How to Heal Trauma

 

How to Heal Trauma

>What types of practices are best for those who want to heal trauma but have only 1 or 0 bhumis open?

The process of healing trauma heals but not without becoming aware and accepting one's subconscious pain. It is very demanding to remain willing to face and surrender to one's psychological pains. These pains come from our blindspots, they come from the dark, like the punches of a boxer that you don't even see and before you know it you're remembering all the bad and difficult things that happened to you. To remain engaged with this process, you definitely need willingness to be surprised by the punches of the hurt stored in your subconscious and at the same time understand that it's just pain coming up. It might make you feel really awful at moments but it won't kill you and because it won't you can learn to work with it, and this is how the path to healing appears.

Now, for someone who truly understands that accessing and remembering all that stuff is a way to become free of it, it's an immense blessing to have tools and practices that enable you to do that but to someone who isn't really ready, it can be a living nightmare. The purpose of all practices that we have is to return our bodymind into its natural state but we need to understand that just like Jung said, the path to light goes through darkness. There is no way to the light around darkness, only the way through it which means that light is found in the middle of darkness. Profound peace and joy is found in the middle of fears but only for the one who understands how the practice works and how the practices are correctly applied. Of course, everyone gets momentarily overwhelmed when working with traumas but the right view and application bounces you right back on track, and this is what being protected means.

I recently changed the system with our Path of Wisdom and Clarity, the way how new practitioners of Rainbow Body Yoga get empowerments. Since the last empowerment new students only get a Guru Yoga empowerment of Guru Padmasambhava and Guru Yeshe Tsogyal and practice RBY with them for 2 full years before given the first 12 deity empowerment. The reason for this is in preparation, acclimatization. It's like a protected cocoon with the gurus and taking couple of years to ponder on the meaning of bodhicitta and bodhisattva activity. At the same time, they'll have bhumi events because of the dynamic practices practiced together with bodhicitta.

Now that I think of it it is a good preparation formula for the Path of Healing and Light as well, which is largely concerned on healing of trauma. Get used to sitting and working with yourself. Pray for yourself and for others. Turn to our gurus for blessings. especially the ones coming from the hindu tradition; develop loving devotion and take those blessings in. Take refuge in the gurus, their teachings and offer yourself at their feet. Doing this will not only heal your traumas but light up a sacred light in you which will change your life and give it a meaning that you didn't have before.

People used to know the meaning of having spiritual masters and gurus in their live but modern people have forgotten this so we need to remind them, especially for the fact that modern medicine and methods fail to such a large degree. I am not telling anyone to try to fix their aching tooth or broken leg solely with the help of spiritual masters but the fact is that just like Dr Gabor Mate, the leading trauma therapist said, he still hasn't fully healed of his psychological trauma at the age of 75. So, again, secular and sutric methods have deficiencies.

 

Dr Gabor Mate

People simply need to bring spiritual energy and light back into their lives. The minds of people of our time are marked with suspicion and cynicism towards anything that cannot be measured or explained with technology. People need to be shown that there is so much more to life than they know. It is the sacred in them that needs to be lit up so that they can heal and change the direction their lives are going. The best way to do that is with the help of masters who are specialists of this kind of human problems. Depending on how badly they need help, some will shed tears of gratitude learning about these things while some will keep looking for solutions from places where they cannot be found. Both are fine but there is a way to full healing and ceasing of confusion. As many people as possible should know this.

Of course there is much more to say about the trauma healing practices of Amrita Mandala. People who are interested should study our materials and join our retreats.

Blessings,

-Baba, 9.12.2023

Psychological diagnoses meets the Divine Mother

 

Psychological diagnoses meets the Divine Mother

Simha: I named it diagnosis shopping not only because I see other people doing it, but because that was what I was doing myself. And yes, it is not just driven by a subconscious drive to label, but by sheer desperation for an explanation and solution.

Reading your history of self-diagnosis is like reading about my own. First being convinced of bipolar, then adhd, then borderline, then back to adhd, then bipolar again, before thinking I might just be a narcissist or even antisocial (sociopath)..

Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome/trauma makes so much more sense, and also explains the chaotic, always changing nature of the symptom patterns that made it so damn difficult to figure out in the first place.

Anyway, embodied sitting and embodying Divine Mother seems to be healing it like nothing else I’ve experienced.

