The “Writing on Water” Method for Quieting the Mind

What I noticed that was different from doing this exercise a second time was that there was much more emotional mental wandering. The first time it was very verbal and now it was more sympathetic or empathetic, both with the woman and the man. 

Specifically, what we want to quiet down is an inappropriate emotional response. We don’t want to quiet down so much that we don’t feel anything. That emotionally inappropriate response as mentioned before could be nervousness, paranoia, anxiety, fear and these types of things. Even in the spectrum of positive emotions, such as sympathy and love, we don’t want it to be an overemotional response, “How beautiful,” or “Que lindo.” This type of thing also prevents us from paying attention and responding in an appropriate way because our emotion is not really connected with the person; it is connected with ourselves. This is a subtle psychological point, isn’t it? In any case, we are going to learn three methods, and it is the third method that deals with emotional distractions.

What would be the difference between regular shamatha meditation that we do now, our everyday practice like trying to focus on the breath and this exercise with focusing our eyes on a picture? In this case of a woman or man, I think it is very different. If I am focusing on the breath or just seeing a small sight, just some part of a rug, for example, I have much fewer elements to distract my mind. If I am seeing the face of a person, it has thousands of elements to invite me to be distracted. What would be the difference between one and the other exercise?

What we are doing is the very initial stages of a shamatha type of practice. In developing the concentration of shamatha, for those who are not familiar with the term, it means a serenely stilled and settled state of mind. There are many methods for achieving this state. In the Theravada tradition, it is often done with focusing on sense perceptions like the tactile sensation of the breath coming in and out of the nose. In the Mahayana traditions followed by the Tibetans, we don’t usually do that. We gain this state of concentration with mental consciousness, for example, by visualizing a Buddha.

Even in Kagyu and Sakya methods of mahamudra, one is actually staring at an object. Our focus is not on the sense perception but is on the state of the mind. In any case, what is the point of gaining concentration? We can say it is to use it to be able to focus on the understanding of reality, voidness. We can use it to focus and stay concentrated in a state of love, compassion and so on. It is not just an end in itself. This is not the Buddhist path.

What is the purpose or function of gaining concentration on the understanding of reality and on love and compassion? It is not to just sit there and focus on this but to apply this in life, with people and with ourselves. This is one of the axioms or principles in Buddhism. When we are learning something, we have to consider its function. What does something accomplish, where is it leading to? Instead of doing an abstract exercise to develop concentration, in this exercise we are going directly to the application. So many people in Buddhism miss the point of what the concentration is intended for. In this case, we are using as our focus other people. We are using a sense consciousness, more in the Theravada sense, of looking at the other person and listening to what they say. 

The methods are the same as we use in shamatha. We are just using a different type of object, the ultimate object that we are going to apply our concentration skills to in terms of sensitivity and helping others. We concentrate on a particular state of mind or attitude and apply it to people. The whole reasoning behind the development of this sensitivity program grew out of seeing that Western people have a big problem when studying the Dharma. They tend to approach it like a sport, like something you train in like an extra activity besides your daily life. The biggest problem that most Westerns face is a big gap between their Dharma practice and applying it to life. The whole motive for developing this program is to show people how to apply Dharma to life.

Several things happened during the exercise. What would be an accurate response to what this particular exercise is aimed at? In the beginning, I felt as though I was almost blinded because I could not see the other person but could only see projections of all the things that person reminded me of. Then, later I made an effort to breathe that out and allow more space, but then it felt very artificial as though it would be impossible to be an unpolluted recipient, totally open. I allowed space for all of the feelings that naturally came out from watching the picture and let the feelings flow naturally without stopping them, but then it was much more of a connection with the heart and not the exercise.

The method that we are using here is primarily directed at verbal thinking. It is quite interesting, although I have taught this here before in Mexico, I am finding this time, as though the general pattern here is for much more emotional thinking than verbal thinking. In parts of Europe for example or in the United States, the huge problem is people can’t shut up the voice in their heads. It goes on constantly like the radio or television being on constantly. Is this an accurate thing? Do you find that, in fact, you are not talking in your head, that it is all a huge spectrum of feelings? Is that so? Or are you just not paying attention to the fact that there is a lot of verbal stuff going on as well?

Let’s have a show of hands as I am very curious. It will help me in teaching in Latin America. Here we have two choices, and maybe neither of them applies, but for now, let’s choose from these two. One choice is that there is a lot of emotional distraction and feeling and almost no verbal thinking. The other is that there are emotional distractions and feelings but also verbal thinking going on as well. I am assuming that most people have a lot of emotional experiences. How many people are mostly distracted emotionally with very little distraction from the mental verbal process?

After our hand count, actually there are not so many without the mental verbal process. Still, we need to apply this breathing-out method to both mental verbalization as well as irrelevant emotions. These emotions are irrelevant in the sense that actually we are projecting something unconsciously onto the other person and our emotional response is to this projection from our history. It has nothing to do with this person because, in fact, we don’t even know this person in the photograph. We have to be open and see what is going on with the actual person. It is like if we see a poisonous tarantula, and think, “Oh, how cute,” and go pet it. We need to see what something actually is first.

In this second exercise with the woman and man, what I noticed was the difference in the gestures or the attitude of these two people. The woman had an expression of trying to please, while the guy had a much more seductive expression. The seductive expression was really distracting, so I tried to stop the verbalizations on just either trying to please or seduce, breathing that out and focusing instead on the whole face, and then just focusing only on the eyes to be able to deconstruct without adding comments about these two initial projections on the expressions.

