Bodily maps of emotions

I recently read a very cool article about a study in which participants mapped emotions in terms of activation and deactivation on the body.  The study can be found here:  http://www.pnas.org/content/111/2/646.full.pdf

Opening to insight: the mundane and beyond

The word mundane has two meanings.  According to one, mundane has to do with the secular, the wordly as opposed to the spiritual or otherworldly, the supramundane.  Another meaning of mundane has to do with the ordinary, the everyday, and therefore, presumably, lacking interest or being boring.  In respect to the practice of meditation, both meanings are relevant and the interplay of those meanings is worth exploring.

Meditation is associated with spiritual goals such as enlightenment, awakening, liberation, altered states of consciousness, supreme happiness, seeing reality as it really is, uniting with the divine within, or being in the "eternal now moment."  These goals take us beyond the mundane.  Yet, in the practice of mindfulness meditation, it seems like we are invited to become immersed in the mundane.

The usual path in learning mindfulness meditation is to begin most humbly with a focus on the breath and then opening to whatever may show up.  We might begin the practice with a daily routine of sitting meditation, perhaps as short as a few minutes, and then increase the time slowly to something approaching 30 minutes to an hour, once, twice, or more times a day.  We learn different postures of meditation.  In addition to sitting, we learn walking, standing, and lying meditation.  And we generalize the mindfulness we develop to everyday activities such as eating and going about our activities of daily living.  For this type of everyday meditation, the more mundane the task the better as we discover that these very mundane tasks are especially effective for being mindful and present focused.  If we go on retreats that allow us to practice continuously, we have an opportunity to develop a momentum in our mindfulness.

When we first start meditating, we may alternate between being bored and being excited.  We might initially think that just sitting observing our breath would be very boring.  What is so interesting about the breath anyway?  But most people find that their first deep look at the mind and how it operates is quite interesting.  We see that the mind is constantly active, going here and there, not subject to our control, very busy and anarchic.  We wander and drift in and out of awareness of that wandering.  We might find ourselves momentarily immersed in something that occurred to us years ago or just hours before. We might get caught up in the stories our minds tell us.  We might see lights and beautiful moving shapes.  Sometimes, we might find ourselves close to panic as strange sensations arise.  Emotions that we have long suppressed may come to the surface and, inexperienced as we are, we might find them hard to handle and most distressing.  But at other times the mind seems still and empty and we may lapse into blissful drowsiness or even sleep.

As time goes on, a lot of this excitement dies down.  We learn how to let things go and not get caught up in the parade of mind moments.  We easily release occurrences that we have repeatedly reviewed in the past and know so well.  It takes a lot to perturb us now.  This is a kind of equanimity and for many it provides a welcome relief from the drama of their inner lives.  But it smacks of complacency and indifference and is not the spiritual equanimity that we may have sought.  We are in the meditation doldrums.

In the secular, clinical form of mindfulness that has become so prevalent, the spiritual side of the practice is neglected, hence the doldurms.  To get out of the doldrums, there must be an understanding of the spiritual path.  Refocusing on the traditional purposes of meditation and dedication to going beyond the mundane hold the promise of renewed energy for our practice and deepening wisdom.

Householders and renunciates in modern times

Venerable Aggacitta Bhikkhu is a Malalysian monk trained in the Mahasi style.  He speaks excellent English and gives very informative and often amusing talks.  In a lighter moment in one such talk, he compared the lives of the monk and the householder in modern times with their lives as depicted in the scriptures.  He said the monk of modern times had many expectations placed upon him.  The monk was expected to do alms rounds, to visit devotees and perform rituals, to counsel devotees who were troubled or having problems in their relationships, to perform various administrative tasks in the monastery and to give dhamma talks regularly.  This left little time for study and meditation.  He observed, in contrast, that householders in modern times seemed to have lots of time to come to meditation centers and practice meditation.

Some of his talks can be downloaded at the following site:  http://sasanarakkha.org/dhamma/      

Contemplating non-self through the six sense bases

From the Numerical Discources (The Book of the Tens, Sutta 60, p. 1412), translated by Bhikkhu Bodhi:
And what, Ananda, is the perception of non-self?  Here, having gone to the forest, to the foot of a tree, or to an empty hut, a bhikkhu reflects thus:
The eye is non-self, forms are non-self;
The ear is non-self, sounds are non-self;
The nose is non-self, odors are non-self;
The tongue is non-self, tastes are non-self;
The body is non-self, tactile objects are non-self;
The mind is non-self, mental phenomena are non-self.
Thus he dwells contemplating non-self in these six internal and external bases.  This is called the perception of non-self.

Thanks to Jerome Courtemanche for pointing out this passage to me.  

