October 23, 2013 Wednesday Evening, Consciousness and Its Objects Class
The Experience of Access Concentration
Barbara: Usually we start with a sitting. Tonight we’re going to start with some instruction and review, with some specifics that I want you to practice.
We’ve been working with vipassana and specifically with dependent origination, and coming to know the whole flow of dependent origination. Watching objects arising and passing away. Here we’re focused more from the mundane consciousness, watching, at this point, mundane objects. We’re going to be moving next class to pure awareness practice.
I want to help you distinguish between mundane consciousness and supramundane awareness, and to understand what are mundane versus supramundane objects. For right now, with just a half hour sitting, probably you’re going to be noting mundane objects. If anybody has a direct experience of the Unconditioned, great! Don’t grasp at it though!
I especially want to focus tonight on the experience of access concentration. I cannot give you access concentration, and for many of you it would be unlikely you would experience this in just a half hour sitting. But I want you at least to understand intellectually what it is so that someday when you’re sitting at home for a longer period of time, and your concentration is steady, and suddenly there is this experience, you can say, “Oh, that was access concentration.”
We had a chart hanging on the wall in the office in the old center, and I forgot to ask Tana today if it’s still here somewhere. So we don’t have it. It shows the stages, starting with sila, moral awareness, grounding in the precepts– right action, right speech, not taking that which is not clearly given, non-harm to others. Such grounding in the precepts helps to develop concentration. If we’re not grounded there, we’re much more likely to be all over the place, our mind jumping around because there’s a lot more agitation.
Imagine a situation where you’re telling one person one thing, another person something else, and a third person still something else, and suddenly they come together. You’re trying to stay focused and centered, but, “What did I tell him? What did I tell her?” Right speech has us just speak from the truth, and then there’s no agitation; we know what we’re saying. Or imagine a lot of aversion and acting on that aversion. It’s hard not to be agitated when there’s a lot of aversion and we’re caught up in the stories of the aversion.
So grounding in the precepts. Are you familiar with the Pali word sila? It means, basically, moral awareness and the intention to non-harm.
With this chart—I have one pasted on my wall at home but it would not come down easily, and I thought there was one here but I couldn’t find it. I’ll try to find it for next class. But it shows a dome, a “stupa” with sila and concentration on the bottom. And then as concentration deepens, mind settles down and begins to take one object after another.
How many of you are familiar with the word jhana? Jhana is a level of concentration that really absorbs into an object. It’s an aspect of practice where mind becomes so absorbed in the object that everything else disappears. There’s just this. With jhana, though, there’s no developing insight. It’s like if you were inside a body-sized can and all you can see and feel is that can. It’s pretty hard to develop insight about how you relate to the can or anything outside the can, there’s just jhana.
What we teach here at Deep Spring is derived from Theravada tradition. Some schools of the Theravada tradition insist that jhana is necessary for concentration. Other schools, and I’m in agreement with this second view, believe that simply moment to moment concentration is sufficient to develop the concentration that leads to access concentration. So we have mindfulness, just drifting in and out of mindfulness. Deepening mindfulness until we’re really present with each object as it arises and as it passes away. Present with pleasant, unpleasant, and neutral feelings as objects. Present with liking and disliking that may grow out of pleasant and unpleasant feelings. Present with grasping and aversion. And then present with any mental formations that come. “Oh, I shouldn’t be grasping. What a bad meditator I am!” Ah, there’s a thought. Just a thought. There’s another object, a thought.
We call the attention that allows us to watch this flow of objects “choiceless awareness.” There is no preference to be present with any single object over another object. We don’t force attention to stay present with the breath. We don’t force attention to stay present with a throbbing in the body and push away the aversion to the throbbing. We’re not forcing the attention to move to the aversion and stay away from the actual throbbing. It can go back and forth: throbbing, throbbing, unpleasant, unpleasant, noting aversion. Breathing in, making space for the aversion. Finally coming back to the breath. Throbbing, throbbing, throbbing. We’re just present with whatever is. It may be pleasant. It may be unpleasant. It may be neutral. We’ve covered this in past classes, so what I’m saying is largely review, but I’m trying to put the picture together of how the practice works.