Baba: It is understandable that people do diagnosis shopping when one feels that life's not working. For some reason, though, I never did that. I would even say that for a long time after I found and started practicing the dharma, I didn't even take western medicine, incl. psychology at all seriously. I have since changed my view but from the moment I met the dharma, I felt so strongly that this is it, that this is the medicine to *whatever* is wrong with me or with others.

Though not at all skillfully, I have communicated this to you Simha as well since many years ago. I am sure it sounds arrogant to the reader but seeing Karl's struggles and his diagnosis shopping I felt like it was bullshit from beginning to the end, and I told him so. It must have been extremely difficult and unpleasant for him to hear that. I thought he was fooling himself. What a dangerous way to look at things... I admit that, and especially from someone like me who has very limited knowledge about these things, and yet look where we are now...

A dozen sangha members who started practicing Divine Mother as Amrita Sundari have told me it was exactly what they needed and what hits the right spot in terms of healing of trauma and whatever diagnoses they might have. I am not saying that Divine Mother practice can solve any mental/mental health problems but it clearly targets and begins to heal a whole bunch of issues that are stored in the meridian system.

And to remind the reader, I have spoken about the energetic difference between hindu and buddhist blessings for many years. They are similar yet different because they are designed differently. It's not black and white but this can definitely be stated.

To be specific, buddhist meditation is mainly focused on transforming self-based ignorance to embodied selfless wisdom. This process takes place in the so-called nadis and chakras of the subtle body, or the bhumis as they are also known. Hindu dharma and its blessings, on the other hand, are more visceral and can be felt more physically because in hinduism the separation between healing and existential wisdom (skt prajna) was never made, like it was in buddhism. Both paradigms have pros and cons but as we are discussing healing, it takes place in the meridians which is a different type of subtle body and the closest system to the physical body. That's why guru yoga with any hindu guru or Divine Mother practice, for example, have different effect than buddhist wisdom practices, be they in sutric or tantric form.

 

Is it possible to heal trauma fully? Yes!

 

Is it possible to heal trauma fully? Yes!

Mani: Hi! I wanted to share this channel on youtube, she has some great videos for people who has trauma from childhood/teenage years. It's always good hearing someone talk about something they themselves have been through/worked through, and so has solid advice. Be it trauma in the form of neglect, ongoing stress over years, episodes at school, illness etc. She speaks mostly from a psychological and physiological perspective, and not so much spiritual, but it still has been super helpful. For the longest time, as I wrote many times in my log thread here in the group, I genuinely thought I had autism or some other mental/neurological duagnosis. ? Turned out it was childhood traumas, which I am working through with the wonderful practices Baba has taught us.
Now she says in one of her videos that childhood trauma can never fully 100% heal, which I don't think is true, but that just seems to be the general perception for mental health, that it is difficult or impossible to fully heal.


Baba: I never bought that you'd be autistic. Misdiagnoses have been a nuisance in your family...


Mani: Yeah, I am so glad I didn’t settle for that diagnosis and know what the cause is now. It makes all the difference. My sister also got a misdiagnosis of bipolar disorder, but it turned out to be PTSD from childhood and of being failed by the medical community.
I am so glad to know now about the subtle bodies and how tantra can heal...

Baba: We had a discussion with Amrita Uma (who is a psychologist) at the recent retreat about the common perception about the heal-ability of trauma among professionals of psychology. Gabor Mate who is a very influential trauma specialist said what I've heard from a number of others (the ones I've listened to) that "you can learn to live with trauma but you can't (fully) heal it". But Uma enlightened me by saying that that is not a prevalent opinion, that some psychologists and psychoterapists have the opposite view, that it is possible to heal it fully.


Even without the methods to heal it fully I find it very problematic and disempowering to say to patients that it can't be healed. We all probably know someone with trauma or some other illness who's been said that they can't heal and that they just have to suffer with it for the rest of their lives. Of course if we are talking about tetraplegia it is a different matter but my point is that just like in dharma you have teachers who give really poor, insufficient and actually completely wrong instructions backed up by a lineage, the same happens in medicine where doctors go too far in their statements and diagnoses.


