surrender?

I am posting in response to what Jackson mentioned about the aspect of surrender in the Anadi thread. First of all thanks Kenneth for creating a space for non-closeted discussions about effective non-dual teachings and techniques. I am new to this myself, I have a background in sitting Zazen, but it wasn't until discovering Vipassana that I gained confidence that awakening was possible.

Since then I've been very attached to this form of practise, it has worked in the past and it'll work some more in the future, alongside some fear I could be missing out on insight, if I just let it all go...
Today I put what Kenneth describes as Three-Speed-Transmission to the test, and now I want to share my experience as well as discussing the role of surrender in this approach. I start my practise with samatha, when I've hung out in the jhanas of my choice for long enough, my breath has slowed down considerably I launch into examining bare sensate experience (vipassana). After it was all pretty obvious what was there and its characteristics, I started with the question of 'who am i' alternating with 'what am i'. Funnily enough unlike previous attempts there was no tangible sense of 'i' located anywhere. Usually I found it in the chest area moving around, but today no. It was clear, there is no 'i' all there is emptiness or awareness. This was the answer I got each time. Then there was some confusion, like what's the point of this? This won't lead anywhere, when the realisation dawned that this was already the answer, there is no-thing beyond this, no technique that will reveal 'more' of this or anything other.

[cont. -->]

So what was there to do?

All there was, was surrender. Surrender to what is already the case. I asked what is surrender? Surrender to whom to what? Then I started to repeat 'let go' a bit like a mantra, until there was no more asking, no more technique, nothing left to let go of. I let go entirely. Resting.

Albeit fleeting, there was an experience of great freedom in this, until my analytic mind kicked back in to come to all sorts of rational conclusions of what constituted this experience which resulted in this post. So what I'm discovering is this: when practising straight up vipassana, there remains an attachment to the experience of the bare sensate level itself, along with some background noise, a processing of this sensation as empty or this and that. Don't get me wrong! This has been extremely valuable for me so far, it just requires a far lesser amount of surrender to 'do' something. To truly surrender is a different experience altogether and very profound. After my sit, I sat there in awe of what I had discovered, something that hasn't happened in my practise for a while. It will remain to be seen if I can carry it into daily life experience, but it's definitely something I'll be working on. So what I am asking is this, is surrender possibly the most important aspect of non-dual practise? What does it require to truly surrender? Unshakable trust, faith? Glimpses of previous awakening experiences? I would welcome any thoughts on this.

Hi Nicola,

Thank you for providing such a detailed description of what you are experiencing in your meditation practice. What you describe deeply resonates with my experience at certain phases of my practice. I think that you're discovering some very important things about the nature of conscious awareness.

First, I think you should keep this up. You're doing great! And I don't think there is anything to add to your practice at this point. Just hang out in that place of total surrender. It sounds like you're in the stream of the thing, so let it carry you to the truth, whatever it turns out to be.

Here are some things to keep in mind, though, as you reflect upon your experiences. This act of total surrender brought on a powerful state experience for you. States are fleeting, as you noted. What is it about that state of mind that is better/more enlightened than ordinary mind?

Also, keep in mind that conscious awareness carries with it a subtle paradox, in that it has both wave-like and particle-like qualities (like the nature of light). Vipassana exposes the momentary, quickly arising and passing nature of consciousness, whereas the experience you are describing expresses the more seamless, expansive, open, empty sky like nature of consciousness. Neither are necessarily better or worse than the other, as both are conscious awareness (Jack Kornfield has some wonderful things to say about this in his book 'The Wise Heart'). So then, if we take on the hypothesis that conscious awareness is both particulate and wave-like, how does this relate (if at all) to your new insights?

(continued below)

Lastly, you describe not being able to locate a center of awareness when consciousness expands. I know what you're talking about here. However, what will become clear over time is the Truth that is available in any state of conscious awareness. You don't need to look for this, though. Spending your time trying to "see the center of the doughnut" doesn't usually work, from what I've been told. If anything is left to discover, it will come out of your willingness to allow the practice to unfold as it will. Wisdom will arise naturally if you continue to remain open (i.e. surrender).

