Since recognising the non dual nature of this reality, Vipassana meditation has not entered my mind. On rare occasions when this body has felt the need to sit quietly, it has done so to simply quieten the thoughts and sink back into the knowing. That sinking back then turns around so that the thinker disappears and aware presence illuminates.
So what the hell pulled this body mind into registering for a Vipassana retreat? How curious this is.
Between the years 2000 and 2010, I may have done 10 or more of the 10-day Vipassana retreats. 2010 was a turning point in this trajectory. Mark died while i was on that retreat. The police turned up at the retreat on Day 9.
I swore I'd never do another one, but four or five years later I did, to help heal the damage. I remember it was pleasant (as much as Vipassana retreats can be) but uneventful. No major traumatic eruptions from deep within. The trauma surrounding Mark's death seemed to have healed.
In the ensuing years, I was drawn to non duality and this life is now seen from a very different perspective. Tools and techniques are no longer needed to awaken or recognise the nature of reality. A 10-day Vipassana retreat is a rather extreme tool for going within to explore and discover what lies beyond our limited and conditioned perspective.
And yet...it feels like a magnet is drawing me back there, to the silence, to exploring what is here now, which is so different to what was here 10 years ago. What treasures or horrors will I find deeply buried here. Something is asking to be exposed.
I do look forward to the cleansing - mind, body, subtle energy - of accumulated waste.
The retreat starts on Christmas Day.
Tonight I read a Jean Klein dialogue on a Facebook post and somehow it spoke to this...
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Q. When you talk about the different layers of the body, what do you refer to?
JK. In the shallow layers, we find our fears, our anxieties, our reactions, they are part of our psychological survival, they have presented themselves in everyday life with such a frequency that they have become our nature.
So, in the morning, when we wake up, it is not the body that wakes up, but the memories, the networks that wake up. We can quickly free ourselves from these layers of fear, anxiety, and aggression by becoming familiar with uninvolved observation, that is, when perception is pure, unconceptualization. Then there are layers of great sensitivity that we only know when we contemplate these layers, terrain, pulses, vibrations, etc.
The body has become memory and we live with that memory.
The body is just a brain.
Q. Are we living in a narrow field?
JK. Absolutely. When we get to know the body, we discover that it has sounds, colors, vibrations. When we come in contact with its most subtle layers of vibration, we discover that they are part of maintaining our health. But in our work, if we may speak, we do not only focus on perception, on what is perceived, but on the perceptor, on attention; there is a great difference between attention and concentration.
Focus is always toward a goal, there is always an effort, attention has nothing to do with it. Focus gets its object, attention however lets it come... she welcomes him.
Q. Does concentration then create discomfort, tension on the body?
JK. Yes because it's fixed it won't let it come. Focus is rooted in the ego, it is always seeking security.
Q. How to reach this listening ability? What are some daily exercises to put into practice?
JK. There is no drill. We just need to realize we aren't paying attention. When we realize that we are not observing, we find ourselves on the outside and there we are in the center of observation. We complete what we see 80% by memory, by desire.
We must maintain observation, both in nature and everything we do, when I say maintain, I do not mean be fascinated by conceptualization.
We are in constant anticipation, the tensions that we can feel in the body are movements that emerge from this anticipation, of our intentions, of becoming, getting; realize first-hand that you are never present, you are always anticipating a result, by your memory. If you keep your attention this way, you can discover the beauty.
Thought can never build or see beauty.
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