Having worked my a*s off with my own trauma with very specific energetic practices, I am highly doubtful if it is even possible to become fully aware of one's early trauma by psychological means (that are basically sutric/non-tantric) and consequentially if psychology really even understands what full healing of trauma means. That might sound like a very arrogant thing to say and I am happy to be told/proven otherwise but having seen the regular shallowness of non-tantric methods I am doubtful, though really hope that there'd be tons of efficient methods and techniques out there available to humanity. But even for those few who have the priviledge to live in wealthy circumstances and have the access to psychotherapy, that extremely few in the world have, the actual results don't look too good, even after years of regular therapy. Little benefit is much better than no benefit at all but just like in dharma, it's just not good enough.


Childhood trauma being misdiagnosed as bipolar or as a million other things doesn't surprise me at all, though it is of course quite tragic. The understanding of trauma and how thoroughly it affects people is very poor among medical professionals from what I know.
All people should go back to their religions to find answers to these problems. Not the dogmatic belief rubbish but the practices; prayers, chanting, meditation, service, contemplation and above all to receive the grace that heals. You know, being healed by the spirit that dwells in all of us is not a fairytale, it is real.


Linking a short documentary from Finnish tv (swedish with finnish subtitles) from 2019 that testifies about the power of prayer. It's very impressive, especially the testimony given by the doctor. https://areena.yle.fi/1-4598175

Buddha Within Can Heal Traumas

 

Buddha Within Can Heal Traumas

Kim: I was reading some discussions among buddhist practitioners and saw this remark that "buddhist meditation does not heal trauma", which I have seen many times before. Well, there are different types of buddhist meditations but all in all my experience is exactly the opposite. However, it depends greatly of the teacher and the method/lineage one follows, whether psychological aspect is included and covered or not.

History of mankind is the history of trauma, so I don't believe that past generations of Asian practitioners didn't have traumas, and therefore healing of trauma must have always been part of the greater buddhist tradition, even if many particular lineages had and still don't have a clue about it. Now that we live in modern society, also all over Asia, I think it would be tremendously beneficial for dharma practitioners and teachers to learn about the basics of western psychology. The way I see it is that it discusses and adresses the same issues, just from a different perspective.

Anyway, in my experience, buddhist practice, which first and foremost is the practice of awakening or recognising one's own already wakeful and pure heartmind, is very much about healing of trauma, along with removing ignorance. In fact, I would say that there aren't other ways to really heal. By this I mean that through either buddhist meditation or western psychology one can potentially heal.

For those interested, here are recordings of Tantric Trauma Therapy:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nSEZ489DYaE&list=PLqTm9fV9DGhswnFhxIQR3kJwxKPw78186&index=5&fbclid=IwAR230ypa6uxrkeKwSAF3xW_2BYN5_Riu-YGzvtc-k4YB2goduktNZb6emHU

Ugi: I think what is essential about healing trauma is the position from which one approaches trauma. And there seems to be more and more agreement in western psychology and trauma research that the only position that can heal trauma is the position of wholeness/being already whole (and safe). One cannot heal trauma by coming from a self-image of being inherently broken/unsafe. Because the "trying to fix myself"-mentality re-creates the trauma again and again, always pre-supposing that I'm not already safe.

Leading trauma scientists like Bessel Van der Kolk recommend working primarily with the body and discovering safety in the body. Or also more mind-oriented modalities like Internal Family Systems by Richard Schwartz work with discovering and establishing some kind of non-conceptual presence first which doesn't take any position in the internal conflicts that started to develop with the trauma (and keep it alive).

So I completely agree with you that true Dharma practice naturally and very directly includes trauma healing. To say that buddhist practice doesn't heal trauma because buddhism isn't practiced correctly anymore is throwing out the baby with the bath water.

About Trauma, Therapy and Tantric Trauma Therapy

 

About Trauma, Therapy and

Tantric Trauma Therapy

Hi William. I went back to your first message to get a better understanding where you're coming from as you mention "psychological problems". You wrote,

"1) are you seeing a therapist? Do it if you are not. 2) This may be related to early life issues, so they may overlap. You have to feel them, but do feel them in the wisest way. It will take time-- feel your body and breath. 3) This is your work as a human, it sucks that it doesn't immediately go away, but this is what you have to work with."

So you are talking about trauma, right? You also say,

"Natural State is apart from us, we are it and it makes up the essence of the issues we have. But in of itself--it will not cure all our psychological problems".

I see where you're coming from and in most cases I agree with you that recognition of the natural state may not heal emotional trauma, just like it won't effect a full release of karmic tendencies (full enlightenment) but the methods vary greatly.