I hope this is helpful. If not, please let me know. I think you're on the right track. Just try not to solidify any experience or state in to an Ultimate reality and you'll be fine

~Jackson

Thanks Jackson for your reply! You detected and addressed most of my concerns. For some reason I felt guilty to abandon vipassana for something that felt inferior like 'letting go'. It's amazing to experience that there is a time and place for both, and that at this point I seem to naturally lean to the latter as practise is unfolding. The 'doing it' factor is definitely being debunked. Also this experience was remarkably different from a fruition, it was more a state like consciousness experience of emptiness, and having had that type of experience, I can see how it underlies all consciousness experiences, it is just another quality of it. A quality that is just obscured in daily wakefulness experience. I am also finding, I can access this knowledge by the slightest reflection in daily activity, and it makes it easier to 'no-dog' it. Before there was confusion about how to 'do' it. Like any amount of doing would reveal such a quality. Yes, and thanks for pointing out the dangers of solidifying an experience. I am aware of that trap and may have fallen into it since discovering the formless jhanas. Since then I have devoted considerably more time to cultivating the samatha jhanas and dwelling in them at the cost of vipassana. Discovering that surrendering is equal to vipassana (if not more appropriate at certain stages) is a relief, that things will continue to open up, regardless of any amount of conscious effort to that effect.

I've been wondering about the wave-like particle model a while. Even sensations that imply spaciousness are comprised of particles. Investigating air chemically for example, there are trillions of molecules that imply space, objects that appear as particle contain largely empty space in its atomic structure. It's a never ending play of particle moving into wave and vice versa. Consciousness must behave in the same fashion, because it is no other.

Nicola

"I've been wondering about the wave-like particle model a while. Even sensations that imply spaciousness are comprised of particles. Investigating air chemically for example, there are trillions of molecules that imply space, objects that appear as particle contain largely empty space in its atomic structure. It's a never ending play of particle moving into wave and vice versa. Consciousness must behave in the same fashion, because it is no other."

Yes, I'm totally on board with you on this. Because there are particulate manifestations of form, there are particulate manifestations of consciousness. Because the field of attention can take on multiple objects at once, as if they were one object, we also have wider, more spacious manifestations of consciousness. It seems to correspond with the object, even when the object is consciousness (knowing) itself. Fascinating stuff, yeah?

Jackson

Hello, folks. I like this conversation a lot because it reflects my own experience. When I first started practicing I, like Nicola, was doing zazen. It was confusing and I was not quite sure what I was supposed to be doing while sitting. Discovering vipassana through Daniel's online book provided me with a much more discoverable path and a very clear set of instructions to follow and measure, though I'm not into the spiritual maps as much many people are.

After getting a pretty good grounding using vipassana and getting insight into moment by moment experience, by happy accident I discovered non-dual practice. It just kind of happened, and probably because I listened to a Christopher Titmuss podcast wherein he is very explicit about the need to grok what's going on "between" the arising of subject and object. He claimed that the Truth existed right there and that, within days, led to my first experience of non-duality. I think the Titmuss podcasts caused me to really ponder just what this "I" was and while focusing on that one day "I" just melted away to reveal that beautiful experience of non-dualness in a magnificent slow motion nuclear explosion, the most obvious attributes of which were the clarity of just the knowing without someone who knows and, most important to me, a huge gush of love.

Thanks for starting this thread.

"Fascinating stuff, yeah?
"

Absolutely!

Hey Chris, your experience sounds very interesting. What's your practise like these days? Have you switched to doing a solely non-dual style? Or do you still mix it up with samatha and vipassana?
I don't think I could quit doing samatha practises, I'm enjoying them far too much, and I'm still working on attaining to nirodha samapatti. The vipassana will definitely move over to a more non-dual oriented style. I am sure of that, and it's getting easier to access these states in daily activity.

We'll see how it goes. I'll keep you updated.

Nicola

Nicola, these days I practice what folks call "choiceless awareness" in my morning session and then I try to do concentration practices during my evening session. But my current version of that style more resembles Soto Zen zazen than a hard core vipassana. I remain fascinated by "everything" outside the subject/object duality and will probably be that way the rest of my life. It's extraordinarily compelling to just let go.

"The realisation dawned that this was already the answer, there is no-thing beyond this, no technique that will reveal 'more' of this or anything other."-Maya81

Dear Nicola,

Your quote, above, is just right. It would be impossible to overstate the importance of surrender. Surrender is Awakening. All spiritual and mystical paths end here. Everything you know, everything you have become or attained, everything you hope to learn or become... it all goes out the window in the moment of surrender. So, it does seem to require something, be it faith, or courage, or despair, or perhaps just the willingness to take a chance. After all, one of the things we surrender is the person who thinks she is surrendering.

Nothing could be simpler than a moment of surrender. And yet, the days, weeks, and years go by and somehow we haven't tried it yet, or having surrendered in the past we resist doing it again. We tell ourselves that we'll be able to surrender as soon as we have more time. Or maybe there's something we have to learn first. We think, "maybe I'll be able to surrender better after I master all the jhanas, or the Four Paths of Enlightenment."