With jhana practice one takes a very specific object and just focuses down into it. Very fine focused. Throbbing– get out of here! Aversion—get out of here! Just focus on this red-colored light or on this sound, or whatever it may be. Push everything else away. When jhana is done skillfully, it does lead you into a place where all the disturbances are gone. Everything else is gone but this one object. Attention is sustained there. It’s a very blissful experience because there’s nothing to agitate and no self to be agitated. Temporarily all the aversive states are dissolved. The mind is still. You’re centered in whatever the object is. But when you come out of jhana, you’re right back where you started. You’ve had a pleasant vacation but it doesn’t lead to any new insight or any growth. It’s just a pleasant vacation. It also can be addictive because it’s so blissful. So I’m not going to take you there.
If we practice with choiceless awareness, concentration that’s necessary for the higher insights does develop but it’s not gained with a focus on one object, but simply a flow, present with each object as it arises. In the notes that I sent out, I talked about the experience I used to have 40 years ago when I lived in New York City and took the subway frequently. I loved to stand in the front car of the train. Sometimes I would ride not just to get from place A to B, but I would ride the whole length of the track for an hour or more. If you ride on an express train, it runs through the local stations, doesn’t stop. So you stand there: dark, dark, and then you see light approaching. Then bright lights, whoosh, go past, dark again, dark, dark, bright lights, past it, dark, dark, dark, bright lights. And then the train stops, Times Square Station. One might then think, “Oh, Times Square. I should get out at Times Square. Let’s see what’s here.” Well, then I’m out of the flow. But if instead there’s simply noting, “Oh, wow! Look at all the lights! Look at all the people!”, noting “excitement, energy,” Times Square Station, and then the train starts moving again. Tunnel, tunnel, dark, dark. Local station, whoosh, lights past it. It’s just one object after another.
Eventually there ceases to be any sense of going out to an object or withdrawing from an object. One simply sees these objects appearing, and the wisdom goes so deep, knowing this is all arising out of conditions. It’s impermanent, not self. I don’t have to be afraid of it. I don’t have to fix it. I don’t have to hold onto it. It’s just coming past and going.
The experience of access concentration is also very blissful, but not in the same way as jhana. You’re not absorbed into the object, but there’s a sudden shift from a “me” experiencing to the spaciousness of awareness. It’s a shift from consciousness into the opening of awareness; not yet the wide realm of pure awareness. So with access concentration we only see tunnel vision, one object at a time. If you are on a train and suddenly the track divides, goes that way and that way, there is no pull. You stay with the train. You see lights down that track and lights down that track—oooo – for just a moment and back to access concentration. In access concentration, you’re on the train, it goes that way, it goes that way, you just note: passing lights, moving ahead.
Q: You said this is access concentration?
Barbara: Yes. With access concentration there’s no attention pulled out to the side track, seeing workers out of the corner of your eye down there. If the train goes that way, then you go into it without stories. You move into the experience. But if the train doesn’t go that way, it goes this way, there are no stories about the ‘road not taken.’ You’re just right where the train is going.
Q: It sounds like choiceless awareness.
Barbara: It is choiceless awareness, but it’s a much more deeply grounded choiceless awareness. Choiceless awareness is the tool that opens mind into access concentration. Access concentration grows out of choiceless awareness, because with choiceless awareness we begin to watch, as simple object, the inclination to prefer this or push away that, and not get caught in any story. Mind cannot get caught in a personal story as access develops. As soon as you note that this preference, or thought, is simply arising from conditions, that this is also an object, you are back into access concentration, not caught up in the story of it. Here’s preference. Okay, ah, preference, and then it’s gone. Here’s aversion, not liking this, and then it’s gone. And we start to see how it’s all arising out of conditions.
The stories stop. It’s not “I shouldn’t have aversion” because the whole “I” basis of it stops. There’s just a sense of this consciousness flowing and picking up one object after another, just flowing.
I had not written this into the plan, but I’d like to try something here. I think we can do it just by pushing chairs back a little at each end.
Q: I have been practicing since the retreat the access concentration, and I wanted to clarify one thing. Do you label the thought in access concentration?
Barbara: No. By the time you reach access concentration, there’s no labeling, there’s no noting, there’s no noter, but there’s awareness. But the whole labeling process starts to get in the way. If something hooks you then you can label that as a way of bringing attention to it and reaffirming to yourself, “It’s impermanent, it’s not self. Just let it pass by.” But if it doesn’t hook you, just let it go.