The natural state can be viewed in the context of trauma therapy. I know from my own teaching and practice experience. Traumas vary, some have big some small traumas, but for example when talking about human related trauma, the tantric meditational practice of applying the pure view to 1) oneself and 2) to those people who caused the trauma, maybe parents for example, is a very effective trauma healing.

Here you can find a simplified and secularised form of this exercise presented by Daniel Brown, mahamudra teacher: https://youtu.be/z2au4jtL0O4

As a dzogchen practitioner, you can probably see that he is applying pure view to one's parents.

On the same breath I would like to present this quote from Gary Van Warmerdam,from https://pathwaytohappiness.com/blog/podcast/66-trauma-symptoms-and-treatments/

"You may have been trying to change your thoughts, emotions, and behaviors through certain modalities of talk therapy or self help programs or meditation/mindfulness, and those are going to be ineffective if you have a trauma history. And surprisingly a lot of people have a lot more trauma history than just a small percentage. And so If you’ve been struggling with making changing in your thought process and negative thinking and emotional state and depression/anxiety, there may be other causes to that that need to be addressed in different ways. Because, if you have trauma in your history, talk therapy is not going to work; the general approaches of therapy don’t work; some do; but there are specific treatments for trauma that are effective. So if you have that as a source of these emotional, negative thinking and behavior patterns, to get the right tool to get to the source of the problem is what I’m hoping to convey. Someone that is working through a trauma history needs to do practices that address the nervous system more directly. Effects from trauma can lead to symptoms that look like ADHD, anger issues, anxiety/panic attacks, depression, OCD, strong self judgment, bipolar, anything that’s labeled with a disorder after it is often the result of trauma. People try to solve these issues or talk about theses issues, but they are not getting to the source of what is happening in the brain and nervous system so they end of going around in circles, not really solving it. You need a different tool set to solve this...[for example,] with sexual abuse, when triggered, your thinking is not going to solve it, your mindfulness meditation exercises aren't going to solve it, because what you do with your conscious awareness attention does not get deep enough into the layers to address these primal protective functions. You can't think your way out of overriding the limbic system. That's why there's very specific treatments for trauma.” - Gary Van Warmerdam

There are lots of pscyhologists and psychotherapists saying that talking therapies in many cases are ineffective and can cause retraumatisation.

So, when saying that the natural state doesn't heal one's emotional traumas, based on my experience, I disagree, but it is all about the application and context.

In case if you're interested in this I suggest you find a FB group called Pemako Buddhism.com. There will be some guided videos published about the Tantric Trauma Therapy that I mention, free of charge.

Kim

About Psychotherapy, Buddhist Meditation and Tantras

About Psychotherapy,

Buddhist Meditation and Tantras

I've pondered about the marriage of psychotherapy and buddhist meditation lately. It is common for zen and theravada buddhists to think that it is necessary or at least highly beneficial to combine the two. I do not deny the benefits of psychotherapy and certainly encourage those so inclined to get down and dirty with it. However, my message to all those sutrayana practitioners who hold such views, is to look into tantric practices. Based on bhumi analysis, there's a lot sutrayana is not tapping or the common pedagogy is not tapping. So, my statement is that although it is said that there are three ways to liberation: sutra, tantra and dzogchen; there doesn't seem to exist a sutra group that'd really make progress in their practice, which leads them to falsely think that there'd be something lacking in emptiness meditation, which I don't think is the case at all.
My personal experience is that traumas and shadow work is part of the practice. This becomes evident after most of the mind is seen empty because we still keep having thoughts and emotions, that no longer offer material for emptiness meditation. At this point, one has much stability and it is rather easy to see how the hurtful or traumatic patterns still continue. Healing comes with togetherness and acceptance of these patterns, just like insight comes from emptiness meditation (lhaktong). I see no difference between the two, although many do. For this reason, I think it is not the buddhist paradigm but the particular schools that are lacking. I could present a more detailed criticism of zen and theravada that are nowadays often married with Western psychology but will save it for other time.

In the same vein, I've thought of all those bad boys and girls of vajrayana who willingly or being blinded by their confusion hurt and abused others. I used to put the blame on lack of ethics, lack of practice and lack of realisation. Bhumi analysis has well revealed the unfinishedness of their practice and I think that erratic behaviour of vajrayanis is much affected by these factors. But then, I began to think if there is something else to it, as well, perhaps something lacking in vajrayana buddhist training. 
 
