Mastering the Core Teachings of Buddha - An Unusually Hardcore Dharma Book

In this stage, the relationships between mental and physical phenomena become very clear and sometimes ratchet-like. The joy and wonder of Mind and Body have left, and now the interactions between the mind and body become somewhat mechanical seeming. Motions such as walking or the breath may begin to get jerky, as there is the intention and the motion, the sensation and the mental impression of it, the cause and the effect, all occurring in a way which can seem sort of tight and robot-like. You note, the breath moves just a bit. You stop noting, the breath stops. You note quickly, the breath jerks quickly. You note slowly, the breath follows. Some will stop noting quickly or stop noting at all, thinking that they are messing up the breath. The advice here is as before: note quickly, and don’t worry about what the breath does.

Remember how I recommended trying to experience one to ten

sensations per second consistently, noting which were mental and which were physical? At this stage, the meditator is finally able to do this with a fair degree of skill, confidence and consistency. Those with stronger concentration tendencies or a bent towards such things may notice thoughts and perhaps even visions of insight into cause and effect on a macroscopic scale, where past action or circumstances lead to various consequences, some event lead to some rebirth, some previous life lead to something today, and in general may get a sense that they are able to intuit aspects of the workings of karma in a way they did not before. As the meditator becomes more clear about the beginnings and endings of 172

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each of these, about the irritation caused by this jerkiness and about the fact that all of this seems to be happening fairly on its own, they come to directly perceive for themselves...

3. THE THREE CHARACTERISTICS

The Three Characteristics of impermanence, unsatisfactoriness and egolessness or no-self become predominant, which is good, as these are the fundamental basis for insight. Here it begins to become quite clear that these intentions and actions, sensations and the knowledge of them, and all of the constituents of this experience are quickly arising and passing, somewhat jarring, and not particularly in our control or us.

Further, as these sensations are all observed, including the crude mental impression that follows them (“consciousness”), the whole of the mind and body process is not a separate self. It is merely a part of the interdependent world.

These characteristics become clearer and clearer, as well as faster and faster, as the meditator diligently pays careful attention to exactly what is happening at each moment. For those doing noting practice, somewhere around here your speed and precision may begin to get so fast that you cannot note every sensation you experience. Move to more general noting, mono-syllabic noting (such as “beep” for each sensation experienced regardless of what it was), or drop the noting entirely and stay with noticing bare sensation come and go. At this stage, practice begins to really take off despite the fact that this stage tends to be fairly unpleasant.

This unpleasantness tends to be mostly physical, though this stage can also cause numerous dark feelings and a sense of wanting to renounce the world and practice. Occasionally, the early part of this stage can cause people to feel vulnerable, raw, and irritable to a small or large degree in the ways that a migraine headache or a bad case of PMS

can. I have occasionally been laid out on a couch for hours by this aspect of this stage, holding my head and just wishing that these early stages didn’t sometimes involve so much pain and anguish.

There may be odd bodily twistings, obsession with posture, and painful tensions or strange other sensations, particularly in the back, neck, jaw and shoulders. These tensions may persist when not meditating and be quite irritating and even debilitating. The rhomboid 173

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and trapezius muscles are the most common offenders. It is common to try to sit with good posture and then find one’s body twisting into some odd and painful position. You straighten out, and soon enough it does it again. That’s a very Three Characteristics sort of pattern. People sometimes describe these feelings as some powerful energy that is blocked and seems wants to get out or move through.

Feelings of heat and sensations like those of a fever may sometimes accompany this stage. One’s neck and back may become very stiff, either on one side or both sides. The right and left sides of one’s body may feel quite different from each other sometimes. The easiest way to get these unpleasant physical manifestations to go away is to keep investigating the Three Characteristics, either of them or of whatever primary object you have chosen. These are common early retreat experiences, particularly in the first few days.