders the other day. Supposedly for beginners – and which of us is not that – it challenges the mind to wake up to the present moment. It emphasises practice with some wonderful references to Dogen. Afterall seeking after anything, especially enlightenment is well, unenlightened. Sitting is just sitting. Sekkei Harada emphasises that the mind doesn’t go through a process of being healed. Our essence of mind is already whole.

If you are thinking of practicing in order to look for the Way, you will only get farther and farther away from it. It is as if, while walking the Way and being right in the middle of it, you start looking around for it, wondering where it is.

When the sun is in the sign of Sagittarius, the evenings darken and the rain season in Greece starts, creating swampland from previously dry areas. The constellations Cygnus the Swan, Aquila the Eagle, and Lyra rise during this time period.

In this story Hercules task is to rid the marshes of the Stymphalian birds. Cruel, fearce and large with beaks and talons made of brass, they were consuming the crops and killing the inhabitants. And the noise they made was overwhelming. Athena asked Hephaestos to make divine cymbals for Hercules. Covering his ears with pads, he clashed the cymbals together. The din was so loud and awful to the birds that they left in confusion.

I think the point is this. The noise they were making was the noise of the unquieted mind, producing thought forms. Apparently, there were three major birds and lots of smaller ones. The birds were the various thought forms. The major birds were cruel gossip; talk of the self, selfish talk; and casting of pearls before swine.

Paradoxically, the sound that Hercules produced to combat them was the sound of the silence. Sagittarius is the sign of silence.

Before the soul can hear, it must first become deaf to roaring and whispers. Before the soul can comprehend, it must first be united with the silent speaker. For then the soul will hear and remember, and then the inner ear will speak.

The Voice of the Silence, H P Blavatsky

Who seeks me by form,
Who seeks me by sound,
Perverted are his footsteps on the way;
For he cannot perceive the Tathagata.

The Diamond Sutra, The Buddha

There are a number of products out there that claim to work on the brain to produce deepened meditation or enlightenment. One came in my mailbox yesterday claiming Discover how to meditate deeper than a zen monk in just five minutes – without years of practice, or hours of boring meditation CDs – by using a secret shortcut you can’t find anywhere else. How do they promise to achieve this? Through sound.

Binaural beat recordings use specially generated sounds to alter your brainwaves. Using our research skills and the latest computer technology, we have produced the following range of binaural beat CDs, allowing you to quickly and easily enter states of creativity, relaxation, or pure energy! These are the highest quality, most professional Binaural Beats products available anywhere.

Maybe it works. I don’t know. In fact, I don’t know anything much to be completely honest, but it does strike me as strange trying to liberate ourselves from form by using form.

What I do think is interesting is that we can control our likes and dislikes. Obviously there’s the mindfulness approach and while the most powerful is a longterm strategy. NAC, or NLP if you prefer, offers a short term approach. So, if you haven’t achieved being beyond like and dislike and if you’re not attached to your likes and dislikes, there’s an NLP technique called switching submodalities:

In 1963 a fascinating and unique report on Zen meditation was presented by Dr. Akira Kasamatsu and Dr. Tomio Hirai of the Department of Neuro-Psychiatry, Tokyo University. It contained the results of a ten-year study of the brain wave or electroencephalographic (EEG) tracings of Zen masters.[66,67]…

Another finding of the same study concerned what is called alpha blocking and habituation. To understand these phenomena let us imagine that a person who is reading quietly is suddenly interrupted by a loud noise. For a few seconds his attention is diverted from the reading to the noise. If the same sound is then repeated a few seconds later his attention will again be diverted, only not as strongly nor for as long a time. If the sound is then repeated at regular intervals, the person will continue reading and become oblivious to the sound. A normal subject with closed eyes produces alpha waves on an EEG tracing. An auditory stimulation, such as a loud noise, normally obliterates alpha waves for seven seconds or more; this is termed alpha blocking. In a Zen master the alpha blocking produced by the first noise lasts only two seconds. If the noise is repeated at 15 second intervals, we find that in the normal subject there is virtually no alpha blocking remaining by the fifth successive noise. This diminution of alpha blocking is termed habituation and persists in normal subjects for as long as the noise continues at regular and frequent intervals. In the Zen master, however, no habituation is seen. His alpha blocking lasts two seconds with the first sound, two seconds with the fifth sound, and two seconds with the twentieth sound. This implies that the Zen master has a greater awareness of his environment as the paradoxical result of meditative concentration. One master described such a state of mind as that of noticing every person he sees on the street but of not looking back with emotional lingering.

