Insight Meditation 17

This is a high skill, MIDL technique, and during this training mindfulness meditation becomes very real. We intentionally trigger painful memories to develop understanding of the heart / mind and to decondition Vedana (feeling tone) from these memories.

If you want to try this MIDL deconditioning technique, do so at your own discretion. If you have not done the earlier training and developed your mindfulness, concentration and softening skills then you are likely to become lost within the emotional charge and resist the unpleasantness.

In this case you either need to commit to the MIDL systematic training or have someone skilled in this technique to guide you to develop this skill.

1. To intentionally decondition emotional charge and feeling tone (vedana) from thoughts and memories. 
2. To learn how to decondition emotional charge and feeling tone in daily life before it habitually conditions as defensive patterns within the mind.
3. To weaken the minds habitual entanglement with the past and future.

The MIDL method of Deconditioning develops the higher skill of deconditioning emotional charge and feeling tone (vedana), attached to thoughts and memories. 

The mind has a simple survival sorting mechanism in which it uses feeling tone to sort memories as dangerous or safe. It attaches pleasant feeling to signify safe memories or unpleasant feeling if the memory is perceived as being dangerous and attaches no feeling tone to trigger indifference: this does not concern me. 

The mind uses these presorted memories as a data base to which if refers to sort sensory input (six senses). This data base is used to give rise to perception: I know what this is. and this includes information in regard to attraction, aversion and indifference. 

Stripping back the feeling tone within this data base, alters the way the mind perceives present experience and leaves it open to interpretation in regard to appropriate relationship. 

The appropriate relationship is then conditioned by sila (harmonising) which is supported by panna (verified wisdom), which become the data base for the mind. Hence the importance of Right View.

**Note: During this training we take a soft approach and also access pleasant memories, in actual application this is not the case.

Step 1: Pleasant feeling.

1. Take your meditation posture. 
2. Ground your awareness within the experience of your body as it sits. 
3. Observe what it feels like to be present, within your body – here, now - safe. 
4. Bring to mind a pleasant memory from the past, observe change in the experience of your body. 
5. Notice its pleasantness (vedana) as a flavour or taste of the physical response.
6. Notice the attraction towards this pleasantness as enjoyment within your mind and the effort that underlies wanting it.
7. Using six slow softening breaths, soften into your relationship towards it.
8. Repeat this process, learn to observe the physical response to the pleasant memory (kaya) as a reflection of your mind (citta). Learn to separate out the feeling tone (vedana) and observe what happens when you soften your relationship towards the underlying vedana.

Step 2: Unpleasant feeling.

1. Take your meditation posture. 
2. Ground your awareness within the experience of your body as it sits. 
3. Observe what it feels like to be present, within your body – here, now - safe. 
4. Caution: Bring to mind a mild unpleasant memory from the past.
5. Observe change in tightness or tension in your body, particularly at the base of the throat, chest or belly. 
6. Notice its unpleasantness as a flavour or taste of the physical response.
7. Notice any aversion towards this unpleasantness as "I don't like, I don't want" within your mind and the effort that underlies not wanting it.
8. Using six slow softening breaths, soften into your relationship towards it.
9. Read: How to Monitor Your Progress.
10. Repeat this process, learn to observe the physical response to the pleasant memory (kaya) as a reflection of your mind (citta). Learn to separate out the feeling tone (vedana) and observe what happens when you soften your relationship towards the underlying vedana.

Follow the meditation steps instructions six times, at the end of each softening checking your progress with three simple questions:

“Is the emotional charge in my body stronger, the same or weaker now that I have softened than it was when I first brought the memory to mind?”

Monitoring Progress

If the emotional charge is stronger then you need to refine your mindfulness and softening skills, do not practice this meditation further. If the emotional charge is the same you need to develop your softening skill, there is still some resistance present.

If the emotional charge is weaker now, then your softening and mindfulness are strong enough. Apply five more cycles of deconditioning to this memory.

• Be curious about the relationship between memories and the feeling tone present. observe that when a memory is brought to mind a corresponding feeling is released within your body.

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

• Observe that when you soften / relax all resistance or attraction against that feeling that the feeling and emotional charge attached to the memory start to fade.

You are ready to progress to Insight 18: Deconditioning the Mind when:

• You understand how to deeply soften/relax all resistance towards mild unpleasant memories and can observe a significant weakening of vedana on that memory so that when you bring it to mind out of meditation there is no desire to react/respond at all, instead it becomes completely neutral to you.

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

(**A note to others who may want to try this MIDL deconditioning technique, do so at your own discretion. If you have not done the earlier training and developed mindfulness of breathing through letting go and refined skill in softening then you are likely to become lost within the emotional charge and resist the unpleasantness. In this case you either need to commit to the MIDL systematic training or have someone skilled in this technique to guide you to develop this skill.)