What I’d like you to do here, Aaron just suggested this to me, form two circles, an inner circle and an outer circle, about even in size. No chairs, just people standing, an inside circle and an outside circle. I want the people in the inside circle to turn so you’re all facing one direction, facing in a line, so the circle can walk. The outside circle facing the opposite direction. The inside circle spread out a bit, but not so you’re in the way of the outside circle. I want the circles to start walking slowly, very slowly. Walk the direction you’re facing very slowly, very slowly… Just walking very slowly. Now I want you to slow it down even further and pause, so that B and M, you make eye contact. Seeing, seeing. And each of you, whoever you’re next to, making eye contact, and then walk again. That person is forgotten now. The next person comes up. Make eye contact. Not holding onto the person you just passed, not looking ahead to the next person, just with the person you’re with. And keep walking. Pause for just a moment and then keep walking. Don’t look ahead, don’t think back, but if that comes up, just note “moving ahead” or “remembering”, whatever it is. Sometimes, as there’s an odd number of people, there may not be a person immediately. Then just note empty space.
Keep the motion going so there’s long enough to really connect with the eyes. I want you to get the feeling of one object, one person after another arising into your experience and passing away. If thoughts arise about that person, note thinking and then come back to the next person. You may hold it for a moment with each person, so that you really have a chance to make a connection. And if there’s no next person, then just pausing, space. Keep it going for a while. I’m going to get my voice out of this so there’s no listening on top of the experience. If there’s no next person, just notice space, and finally a next person comes.
(exercise)
If you find yourself looking ahead, “nobody here now, looking ahead,” note that subtle tension, “no person.” Breathe and then just relax until a person comes. An object will come, a person will come. Really connect energy with that person for that moment, be fully with that person.
(exercise)
(bell, bell)
Thank you. You may return to your seats.
So as I said, I cannot give you access concentration, only some demonstration of what it might be like. So rather than riding on a subway train, you’re riding in a circle around the room.
Q: So with that exercise, was the ideal to not be noticing pleasant, unpleasant, neutral?
Barbara: No, if pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral arise, you note that. But when you’re really engaged, looking at the person, your energy is connected and usually not a lot of thoughts come up. Then as you unlink from the object and begin to move again, thoughts may come again. The pleasant, unpleasant, neutral probably don’t come up in that moment when you’re connected. But then there might be a thought afterward as you break the connection. But probably a lot of strong grasping or aversion doesn’t come up. The energy field quiets and is just more able to simply hold one object after another, after another.
Q: I found it very, very pleasant pretty much all the time.
Barbara: Were there a lot of thoughts?
Q: Some, not many.
Barbara: How about for others, were there a lot of thoughts? Was it mostly pleasant? (yes) Because attention was firm, first on this person, then on the next person, there was a strong object. There was not a lot of chance for attention to wander. If I said, “Connect with that person, then turn around three times. Put your hands over your head, or just close your eyes and spin in a circle,” there would cease to be a strong object anymore and attention would begin to waver. “What is this about? What am I doing? I don’t like this turning in a circle.” Or “Oh, I like turning in a circle. I want to do more of that.” Whatever comes up. It’s not that we’re trying to avoid pleasant or unpleasant objects, it’s simply that when attention is fixed… and then the next person… mind becomes quieter and there’s not an opportunity for all of this to come up.
This is access concentration. It’s such a strong concentration that as you move from one person to another, or one object to another, you become so grounded in that moment’s experience, and then the next moment’s experience, that there’s not a lot of self in it. All the old stories of the ego, of me– I like this, I don’t like that, do people like me as they’re looking in my eyes, do they not like me, am I doing it right, am I doing it wrong—poof! It goes. I’m just trying to give you a taste of what access concentration feels like.
As we sit in meditation and one object arises, I was sitting meditating in my backyard today. My eyes were closed and I felt something land on my hand. It was soft. I opened my eye and, it wasn’t really a butterfly, more like a moth. I think most of the butterflies are gone for the season. But this was one lingering one, and it was just sitting there. Ah, pleasant, pleasant. I closed my eyes again, touching, touching, just aware of that experience. And then it was gone. Empty, empty. Bringing attention back to my primary object. It landed again; then gone. One object after another.
Another way we could have done this, and I wasn’t sure we had space, would have been to just take hands like in a square dance so that it wasn’t just eye contact but one hand held, after another. Just one object coming up after another. Sometimes the object is unpleasant, or dislike arises. When dislike is noted, it is known as an object, and even an arising story is seen as an object, Finally it all collapses.
