Method Three Derived from the Karma Kagyu Mahamudra Tradition
We’ve introduced two methods for dealing with quieting the mind. The first was the method of letting go and the second was the method of writing on water. The third method is one which is suggested by the Karma Kagyu mahamudra tradition. In this tradition, the mind is seen as analogous with an ocean. This method is particularly applicable in dealing with extraneous, irrelevant or disturbing emotions. In this third method, the emotions are seen to be like swells on the ocean. This is not using the image of a wave that breaks on the shore. We are talking about how the water in the middle of the ocean goes up and down, a swell on the ocean. A swell on the ocean just passes through. It doesn’t disturb the ocean itself.
This method can be applied to various emotional experiences. When we look at a person or when we look at ourselves, many people describe all sorts of feelings and emotions that may come up which are projected from other relationships and so on. We need to just let this pass through us like a swell on the surface of the ocean. It doesn’t disturb us from the depth.
What happens to many people when we start to quiet down the mind is that we start to feel some very submerged type of emotions. Sometimes, as we quiet down, we might start to feel a very deep sadness, or a certain type of anxiety, or existentialist angst. There is this sort of anxiety or uneasiness. We may find this is the case if we are the type of person whose emotions are on the surface and all over the place. While embracing everybody, we might be saying, “Ah! How wonderful,” but this may be a surface mechanism that has nothing to do with what is really inside. In many ways, it is a defense against going deeper. If we are like such a person, when we quiet down, we come in contact with what is a much deeper thing, a sense of insecurity, anxiety, sadness and so on. This method of viewing the swell on the ocean is very effective for dealing with these types of feelings.
However, we don’t identify with these feelings. It’s not that we are a boat on the surface that gets rocked by them. It’s not that we are the submarine that has to go underneath the surface to avoid these feelings. Instead, they just pass through like a swell on the ocean. I have been told that this method is also helpful when women are going through menopause and sometimes various emotions come up that are not related at all to what is going on, sort of a flash of some type of emotions. Likewise, we just let that pass like a swell on the ocean. Remember when we work with these types of methods it is not a visualization technique. It is more a type of feeling, the way that we relate to the experience. Also, we have to not take it too literally, because otherwise we can get seasick.
For practicing this method there is no separate exercise that we do because many people don’t have a surge of unrelated emotion that comes up. There is no need to artificially generate it to practice using this method. We just add it to our repertoire of methods, so that when we use the gentle method of letting go and the more forceful method of writing on water, when necessary, in a situation of a surge of emotion that is inappropriate, or too strong, or irrelevant to the situation, then we can apply this third method of a swell on the ocean.
Practicing with a Photograph of an Acquaintance
Let’s continue with the object of practice. We’ve practiced with a total stranger, so now, if you have brought your pictures, let’s turn to the picture of an acquaintance or somebody we know, but we don’t have a particularly strong emotional relationship with. If you don’t have a picture of somebody like that, then continue to use the pictures from the magazines.
What we will be progressing through in our training are people that elicit a stronger and stronger association. When we think or look at them, it gets stronger and stronger. Therefore, we start with something easy, like a stranger, and work our way gradually to those with whom we have more association. If some photographs include a whole group of people, just focus on one person. If we focus on a group of people, we are not really relating to anyone individually and there is more of a distance because of that.
We will do this exercise in two steps. The first step is to look at the photo of the person and in the second step, put down the photo and just think of the person. We have interactions with others in person in which we need to have a quiet mind. However, often, when we are by ourselves, we may think about someone, and in that situation we also need to be able to think with a clear and quiet mind. It isn’t helpful when a thought about somebody comes up and it really disturbs us to go on a whole mental or emotional trip.
When we think of somebody, how do we think about that person? We are not talking about a whole sequence of thoughts, but rather about focusing on somebody in our minds by whatever is representing the person. We can represent the person with a mental image if we are able to conjure one up, or often we represent the person just by their name, by the sound of their voice, by some feeling that we have about the person, or some sort of combination of these things. Again, this is not an exercise in visualization.