What separates tantric buddhism from tantric hinduism?

There is an obvious difference of views between hinduism and buddhism. In practice, in my limited understanding and experience, it seems that long time ago, probably to make more progress in practice, buddhism started to emphasize dharmakaya, transparent-nonsubstantial-selfless-nonlocal and non-dimensional buddhanature, very strongly and de-emphasized the energetical, colourful, lively and expressive part of it (sambhogakaya). If you look at buddhist teachings, they are mostly about vipashyana, emptiness, returning self-charges into the colourless basic space (dharmakaya), with the help of compassionate motivation (bodhicitta). 
 
It is my observation of myself and other buddhists that the over emphasis of dharmakaya makes people emotionally flat, even spiritual bypassers. Spiritual bypassing means that one's mental and emotional habits are bypassed, and not adressed and used for practice, due to too much emphasis on onepointed concentration and calmness (shamatha). Back in my zen days, I was mostly instructed shamatha with the result that after 4 years of full time training I was emotionally pretty much as lost and hurt as I was before. That's why I left zen. As a teacher myself, I would never teach anyone like that, especially those who wish to wake up! 
 
More recently, I witnessed a proper out of proportions tantrum of a senior vajrayana monastic with more than 50 years of practice under the belt. It wasn't the first time I witnessed senior buddhist meditators go haywire but nevertheless from such a heavy weight, it was rather unexpected. In this persons case, this indicates spiritual bypassing, not lack of practice. Anyway. 
 
Most buddhist schools put a lot of emphasis on shamatha which I think is contributing to this problem, giving buddhism and buddhists their distinctive tone (of emotional flatness). I think, this is because buddhism puts so much emphasis on dharmakaya, transparent nature and awareness of all phenomena and all the energetic play is given a secondary place. Compared to hinduism, buddhism is way more succesful in yoga because of the clarification and emphasis of seflessness/emptiness (anatta/sunyata) and its meditative applications in sutra and tantra. One the other hand, this very emphasis has produced many buddhas and bodhisattvas in the history of buddhism but nevertheless it seems to me that no existing system is problem free, i.e. is complete as a system.

Hindus, on the other hand, never made the forced (and artificial) split between clearness of awareness (shiva) and energetics of awareness (shakti). These two always go hand in hand. For this reason they, myself included in my days of hindu tantra, get caught up trances, bliss and exalted states of meditation. For this reason, their recognition of the natural state is entirely false and misleading, at least from the point of view of buddhism. Because hindu yogas do not point out emptiness, is the exact reason for their little success in yoga. 
 
But then, hindu tantric practices of different deities, have a very different tone compared to those of tantric buddhism. I would say that hindu deities are emotionally more mature and elaborate, in other words, for one who has the view of emptiness, hindu deities can tap deeper and faster to the ultimate attainment of full buddhahood, full rainbow body, because they tap the energetic body (sambhogakaya) more efficiently. 
 
There are some sources that say that at one point in time, during the so called mahasiddha era, before buddhist tantra grew out of hindu tantra, yoginis and yogis didn't make such a great distinction between the two, as is common nowadays. Maybe that's why there were so many mahasiddhas, fully realized female and male masters during that era.

Awakening & Psychological Growth

Awakening & Psychological Growth

From Awakening & Psychological Growth by Michael Taft,

"Waking up will not solve your psychological issues—which unfortunately is exactly what most people think it will do and are looking for. It will not automatically make you nicer, or make other people like you more. It won’t solve your depression, your obsession, or your narcissism."

In buddhism, awakening in general, is defined as familiarisation with the empty or selfless nature of mind. It is true that little familiarisation leaves much of the self-based terrain alive and this can and does lead to mistakes and problems, even scandals and traumas, unfortunately. It is little or too little familiarisation (or too little awakening) that is the problem here, not that buddhism, as a philosophy, wouldn't work or "go all the way". I am a fan of Western psychology but I do think that if taught and applied correctly, buddha dharma doesn't require support from it. Having said that, I don't recommend stubbornly sitting (sticking with one's chosen method of dharma) with one's problems if there is no indication of both awakening and psychological growth.