As we settle into access concentration, there is very rarely an experience of grasping or aversion. There’s rarely any story coming up. There’s just this present moment, pleasant or unpleasant.
Q: I could tell that with a couple of people, if we had stayed looking at each other longer, the tears would have rolled down my face.
Barbara: And that’s just an object. There’s no story to it, there’s just the experience of tears rolling down my face, or feeling the heart open. That’s a direct experience. With access concentration we do have direct experience, we simply don’t get into the stories. “Tears rolling down my face. Oh, should I be crying? Is it okay?” That’s a story. Tears rolling down, noting tears, feeling the experience of tears. Heart opening, but no story. No looking around and saying, “Are other people having their heart open? Is this okay? Am I permitted to have this?” Just, here is heart opening. Or for somebody who found it difficult to meet people’s gazes, heart closing. Feeling that. What is the direct experience?
Q: Is there a commentator or a narrator in access concentration?
Barbara: For me, on the way to access concentration there is. Once access concentration is there, there is none. There’s no experiencer at all, there’s just experience. The whole self falls out of it. Yet I’m very present with each raindrop falling on my nose, or bit of breeze, or raindrop running down my back. I’m very present with it, but it’s not met as anything outside of me. There’s no aversion or attachment. There’s no one to attach or feel aversion, and nothing to which to feel aversion.
Q: It seems to me that the observer doesn’t necessarily have in that case, does not have aversion or attachment at that point. But– I understand what you’re saying.
Barbara: I agree with you. There can be an observer and still be access concentration. We simply observe the observer. Awareness observes the observer. But eventually it takes us into just resting in awareness, which we haven’t worked with in a formal way in this class yet, and we’ll work with in the next class meeting. I want you to understand the distinction between access concentration and pure awareness. At a certain point there’s no distinction, because when you’re really in access concentration, mind is resting in awareness. That spaciousness opens. But to get there, there’s this tunnel with objects coming at you, one at a time, until the whole thing just blows open.
Q: I’ve been taught classically there is no commentary, no judgment, and no decision.
Q: Right, that’s bare attention. But we open to it, not grasp or force it.
Barbara: When you say no decision, no decision to do or not do? (Q: Yes) There’s just presence.
Q: Also, my experience tonight is that we are each conditioned objects. Coming into life and leaving life.
Barbara: Yes, exactly, just that. Lots of objects! And in this class, because you’re all a lovely group, it’s mostly pleasant. But imagine yourself in this situation with some people and some snarling dogs, or hulking gorillas, or other things that look a little bit alarming. So there might be a little bit of pulling back, and then that’s the next object, that hardening, tension.
So there is the flow. You’ve got these charts that we handed out. Senses; objects of consciousness. They’re all just objects. Contact. You see all the different arrows. With contact we have mental formations, feelings, perception. I do not find all of the arrows in this chart to be accurate, but please don’t worry about that. If it doesn’t feel accurate to you, that it only goes that way and not both ways, for example, trust your own experience of it. It’s just a chart that was on the internet that I think is pretty good, is helpful even if not perfect..
And then (reading from the chart) under that, mental formations, feeling, perception, we have wise attention. With wise attention, no more craving, because there’s just such deep wisdom: everything is just arising and passing away, impermanent, not of the nature of a self. And on to enlightenment. We won’t go further down on that for now. No more clinging, no more becoming, etc.
Take a look at this chart when you have time. Don’t get hooked into it being 100% correct or precise. Trust your own experience.
I’m sure there are some questions and so forth. What I’d like to do now, though, is, let’s just stop and sit for half an hour. I want you to pay special attention to this chain: contact, consciousness, feelings of pleasant, unpleasant, and neutral, perception. Don’t worry about the order they come. Don’t worry if some seem missing. Just watching this whole flow until the mind settles down. Riding on the front car of the train, just going through the subway tunnels. Sometimes wow!, and then it’s gone, sometimes a mile of flat track. Whatever comes.
As mind settles down, if it does, so that stories stop and there’s just a smooth ride, running through the stations– lights, darkness, objects passing by– simply enjoy the ride. If it doesn’t settle down and you find yourself grasping, “Why isn’t it settling down?”, that’s another object, that’s another subway station. Watch its flashing lights and signs saying, “You should enjoy the ride! You should enjoy the ride!” Judgment, judging mind. Let it pass.
Are there any questions about what I want you to do for this half hour? Okay, then we will sit.
(session ends)