Paramedic Level of Sensitivity: Quiet Down
When we think of somebody, various things come to mind to represent the person. While we are trying to practice thinking about somebody with a quiet mind, if we take that literally, then we wouldn’t be thinking of the person at all. We don’t mean that. What we mean is to be able to bring the person to mind, so that if we need to think about the person, we can do so in some sort of constructive type of way. We want to be able to do that directly, without having all sorts of extraneous mental junk coming in the way. If we have been having some emotional problem with the person and they automatically keep on coming to our minds, how do we quiet this down?
We need a quiet mind so that then we can use some additional methods in the balanced sensitivity training to overcome being overreactive to the person and to what happened in the past. There are situations when we are very upset about something that somebody said or did in the past and we keep on thinking about it over and over again. We can’t get it out of our heads. The first thing to do when that person comes to the mind is to quiet down. For this, we use any of these three methods we’ve learned to quiet the mind in that situation when we think of the person.
Remember, this is a very beginning method and we are not going deeply into how to handle the situation in a balanced sensitive way. This is just the basis for it. A helpful example of this is when an injured person is picked up in an ambulance after an accident, in that this method is like the very first thing that is accomplished until we get the patient to the hospital for more sophisticated treatment. That is what we are learning, this paramedic level of sensitivity.
Practice
By the way, at the end of each exercise, when we focus on the breath, again this has a deeper significance. Many of these exercises are going to bring up a lot of emotions and feelings. In order to quiet down after that, it is most helpful to ground ourselves in the body, not just being up in the sky with feelings and emotions. One of the best ways of doing this is focusing on the breath. This is a very physical method that brings us back down to earth. There are many forms of treatment, non-Buddhist as well, that suggest when we are very emotionally upset or, for example, having a panic attack, focusing on breathing will ground us back to the body.
- First, quiet down by focusing on the breath.
- Look at the photograph. Again, it is better to hold it a little bit at eye level. To hold it all the way down in our lap requires looking down with our head bent all the way over. This posture makes the mind very dull and dizzy.
- Look at the person with a quiet mind without remembering the last time we saw them and going through a whole story or mental movie.
- We use whichever of the three methods works best: letting go, writing on water or the swells on the ocean.
- Put aside the photo and try to just think of the person with a quiet mind. Eyes are either focused on the floor or closed. Think of the person with a mental picture, feeling, name or combination of these.
- Let the experience settle and stop thinking about the person.
- Focus on the breath.
Questions and Comments
Is it starting to get a little bit easier to have a quiet mind? As with any exercise, it just requires familiarity and practice.
When looking at the picture of that person, the name of the person returned again and again, and I couldn’t get rid of the name of the person. I wanted just to look at the person. It was a distraction. What can I do about it?
Did you try the method of writing on water?
No, what I did is the one with the swells.
Alternative Method
The strongest method is the one of writing on water. When we have a variety of methods to choose from, if one doesn’t work, then we shouldn’t think, “Ah, it doesn’t work,” but go to another method. However, there are some situations in which none of these three methods seem to work and there are other methods we can use. The one that is very useful is in the situation in which we have a song, for example, going through our head that is very difficult to get out. How do we deal with that? I know with myself this happens. When I listen to music, it is sometimes very difficult to get it out of my head for many days. It feels like I am like a cricket. That is a helpful image, to see it as being like an insect and when the sun gets to a certain level, then automatically a cricket makes this noise and it can’t stop making this noise.
It is important, by the way, to see it as incredibly stupid. We don’t just want to be like the cricket. Using these type of images is not the actual method, but it is helpful in the sense that if we can see how we are acting in a very stupid, primal, animal type of way, then we get disgusted with it and it moves us actually to apply some method to overcome it.
The method that is helpful here is using a mantra. In other words, if the mental verbal energy is so strong, then we do a type of mental judo. Instead of just blocking it, we flip it and use that energy to recite a mantra instead. Usually, the mantra that is recommended is om mani padme hum, since this is associated with compassion and love. If we use that energy to recite the mantra, we find that instead of distracting us from the person or the situation it helps to connect us in a much more positive way.