Contemplation of the six sense bases

From the Satipatthana Sutta, translated by Nyanasatta Thera 

3. The Six Internal and External Sense Bases

And further, monks, a monk lives contemplating mental objects in the mental objects of the six internal and the six external sense-bases.

How, monks, does a monk live contemplating mental objects in the mental objects of the six internal and the six external sense-bases?

Herein, monks, a monk knows the eye and visual forms and the fetter that arises dependent on both (the eye and forms); he knows how the arising of the non-arisen fetter comes to be; he knows how the abandoning of the arisen fetter comes to be; and he knows how the non-arising in the future of the abandoned fetter comes to be.

He knows the ear and sounds... the nose and smells... the tongue and flavors... the body and tactile objects... the mind and mental objects, and the fetter that arises dependent on both; he knows how the arising of the non-arisen fetter comes to be; he knows how the abandoning of the arisen fetter comes to be; and he knows how the non-arising in the future of the abandoned fetter comes to be.

Thus he lives contemplating mental objects in mental objects internally, or he lives contemplating mental objects in mental objects externally, or he lives contemplating mental objects in mental objects internally and externally. He lives contemplating origination factors in mental objects, or he lives contemplating dissolution factors in mental objects, or he lives contemplating origination-and-dissolution factors in mental objects. Or his mindfulness is established with the thought, "Mental objects exist," to the extent necessary just for knowledge and mindfulness, and he lives detached, and clings to nothing in the world. Thus, monks, a monk lives contemplating mental objects in the mental objects of the six internal and the six external sense-bases.

http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.010.nysa.html

The practice of sense-base acuity

I have been using a form of meditation that I think is very effective in strengthening and maintaining focus while doing sitting meditation.  I have found it most useful when I seem to be in a period of excessive wandering, planning and ruminating.  The meditation employs focused awareness and open monitoring in a set sequence.  The procedure involves focusing exclusively in turn on each of the six sense bases (seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, touching and thinking) and then opening up to all of them before cycling through them again.

Those familiar with the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction body scan or the Goenka method of scanning body sensations from head to toe will see some similarities to this practice.  Sense-base acuity practice is a variant of contemplation of the sense-bases (ayatana) described in the Satipatthana Sutta as a dhammanuppassana practice, one of the fourth foundation of mindfulness.

Begin by focusing on seeing, either with eyes open or closed.  You will be aware of sights before you if your eyes are open or, if your eyes are closed, variations of light and shadow.  Focus your energy on exercising the organ of sight or the "eye sensitivity" by trying to see whatever is before you without identifying or associating to what appears, all the time noting, "seeing, seeing, ...."  If no sight is particularly present, be aware of the eye sensitivity itself.  After a few minutes, switch to hearing.

Focusing your energy on exercising the "ear sensitivity" by detecting sounds that occur, all the time noting "hearing, hearing,...."  If no particular sound appears, be aware of the ear sensitivity.  Again, after a few minutes, switch to smelling.

The dominant senses during eyes closed sitting meditation are hearing and touching and, if your eyes are open, also seeing.  Smelling and tasting are not usually as evident and are best practiced during eating meditation.  However, focusing energy on smelling while doing sitting meditation may reveal subtle smells or the absence of smell, in which case, awareness of the sensitivity may be effective.  Focusing on tasting in sitting meditation is facilitated by briefly swallowing and moving the tongue around the mouth.  You may detect various tastes.  You can then move on to the next sense base.

Focusing on touching sensation opens up a range of bodily sensation.  Begin by noting the whole body and its contact with the surfaces it touches, go then to dominant sensations that are present and, if evident, to the rising and falling of the abdomen or to the sensations of the breath at the nostril.  Again,  after a few minutes, shift to noting thinking.

Putting energy into noting thinking may effectively dispel whatever thinking is occurring.  Try to detect nuances.  Is the thinking past or future focused?  Is it tinged with emotions?  How does it relate to physical sensations that may be occurring?

The final step is simply generalizing the energy you have developed through the exercise and opening up to whatever sensations occur.  You can also return to a breath focused practice.  You can do this as long as you do not drift off into excessive wandering or thinking that goes unnoticed for lengthening periods of time. When this occurs, you should begin cycling through the six senses again.  In my experience doing this practice only a few times during a period of sitting meditation generates enough energy to keep me focused throughout the remainder of the sitting and the effects of the practice sometimes even carry over to subsequent meditation sittings.

Shameless self-promotion

My book, The Attentive Mind Workbook:  Self-healing through Meditation, provides a complete introduction to meditation in the vipassana or insight tradition with a focus on dealing with mental suffering.  The book can be obtained from my website:  (attentivemind.ca/book) from Caversham Booksellers in Toronto (cavershambooksellers.com), or from major online booksellers (amazon.ca, barnesandnoble.com, etc.).