Surrender is the end of the small self, at least for a moment, and the small self has only one job... to perpetuate its own apparent existence. So, the small self invents all kinds of lofty goals and projects; it has to get enlightened, it has to let go of anger, it has to be harmless, it has to understand the relationship between particles and waves. All of this is the play of impermanence. In order to find out what is true, we need only abandon our self-improvement projects for a moment. In this moment of surrender, there is nothing further to be done.

"There was no more asking, no more technique, nothing left to let go of. I let go entirely. Resting."-Nicola

This is the way. Do it again. Surrender now.

" After my sit, I sat there in awe of what I had discovered, something that hasn't happened in my practise for a while."

I ride my motorcycle to work and back every day. From Modesto to San Francisco, about 90 miles each way. I like it, it's fun and about two hours per day faster than any other method of doing that commute.
Friday morning I tried something new:
As I rode I kept aware of the feeling of my butt in the seat. At first I thought it would be boring and uneventful to do this but as the ride progressed I realized how much that feeling and experience changed throughout the ride.
I was aware of the feeling of my hands on the grips and watched as it tightened and loosened based upon what was going on around me and inside me.
I was aware of the feeling of my feet on the foot boards and how that would change.
I was aware of my feelings: fear, anxiety, worry, joy, etc.
I was aware of the feeling of the wind on my face and in my beard.
I noted where my thoughts went.
Stuff like that.
This felt like an effective way to use the commute time for practice. Something happened that I probably can't describe, but, basically, I become a bit more aware of where I was, who I was and what I was doing, thinking and feeling. I was less lost in thoughts and emotions.
It was nice.

Now, this is all great. I'm having good sits too -- nothing dramatic but I can tell something is happening. And, last night I went through about three hours of a medium level giddy happiness that was wonderful. But, of course I am old enough now that I knew it would end so I was able to enjoy it while it lasted and know that it was fleeting.
continued ....

more:

Still, I've also experimented lately with something that can be called "letting go" "surrender" "total acceptance," etc. It's getting into a state of mind in which I stop wanting myself or anything else to be different, I stop wanting the past or the future to be a certain way, I kind of relax into a state of mind in which everything can be okay and it doesn't matter who I am or become, it's sort of an approximation of what it would be like to know that one is DONE, that all striving is no longer necessary, that everything that is needed to be known is known, that all willing effort to change or improve on things can be put aside forever because I have been taken "off the hook."
This can create a wonderful sense of joy and well being. And, if I surrender completely to it I can kind of see the veil of ignorance start to lift. However, this state of mind can't be forced. It comes from a state of true surrender and this state brings the good stuff. but, once the good stuff comes I want it to stay so I can't surrender again, you know what I mean?
I often wonder if the "surrender" I sometimes do is maybe a little artificial, a sort of self-hypnosis where I think about what it would be like to let go and then act as if I really was letting go.
And, I wonder if there is a surrender that naturally arrives and arises because I have been practicing the insight techniques like I've described above and because of that practice I see that surrender is the ONLY possible reaction to life and it just happens. And I wonder if that surrender would be one that is true and real and truly reveals my nature.
Who knows about this?

Mike

"Who knows about this? -Mike"

"Who knows about this," indeed.

My goodness, what a wonderful post! All I can say is thank you for sharing...and keep doing whatever you are doing, 'cause it's working.

Mudita,

Kenneth

"I ride my motorcycle to work and back every day. From Modesto to San Francisco, about 90 miles each way. I like it, it's fun and about two hours per day faster than any other method of doing that commute.
Friday morning I tried something new:
As I rode I kept aware of the feeling of my butt in the seat. At first I thought it would be boring and uneventful to do this but as the ride progressed I realized how much that feeling and experience changed throughout the ride.
I was aware of the feeling of my hands on the grips and watched as it tightened and loosened based upon what was going on around me and inside me.
I was aware of the feeling of my feet on the foot boards and how that would change.
I was aware of my feelings: fear, anxiety, worry, joy, etc.
I was aware of the feeling of the wind on my face and in my beard.
I noted where my thoughts went.
Stuff like that.
This felt like an effective way to use the commute time for practice. Something happened that I probably can't describe, but, basically, I become a bit more aware of where I was, who I was and what I was doing, thinking and feeling. I was less lost in thoughts and emotions.
It was nice."

