Emptiness Archives - Mindful Happiness

September 12, 2017 By Admin

Consciousness, Emptiness, and Well Being

This is an advanced post on the complex relationship among consciousness (awareness), emptiness, and well being. Readers with advanced understanding of Buddhist Psychology will recognize the inherent relationships among consciousness, emptiness, and well being and interactions with core Buddhist concepts and experiences such as happiness and suffering, impermanence, non-dual nature, dependent origination, and emptiness of all phenomena related to the former. It is the total integration of these concepts, processes, and experiences that guide us on our personal path to enlightenment or nirvana. If we achieve wise-mind skills and meaningful regular meditation/yoga practice – as well as keep the above information in mind – we will also achieve mind and body wellness to the highest possible levels.

In an advanced contribution to our understanding of consciousness, , R. Spira (2017). The Nature of Consciousness opens up many doors of awareness to just what consciousness is and what it is not. Spira reminds us that only consciousness is aware of consciousness, and that WE are the only conscious entities that are aware of experiencing it. Unlike the epiphenomena of the universe, in which we become aware of the seamless, unified wholeness of it all, the space between the subjective (our mind – the I/Me/Mine)) and the objective (something outside or inside that you become aware of) eventually leads us to an error in perception: That we are separate, substantial, solid individuals experiencing separate, substantial, solid things in the world. We believe the objects and experiences we are aware of are solid, full, real forms of form in a very temporary time-space continuum. However, our consciousness and awareness are transparent, empty, and formless; thus, our mind-body of experience making sensory contact with objects – and registering as pleasant, unpleasant or neutral – is also transparent, empty, and formless. It is simply just how the mind and body function. Consciousness has no set of values or valences; it is simply a state of neutral awareness.

Leading physicists (Einstein, Planck, Bohr, and Schrodinger to name a few) have for a very long time noted that observation effects the observed; that is that subjective (mind) investigation of objects of matter do change the objects of matter. We can only observe the wave energy or the particle at one time but not both. As we observe subjectively, the object of observation undergoes some form of change. Perhaps this is the barely noticed effect of the very subtle energy in observation impacting the observed. So our consciousness is the only absolute reality of all things that appear to exist. The momentary sensory contact with objects and experiences produces that which consciousness is aware of. So, with these somewhat heavy viewpoints from Buddhist Psychology, we will examine upclose the meditative experience of being conscious of pure emptiness. Personal awareness of your consciousness is a neutral continuum of constancy, but sensory contact with objects and experiences leading to pleasant, neutral, or unpleasant feelings is a limited time-space phenomenon in the present moment.

As you meditate, apply complete attention, awareness, and deep consciousness on the following statements about your possible meditative experience here now. This is difficult; do your best.

Consider the reality of physical, empty, transparent space between your mind and the object of interest.
This inter subject-object space is invisible, but your consciousness knows it is there (close or far).
We can experience timeless-space and spaceless-time.
Since the essential nature of mind is awareness (pure and empty consciousness), our space-time and time-space consciousness is borderless and boundless.
In the experience of conscious emptiness there is no up, down, right, left, outside or inside – there is no solid object entity, just atomic space and surrounding space.
The human mind is the action of pure consciousness/awareness via sensory contact with objects.
Our awareness of being conscious of our consciousness means that is the only true entity of the self.
It is the I/Me/Mine of the ego that registers consciousness of something, anything.
Consciousness of ultimate emptiness is the highest understanding possible in human life as well as in physics.

For more details refer to Spira, R. (2017). The Nature of Consciousness: Essays on the Unity of Mind and Matter. Oxford, UK: Sahara Publications, pp. 3, 19-33.

Anthony R. Quintiliani, PhD., LADC

From the Eleanor R. Liebman Center for Secular Meditation in Monkton, Vermont

Author of Mindful Happiness

New Edition of Mindful Happiness in Production…Coming soon!