How to Decondition Emotional Charge
Before doing this meditation, select the memory that you are going to work with during the session. Memories are linked so your mind may swap from one to another while using this deconditioning technique. 

Whenever you notice that the memory has swapped, gently bring your attention back to the one you are working with. 

Always stay with the emotional charge within your body rather than the story contained within the memory. You could even write it down before starting to direct your attention.

Begin by sitting comfortably and bringing your awareness to the experience of just sitting in a chair or on the floor, this will be your grounding point to reality. 

Bring one difficult memory to mind and gently hold it within your awareness, Starting with a memory towards which the emotional charge is not too strong. Notice the experience of emotion as it arises within your body, particularly around the centre of your chest.

Know that this is just a reflection of the past, it is not the reality of what is happening ‘now’ and cannot hurt you. Break the experience of the emotion within your body into sensations such as 'hard', 'tight', 'heavy', 'warm' etc. 

Notice the underlying feeling of unpleasantness that fills the experience of the emotion like a flavour / taste and soften / relax deeply into your relationship towards the unpleasant feeling using slow diaphragmatic breaths.

• In-breath: Belly button - ribs - chest.
• Out-breath: Slowly out through your nose, mentally and physically relaxing.
  

Do not try to make the unpleasant feeling go away but rather deeply relax into it, holding it gently in mind and accepting it. Abandoning all participation, abandoning all effort. 

Do this for five softening breaths, allow your breathing to return to normal after the fifth softening and then gently open your eyes. 

Give your body a shake to release the residue of any physical tension held within your body. Then without bringing the memory to mind again, check the strength of the emotional charge within your body.

Is the emotional charge within your body stronger, the same or weaker than when you began?

a) If the emotional charge is stronger than before then this means that you had a desire for the emotion you were experiencing and its unpleasant quality to go away. In this case the pain attached to your memory is too great for you to be with and you should not try to decondition the emotional charge attached to the memory without professional guidance.

b) If the emotional charge within your body is the same as before after softening into it, then you were resisting its unpleasantness and need to develop your softening skill.

c) If the emotional charge within your body is weaker than before then repeat this process of bringing the memory to mind and softening into your relationship towards it five times or until there is no emotional charge left on the memory. 

Question: Sadly, the feeling tone of the negative memory bled into re-remembering the pleasant memory and the pleasant memory became less pleasant the second time. I'll have to revisit this. In any case, I still love your meditations!

Stephen: What you have experienced is not bad but rather a deep insight into how your mind functions. The purpose of training MIDL is to become sensitive to how our mind sorts and perceives the sensory world and how our interaction with it influences the creation of our reality; what is actually happening below the surface of our normal level of our awareness.

What you have experienced is correct, this is how it works. 

The mind sorts the world into 'dangerous' and 'safe' based on past perception. It does this by attaching a 'pleasant' feeling if perceived as 'safe' and 'unpleasant' feeling if perceived as 'dangerous' to all memories. 

When a memory is triggered by a sensory experience it brings up the associated attached 'pleasant' or 'unpleasant' feeling to drive us to 'towards or away from' an experience.

You observed the 'feeling tone' bleeding from the 'unpleasant' memory to the 'pleasant' memory provides deep insight and shows you the path towards freedom from this. 

This is what happens; your 'aversion / dislike / desire for the 'unpleasantness' to 'go away' triggered a 'danger' response which gave rise to your mind overlaying the presently perceived 'pleasant' 'safe' experience with the 'unpleasant' 'danger' feeling.' 

This then created within your mind of longing for 'pleasantness' to increase and desire for the 'unpleasantness' to end - this is the cycle of mental pain and suffering.

You have seen the very cycle that is happening within every moment of our lives and the very heart from which all likes and dislikes, fears and desires, violence and greed arise from.

When doing this practice one thing to be careful of is to never do it to remove the unpleasant feeling. 

This is very important in understanding how the mind works. I will repeat, "we must never do this method with the desire to remove or get rid of the unpleasant feeling of the memory". 

Your mind is producing this feeling of unpleasantness to protect you, any attempt to escape from it just tells the survival part of your mind that the situation is indeed dangerous, it will then just produce a stronger unpleasant feeling to make you fight or run. 

Trying to get rid of the unpleasantness means that you will strengthen it. This is what it wants you to do, it wants you to try to get away from it. If you resist the unpleasant feeling then it will create more resistance and embed the anxious cycle.

The way through is not to try to remove the unpleasantness but to accept it, embrace it, allow it to be, using slow gentle breathing soften into it, like you may 'soften into' cold water. Non-resistance / acceptance dissolves resistance. 

When you no longer want to get rid of unpleasantness, when you fully accept it, then the miracle happens - it dissolves. But to do this you need to retrain the habit of resisting / running away. In this way the emotional charge attached to any painful memory can be deconditioned.