We have to be a little bit delicate here not to overapply the method and become, to use the expression, a Dharma freak. For example, whenever they are in any situation with anybody, they take out the rosary beads or mala and start mumbling a mantra. This is very annoying and makes other people very uncomfortable. It actually gives the impression of a defense, like the defense of the cross to ward off vampires or whatever. Certainly, a person doing this is not really directly relating to another person. If we are using a mantra, we have to know when to apply it, when not to apply it and when to use it discreetly. Don’t get carried away.
This comes directly out of the instructions from Maitreya on how to achieve concentration. One has to know the opponent forces and when we should apply them and when to stop applying them.
I have two questions. The first is how can I know if something that is happening to me is a distraction? For example, in the first exercise that we did with the photograph, at some point I felt my mind was relatively calm. I also had this surge of empathic feelings or tender feelings towards the person. It even came to the point that at some point I felt like hugging the other person. How can I discriminate if this is what comes out of a calm mind or if it is just a distraction?
Question two concerns this last exercise. While just thinking of the person without the photograph, I found it very difficult to really connect and stay there, for example, as a method for not losing a sense of the sound of the voice of the person. I found it difficult because I kept on losing touch with the idea or the image of the person. Actually, the question is can I use, for example, the sound of a voice as a way to anchor me to not lose the person?
Yes, that’s the answer to the second question. We can use anything to represent the person. This can be either a mental image of what they look like, a mental image of the sound of their voice, their smell, their name, or a feeling. It doesn’t matter. This isn’t an exercise in visualization nor is it an exercise in concentration actually, in terms of being able to focus on the person for five minutes without losing it. That is not the point either. It’s simply that when we think of the person to be able to think of them with a calm mind. However, as your experience exemplifies, it is much easier to work on looking at the person in a picture because it is easier to focus. However, often we think about people and get very upset; therefore, we need to be able to apply it when we think about people as well.
When we quiet down, in your first question, you asked about certain feelings that come up. Again, I need to repeat that we are just learning the very, very basic first step here. Fundamentals are part one and the fundamental we are working on is a quiet mind. Part two is getting in contact, once we quiet down, with the natural talents of the mind and heart. It is not just simply “Ah wonderful! I want to embrace you!” There are other talents there as well such as understanding and self-control. There are many things that are there. Also, as we learn the fundamentals, we have to learn all the factors of balanced sensitivity. It isn’t simply wanting to embrace all others.
We also have to go to incorporate part three. We have to pay attention to the appearance of the person and what’s going on so that we can evaluate whether or not it is appropriate to hug the person or not. If we are in the middle of a business meeting, we don’t just go over and embrace a person in the middle of a business meeting. Maybe the person doesn’t like to be embraced and it makes them feel uncomfortable. Perhaps they are from a different culture or a different personal background.
At that moment we need to apply the method of swells on the ocean and let this impulse, to want to embrace the person, pass. That’s what we are practicing with now. Later on, we would evaluate whether it is appropriate or not in the situation. Nevertheless, to embrace a person every time the impulse comes into our head might really be too much.
A lot of sensitivity training involves self-control and knowing when something is not appropriate. I am explaining all of this just to give an impression of how complex the training really is. Also, one has to be sensitive to oneself and one’s own needs involved in wanting to embrace somebody. How do we balance this in a relationship when the person has a different standard of what they need and what makes them feel comfortable?
Finding this balance is in the final exercise, differentiating and being sensitive to what we feel like doing, what we want to do, what we need to do, and what another person needs or wants, what they might feel like, and so on. This simple situation of how much we should embrace the other person in a relationship or an encounter could be a really serious issue. This is especially true if the people come from two different cultures.
In this last exercise, when I could more or less calm or quiet my mind, my attention and concentration on the person without a lot of projections, I discovered something new and very strong. As the projections quieted, I realized that there is much more to this person than I ever thought before. That was a surprise and kind of shocking. Then, that became a new distraction because I started to think of all of this person’s qualities that I hadn’t realized beforehand.
What seems to be happening, by what people are reporting, is that as we quiet down the mind we are already starting to discover some of the basic qualities or talents of a calm state. It isn’t just a warm feeling and so on. It is a more attentive and understanding state of mind.