Buddhist methods vary and teachers' understanding of their own methods and ability to pass it on varies greatly. Even something very basic, like the meditative exercise of following of the breath or the meaning of taking refuge, can be taught very differently, which affects how the students learn and internalise it. The differences in learning can be vast depending on the method and the teacher, even if the theory is the same. Someone can be a teacher from a highly considered tradition, such as vajrayana, but be a poor practitioner and not much of a teacher, while a dedicated practitioner and skilled enough teacher from a lower vehicle can make his or her students advance and transform significantly. On the other hand, a vajrayana teacher, who is familiar with the natural state and sees into the underlying principles of practices, can make his or her students progress very fast. So, the questions of method as well as pedagogy are very important, as is the level or depth of the teacher's awakening.

To have use for dharma teachings, one has to acknowledge one's own confusion, or suffering caused by a sense of me-ness. Without this discontent one has no need or motivation for practice, and doesn't see the point of it either. On the other hand if one acknowledges one's confusion, and immaturity because of that, it feeds one's motivation to practice for one's own liberation for the sake of all beings, as it is taught in mahayana. But if you get your belly full from one or two shifts, possibly become a teacher, or a worshipped guru who has comfortable life with money and services, your growth stops there. It stops the moment you become satisfied. More importantly you only understand a fraction of what buddhism points to with emptiness or nature of mind. While anyone with one or few shifts can understand something of emptiness, only a fully awakened one, a buddha, really knows it. This leads to a whole another discussion but I'll try to stick with the topic.

The Heart Sutra states, "Form is emptiness, emptiness is form". Confused self-based (samsaric) mind is realised to be empty of self. "There is no one here! Woohoo!". Once this realisation expands to cover most of one's mind, one's training takes a different turn, that of becoming a human being again, instead of remaining as transparent, colourless and formless emptiness. The thing is that emotions don't go away or stop with realisation of emptiness but instead of them causing selfing, they become expression of the natural state. Because one has solid ground in the empty nature of mind, emotions and expressing them becomes an embodiment of one's awakening. It is OK to feel hurt, vulnerable and angry, that is the training here and really it is all part of the same training as before. In this way, one becomes healed as a human, instead of remaining a human-shaped non-human who has no self or emotions. This is, of course, if one has human traumas. Not all do but I think many attracted to dharma or spiritual teachings do, because once again you need suffer to have use for dharma.

But I think that in many cases there simply isn't enough familiarisation with the natural state, i.e. insight is insufficient, to get to the stage of emotional healing.

Hope this is useful.

- Kim

Posture of Meditation, Part 2: Standing

Posture of Meditation, Part 2:

Standing

Posture of Meditation Series:

Posture of Meditation, Part 1: Sitting

Posture of Meditation, Part 2: Standing

Posture of Meditation, Part 3: Eyes

Standing meditation

Considering that standing posture is one of the four main postures of buddhist meditation, it has not been widely practiced as main method of it's own in other buddhist countries than China. It comes as a bit of a surprise when you think of it. Why not? In China both taoists and buddhists have practiced it throughout the centuries, and still today, although often from purely secular point of view, separated from larger philosophical context which may or may not be a good thing. In China standing meditation, often in connection with inner martial arts and self-healing, is known by many different names. Here, I'll refer to it simply by ”standing meditation”.

Meditation is a multilayered practice. Considering all the things that happen in the mind space, it is comparable to juggling. A beginning juggler is able to juggle for a brief moment until due to limited skills, balls fall to the ground. To manage all the different elements of the mind, such as thoughts, ideas, emotions and energies together with sensory information of the physical body, including the possibility of becoming distracted or subconscious, is not that easy and simple.

When meditation is practiced in a standing position or positions, it is an art of it's own. It is different from sitting meditation for the obvious reason that the body is an active element of the meditation. In sitting meditation, body is also central but in this case body has a more passive role in the meditative process.

Personally I think that standing meditation can be a great help in one's meditation when one has 1. recognised open awareness and has become familiar with it, 2. when one wishes to put more emphasis on how open awareness is embodied and 3. how the abstract mind-awareness functions relate to the structure of the physical body.

Of course standing practices can be done to begin with, without nondualistic insights and without any physical preparation such as rushen, but pursuing standing meditation as a primary method from the beginning, is hindered by many problems. I don't recommend it.

Perhaps this is the reason why the yogic traditions of India or Tibet never dove deep in standing meditation, although their traditions of sitting meditation have been exemplary. Perhaps masters and yogis didn't see it that important after advancing in their sitting practice.

