Insight Meditation 08

CAUTION: These investigations involve intentionally triggering unpleasant feeling tone, in this way meditation can become very real. Be cautious and only do this with guidance from a skilled teacher and/or with appropriate training in softening, samadhi and insight.

This investigation develops understanding of the role between attention, bodily sensations and feeling tone as a reflection of whether attention is sitting on past memory, future thought or present experience.

Advantages of this are:

• Through understanding the conditioned/constructed nature we learn to clearly separate sensations that arise in our body due to the touch of the world, from sensations that arise in our body due to the touch of our mind.

• We also learn the important skill of separating vedana (feeling tone) from these sensations allowing us to decondition habitual relationships of attraction, aversion and indifference.

In this meditation, you continue to observe the habitual patterns within your mind by intentionally directing your attention towards past, present and future in a methodical way to observe changes within your body sensations and feeling tone in relationship to these.

Step 1: Prepare your attention for insight.

• Prepare your attention for insight as per the instructions in Preparing Your Attention for Insight and ground awareness within your body and the experience of your hands touching.

Step 2: Observe what it feels like to be present.

• Observe what it feels like to be present, within your body – here, now. Observe the experience of just sitting here, the simplicity, no past no future just here.

Step 3: Bring a pleasant memory to mind.

Observe what the past feels like.

• Bring to mind a pleasant memory from the past, holding it gently within your mind. Observe any change of the experience of your body in regard to sensations and feeling tone: pleasantness. Apply GOSS.

Step 4: Observe what the future feels like.

• Bring to mind a pleasant thought of the future, holding it gently within your mind. Observe the change of the experience of your body in regard to sensations and feeling tone. Soften into it. 

Step 5: Observe what the present feels like.

• Reground awareness within your body and soften into it. Observe what it feels like to be present, within your body – here, now. Observe the experience of just sitting here, the simplicity, no past no future just here.

Step 6: Repeat with an unpleasant memory or thought.

Repeat this process of experiencing past, present & future with an unpleasant memory of thought and apply the GOSS Formula towards softening any resistance that you feel.

GOSS: Ground > Observe > Soften > Smile. 

1. Ground: be aware of the experience of your body to establish mindfulness.
2. Observe: observe the reaction within your body, noticing its autonomous nature.
3. Soften: gently relax the underlying effort of your mind to attract or resist.
4. Smile: smile with your eyes into the subtle pleasure of letting go of that effort.

Investigation:

Take interest in the focus of your attention and the changing landscape of sensations within your body. Be curious in regard to the underlying feeling: pleasant, unpleasant or neutral in regard to past, present and future focused attention. 

Observe the undeniable urge to escape from unpleasant feeling, to search for pleasant feeling and to stop paying attention when neutral feeling is present. 

You are ready to progress to Insight 09: Pleasant Feeling when:

• You understand through your own experience the intimately conditioned relationship your bodily sensations (kaya), feeling tone (vedana) and citta (heart/mind) that is triggered by where your attention is focused.

Please note that the recording and video for the practicality of instruction uses kaya-gata sati (mindfulness immersed within the body) as a foundation for enquiry for practical reasons rather than access unification or jhana.

• SoundCloud: Guided Meditation.
• Insight Timer App: Guided Meditation.