It’s interesting in that Zen, however, you want to put it, is about seeing all things anew, to reference the West’s beloved. No habituation, seeing things deeply, no mind.

But relatedly and equally fascinating is this article: Zen Training Speeds The Mind’s Return After Distraction, Brain Scans Reveal.

Now just think for a moment, if there is no distraction and no coming and going, with everything just being what it is, the bell sound is no distraction, just the universe at this moment in time, requiring full attention.

However our Zen forefathers basically said that to discover ones own true nature one must stop seeking, even seeking after enlightenment. If you correlate that with the idea that we find what we look for, then seeking and seeing are inextricably linked. And that leads to the idea in the Voice of the Silence that we must be deaf and blind to all external phenomena.

In The Labors of Hercules the story of Scorpio concludes when Hercules lifts the Hydra into the light of die and consequently all of its heads to die, but one. A. A. Bailey suggested that the immortal head was sexuality, if I remember rightly. Maybe I don’t. But perhaps this immortal head was seeking. There is no doubt though that sexuality drives a whole lot of seeking of its own. And the sociobiologists would argue that sexual competition drives the need for status, for wealth, etc. I tend to agree.

Yet seeking is very much in the mind. And I think being mindful of this is a very useful tool to aid ones practice. I would suggest that letting go of seeking enables one to be receptive to one’s true nature.

Thoughts are a medicine and a poison. We drink and drink and drink thought. Drunk by it, poisoned by it, consumed by it. Like alcoholics we need a programme to recover from it. An antidote perhaps. It strikes me that that is the role of the huatou, or koan if you prefer. But what is the sudden awakening?

But then there’s the idea of knock, knock it’s the indwelling awareness here. The Rules of Magic thought that “when the shadow hath responded in meditation deep” to the communication of the soul. There’s a suggestion of passivity of the personality there. Like an active waiting without expectation. Listening. You never know when it’s going to happen, so just pay attention to the presence. Meditation without expectation.

Realising that all things are impermanent. Letting go lasting forever. I just let go. Now thoughts are back so I let go again without seeking an object to the letting go, just letting go all of itself. The mind realises the futility of thinking, where did thinking get me anyway? Around and around the wheel of karma. Jump off by letting go. Abandon thoughts like the cage they are. Who caged me anyway? “Where is the fault?” “Wherever you look for it.” Joshu.

Words are out now.

At the beginning of the transit I started doing psychosynthesis counselling. Saturn through the 12th is said to be preparing the psyche for the next 28 year cycle, or there abouts. Certainly it’s been a time of dealing with what’s been lurking beneath. It’s meant to be a time of removing outworn attachments and dealing with irrational fears. Aren’t all attachments ourworn and fears irrational?

Obviously this is a good time for meditation. And at the moment 40 minutes in the morning seems hardly enough, but in some ways I’m reassured that at least partially I’m dealing with this properly by meditating. The end of next year seems a long way away though. I need to be patient with myself and with the universe.

Even though I’m totally committed I am finding meditation hard work. And as much as it’s hard work it also gives my mind peace. And I guess there’s a clue. Stop seeking, just sit. That’s enlightenment. Or not. It’s so Dogen.

OK, I thought to myself. That’s fair enough. Perhaps enlightenment is not a good word. Yet, when you look at the interest in Buddhism it almost exactly parallels the interest in enlightenment. It even gets the same amount of searches. So, what about meditation then?

Similar. So why is this downward trend? Why are people losing interest in meditation? Or are they? Meditation has currently approximately 3.4 million searches. It’s reducing but still a lot. However, look at mindfulness. While it only gets 1/4 of a million searches a month, it’s basically tripled since 2004.

Perhaps this signals an increase in people who realise that mindfulness and concentration are really the keys. But it still doesn’t explain the drop in interest in enlightenment. Perhaps enlightenment is becoming seen as something mystical and not very practical.

As an aside ranked by count, the Indian sub-continent scores highest on the meditation front, Europe scores on the mindulness front. Suggestive of the above interpretation.

What then about spiritual? It’s the same trend. What is going on?