The view from the top of the mountain

What is essential in all forms of meditation, is to recognise knowing awareness (first gear). By knowing awareness I refer to open awareness. It is our mind without dualistic content, without the sense of separation. Please refer to many texts on awakening and purification of the mind found from this blog, if you are not familiar with what this means.

So, whatever type of meditation we are talking about, it is the recognition of knowing awareness what makes the practice a ”meditation”. Concentration practice where intention is cultivated to attend the body-space, or the movement of the breath or made to act according to a mental image, is not really meditation.

So, the principle of open awareness should be clearly understood.

Training of standing meditation

When the recognition of open awareness is effortless and common, it is possible for the practitioner to put more emphasis on the embodying aspect of meditation. This is the meeting point of the third and fourth gears of ”Four Gears of Open Awareness”.

In sitting posture, the third gear, where open awareness (related to the primary sense organ) is met with the heart-space and the whole body, can already be thoroughly studied. However, when this is applied in standing posture, it takes on a different, physically more concretical spin. The connection of awareness in relation to action (based on intention/focus) can be studied and realised in a ”fleshy” way. Mind and awareness becomes flesh and bones. It becomes concretic because our physical bodies made of physical elements, are more actively looked as a central theme of our meditation. Here the dualism between non-physical absolute, open awareness, and physical relative body evaporates. ”Form is emptiness, emptiness is form”, as the Heart sutra says.

I find that it is absolutely crucial to stick with the panorama that opens from ”the top of the mountain”, referring to the first gear, because it is that open mind space, also termed as attention, bare attention or naked awareness which puts the whole practice and the method in a context that it actually is.

Nearly all inner martial artists have deficiency regarding this essential requirement. Without the first gear, and nonduality, standing meditation cannot and does not result in thorough understanding, traditionally called as wisdom and compassion.

- Kim Katami, 26.6.2016

Open Heart,

www.openheart.fi

Loving kindness of awareness

Loving kindness of awareness

KL wrote: How does someone who had a traumatic childhood and very little concept of what love is cultivate metta? I need some hardcore heart melting pointers. Thanks!

Baba wrote:
Hello. Here's my take on this matter of metta or loving kindness. Actually, I will narrate a simple practice to accompany my point.

1. First, sit down in a good relaxed posture. Close your eyes. Take a few deeper breaths if you feel like it. Then let the breath be on it's own. Scan the inside of the physical body. Be alert to notice any tentions. As you notice tensions, allow them to be released. When a tension releases, what is found from the place of the released tension? Look carefully to find that out... What you find is open space. Good. Continue releasing other tensions by going through the whole body space. No hurry, do it carefully with time and everytime a tension is released notice that open space in the place of the former tension. As you keep doing this for a couple of minutes the small areas of open space begins to feel like one unified field of open space that is both in and out of the physical body. Check if this is so. Make notice of this and marinate in that space. Rest in that with time with some sharpness of mind so that you don't become drowsy or distracted.

2. Now. See if the open space both within and without your physical body is alive. Is it? Does it seem to be alive? Living? As you notice this aliveness of the wide open space within you, see if there is anyone there or is the "me" absent. As the point of this study is not on selfless nature of the mind, I will go on to loving kindness. So, the inner space is wide open, free, alive and there is no me found there. Check yourself. Now, see if that aliveness quality is also kind. Is it? And is it also loving? Compassionate? Personally I have found that this awake awareness has all those qualities and yet is without self. In fact, if there is self concerned with this love, kindness and compassion, it becomes artificially flavored.

So there. Based on this experiment we can understand that we don't need to cultivate loving kindness or do some spwcial tricks as it is already right there within and without us. Just relax, recognise the open space and focus on the aliveness of it, instead of it knowing itself or the stillness of it or the clarity of it. Having said all this, I have to say that doing this exercise requires some ability to relax and focus at the same time. However, it is a very direct practice based on principles without any technical or ritual factors, so it can also have significant effects. Hope this helps.

KL wrote: This really, really helped me. Somehow it made me remember that I discovered the alive nature of space when I was a child. Thank you so much for reminding me. How could I have forgotten? How could I have been practicing so long without noticing it?!?! 

Baba wrote: Yup, that's the mother of all healers. You're welcome. May your traumas be washed away completely.

- Baba Kim Katami, 
18.1.2016.

Open Heart, www.openheart.fi