That is very good. Often what we are responding to is the projection, the judgment that this person is trying to please or this other person is trying to seduce. They might not have that intention at all. This is why later on, part three of the training is about how we evaluate the appearances that we see and how we deconstruct it if it is just a projection. This is very important but that comes later. 

All we are doing here is quieting down by breathing out and letting go. The method that we are learning, breathing out, is the simplest in terms of letting go of projections. However, we can’t prevent a projection from reappearing again and again unless we really deconstruct it in a much more insightful way. It actually starts to get very sophisticated. For example, consider the tone in someone’s voice. For instance, there are groups in India or in the United States in some of the deep southern states that the natural tone of voice used is very loud and sounds very aggressive. In fact, it is not; aggression is not what is behind it. We may in fact even accurately know that this is just a loud, forceful voice. Similarly, this type of look in the photograph could be seductive but, in fact, that was not at all the intention behind it. It gets very delicate. The easiest thing is, at the moment, to breathe it out and let it go.

The second method to quiet the mind comes from the dzogchen tradition, one of the traditions taught within Tibetan Buddhism in some of its schools. In this exercise, we are working with the image that thoughts, particularly verbal thoughts, although other mental activity as well, are like writing on water. What happens when we write on water? The writing appears and disappears. The arising and disappearing of the writing are simultaneous. It is not that at first we write it and then a little while later it disappears. We are not talking about the waves, but the fact that there is nothing substantial there in the writing. 

We apply this primarily with verbal thinking if we find that the first method is not effective because our verbal thoughts are really very compelling. For instance, when we are really worried and the voice in our head is producing all these worried, paranoid types of thoughts like, “Why are they late? Why is this happening?” and so on. Another example is when we can’t pay attention because we are upset about something else that just happened or happened weeks ago and we are still talking about it in our head. We are not paying attention to the person in front of us. 

In this exercise, what we try to do is slow down verbal thoughts. Of course, that requires a bit of attention to be able to do that. Therefore, we slow the thought down and think each word at a time – in fact, each syllable of each word, one at a time. We imagine it to be like writing on water. 

To further explain what this entails, first of all, we are not doing a visualization process. It is not a spelling exercise in which we imagine writing the words on water. What we are working with is a feeling that the process of thinking these words feels like the process of writing on water. We do this syllable by syllable, word by word with the thought. 

Let’s try this with an example. It would be good if we could use a word that has several syllables.

• Let’s use the sentence, “The tape recorder is broken.” 
• Try thinking that syllable by syllable and try to have this feeling, when you think “The…” that this is like writing on water and that the thought appears and disappears simultaneously. 
• Then go onto “tape-re-cord-er” syllable by syllable and just see what happens. 
• Don’t force it; just observe what happens with the thought. 

What did you experience?

What I felt from the first moment you made the proposition of this exercise and even before we did it, I realized that I usually print my thoughts in cement. To just print them in water was so very relaxing.

If I get to the point of slowing down the pace of the thought, even when I am thinking it or saying it, if I do it slow enough the gaps between each syllable grow and grow and there is space when there was previously clutter.

What most people experience is that this method completely takes the energy out of the thought. Not only does it take the energy out of the thought, it takes the meaning out of the thought as well. This is a difficult method to apply and requires quite a lot of practice. It really just stops the thought, just quiets the mind immediately. If the first method, just breathing out, is too gentle, then we apply the second method of writing on water.

It is the different sensation of being tired of so much thought.

Being tired of so much thought and chatter is good, not that the exercise makes us tired. This method is a little more difficult to apply with non-verbal thinking. It is usually not discussed in those terms, but we could use it with images, mental movies, mental images and so on. In a creative sense, the writing on water approach doesn’t work very well with a mental movie, but if we have a projection for one instance, like a flash on water, the image doesn’t stick on the water does it? Like a flash, it doesn’t stick anywhere.

Is it a little like a dream?

Everything is like a dream. To recognize things to be like a dream is something else. One has to be very delicate in applying that, and to know the specific implications. If we apply seeing everything like a dream incorrectly, we don’t take anything seriously. If somebody is crying and upset, we think, “Well, it is just like a dream. So what?” 

However, seeing everything like a dream to help us to overcome solidifying things and getting very attached to things and situations is definitely like writing on water. In the context of developing a balanced sensitivity when someone is screaming, yelling and upset at us, if we see it as a dream, then in a sense we don’t take it to be so solid. We don’t immediately think in a “they don’t love me anymore” type of way. It takes the overexaggerated impact that it might have on us away, but don’t go to the other extreme of not responding at all. We need to respond – but not automatically with, “Oh my god, they don’t love me anymore.” It isn’t solid and concrete that this now is the way the person permanently exists forever in terms of our relationship.

The feeling, or the conclusion, that I got from this exercise of writing on water is that as you are writing on water you are not leaving any trace. You go on with your life but without leaving any trace.

That is another method actually. There are many analogies that are used in the mahamudra teachings for thought and one is that our thoughts are like a bird flying through the sky that doesn’t leave a trace. It is just another image. I’ve only chosen three for the training, but there is actually quite a long list of images that we can use to help quiet extraneous thinking processes. 

Let’s try this method for a few minutes.

• Use whichever of these two pictures produced the most verbal thought.
• Again, quiet down first, without looking at the picture. 
• If there are any mental movies, we can use the image of a momentary flash on water.
• To help remind ourselves, if we get lost, we can use the keywords “writing on water.”

Let the experience settle.