Mike,

Thank you so much for sharing this. You have discovered that practice is more than just sitting on a cushion. I think it's great that you have found a new way to practice that flows directly out of your ordinary, every day circumstances. Truly inspiring.

Do keep it up. As you discover even more ways to be mindful, please remember to share them with the group

Take care,
~Jackson

" I wonder if there is a surrender that naturally arrives and arises because I have been practicing the insight techniques like I've described above and because of that practice I see that surrender is the ONLY possible reaction to life and it just happens."

I relate to what you are saying above. I know that there can be tension, and then turning the attention to that point of tension, the exact location and being interested in that...then, there is a release. This I can sometimes associate with the word "surrender", but I have to admit "I" didn't do it--as you said, "it just happens".

more surrendering:

yesterday evening I had a another very interesting sit. As per usual I did my jhana ladder climbing thing, hung out in the highest I could access, usually very tranquil, very enjoyable, when I suddenly realised that even if I managed the deepest of absorption into this jhana, even that cannot satisfy. So I started with the investigation of 'who is this i' again, searching relentlessly, scanning my bodily awareness up and down, sideways, a bit like watching a ping-pong match. The 'ball' aka the question, was bouncing around wildly, desperately trying to latch onto something safe, something solid. If it was solid it could be deconstructed, it would provide just enough of that safety feeling, that there was something left to do.
Yet nothing, center-lessness, emptiness, deep sigh. Surely there was something obvious being overlooked? Why was 'this' not okay? I tried my little letting go mantra thingy again, when it finally became clear. Something was still there that had to be let go off. I remembered my earlier realisation, 'this was already the answer, there is no-thing beyond this, no technique that will reveal 'more' of this or anything other. Yet why was there this seemingly desperate attempt to find something, or something that had to be avoided?

Something to save 'me' from the deluded notion that this situation wasn't okay as it is. Something extremely subtle became glaringly obvious. The question itself was a refuge. If there was no more questioning then nothing could distract from the ever so slightest aversion felt against the present moment. Aha suffering! It was suffering. Suffering in the seeking itself, in the question itself. I fully tuned into this feeling of aversion, the ever so subtle slight sickness feeling in the gut. Immersed myself. Became it, let it spread through my entire being. It expanded like a huge bubble, I became fully entrenched. Then it was like a huge dark cloud had been lifted, suffering dropped like a hot coal that had been held onto for far too long. Everything became fully silent. My whole being rested peacefully. I sat there fully resting in peace for several hours. With no desire to get up, to do something other than just sit. It was already late in the evening. When it was time I lay down in my bed, wide awake but fully at rest.

I'm not saying I'm done here or anything, far from it, just I feel pretty okay with everything right now. Still test-driving this though and on the look-out for any cracks.

I'll keep you updated.

Nicola

Nicola,

What a wonderful update

Your description of immersing yourself into the aversion is something I hope that others take note of. Diving head first in to feelings of suffering is the only way I've been able to get them to open up. It seems counter intuitive, but it's what works. It's like steering in to the skid, you know? Like when I'm driving on ice and my car starts to skid to the right, my first instinct is to turn left. In doing so, the car will spin out of control. But if I turn in to the skid (turn my wheel to the right), I will be able to stabilize more quickly.

Looking forward to more updates,
~Jackson

Nicola, it's useful to distinguish between "what?" practice and "who?" practice. "What" practice is any practice that seeks to find out what is happening in the mind and body. Vipassana is "what" practice; we investigate our experience and gradually deconstruct it into its component parts. In this way, we dis-identify step by step with our experience. Anything I can take as object is not self--this much is clear. So, by progressively breaking down our experience into its constituent parts and taking each new sensation or experience as object, we find out that there is no self to be found; everything that arises and passes away in the mind can be taken as object and is therefore not self.

"Who" practice, on the other hand, is not concerned with anything that arises and passes away. By asking "who"? as in "who knows about this experience"? we eventually come into contact with pure Witness. The Witness knows all and is not touched by any of the objects that arise and pass away in the mind. But who knows about the Witness? Upon asking this final question, even the Witness is seen to be a mental construct, and the subject/object split collapses, leaving only pure non-dual, non-local awareness without a second. At this point there is nothing to do but surrender to indivisible Reality. Any kind of investigation you do at this point involves creating another duality from which to compare "this" and "that." It's like sending a policeman to catch a thief when the policeman *is* the thief.

When the subject/object split collapses, resist the temptation to second-guess it or look for flaws or cracks. Allow it to be as it is and be happy. Finding out the truth doesn't get you anything. But, as Gangaji so beautifully phrases it, "It is its own good news."

edit: typo