July 15, 2017 By Admin

Advanced Buddhist Practices – Abiding in Emptiness Anthony R. Quintiliani, Ph.D., LADC

Advanced Buddhist Practices

Abiding in Emptiness

The various impediments (enemies) to abiding in emptiness are noted below.

We have strong attachment to objects of mind and our sense door pleasures.
We experience strong desire and cravings as our norms.
We over-attach to forms of affection.
We may become stuck in grief related to our experienced suffering.
We may get stuck in our self-centered desires, wants, needs, cravings, clinging – the I/Me/Mine syndrome of misery.
We may act with disinterest of the needs of others – greed!
In severe cases, we may have a total absence of caring about others.
We get stuck in samsaric conditioning for pleasure only over boredom and suffering.
We are captured by the effects of the five aggregates (form, feelings, perceptions, formations, and consciousness) even if they are impermanent and unsatisfactory.
We may wonder why we feel so unfulfilled no matter what we have in life.

The various processes that support abiding in emptiness are noted below.

We live with loving kindness and compassion for others.
We do cherish life – all life.
We have deep appreciation for authentic joy, knowing it is impermanent in nature.
We practice strong gratitude for what we do have now, not what we want.
We have learned to remain in the present moment of experience, where our personal power resides.
Our depth of meditation has reached a point where we experience inner peace and inner stillness.
Our mind becomes still, no longer seeking, desiring, craving.
We embark on non-doing for the sake of more non-desiring.
We act with generosity in the interest of others.
We escape the grasp of clinging and grasping by eventually relinquishing desire and craving – the passions to satisfy the self.
Through the Four Nobel Truths, The Eight Fold Path, regular meditation practice, and walking the talk of the Path we become Enlightened.
We no longer seek sense-gate satisfaction, pleasure conditioning, fear of suffering – we have arrived!

For more information refer to Armstrong, G. (2017). Emptiness: A Practical Guide for Meditators. Somerville, MA: Wisdom Publications, pp.159-171.

Anthony R. Quintiliani, PhD., LADC

From the Eleanor R. Liebman Center for Secular Meditation in Monkton, Vermont

Author of Mindful Happiness

New Edition of Mindful Happiness in Production…Coming soon!

June 14, 2017 By Admin

Breathing Practices and Emptiness

Here I will introduce you to five breathing practices, each one moving progressively closer and closer to emptiness/no-self experiences. Do your best to remain open in these practices.

Notice the feel of your posture. Once comfortable notice your breath as it is. Relax and close your eyes if ok. Rest your hands in your lap, on your thighs, or in a mudra. Feel your body sensations as you breathe in and out at your own pace. Just notice the normal breath in the inner quietude. Now slowly deepen and extend your in (arising) and out (falling) breaths. Notice.
Within the same breathing experience, now bring stronger attention to the inner feel of your body sensations. Allow the sensations to root your present-moment emotional experiences. Notice what the quality of these emotional experiences are. With each breath go a bit deeper into the awareness of the emotional experiences. As you become more keenly aware of your emotional experiences, notice which of the sense-doors are more active. Are emotions based on the past, future. or the present moment? Notice the arising and falling away of experience.
Now focus on the objects of your mind. Be in choiceless awareness as you simply allow to come into your awareness what ever comes into your awareness. Try not to either desire/cling or avoid what you are experiencing at this time. Let’s move to the five aggregates of experience. Notice material form that you become aware of. Notice your feeling tone. Notice your perceptual experiences as you meditate on breath. Notice the differences between volitional and automatic mental formations – thoughts, etc. Pay attention to the culmination of personal consciousness through these experiences. Continue to meditate on your breath. Perhaps, you will be aware of making contact with objects of consciousness as they occur. Perhaps not.
As you continue to meditate on your breath, become more aware of the four-links in dependent origination. Nothing arises of itself; everything that arises (and falls) depends upon causes and conditions that allow the arising and the falling. This is dependent origination and impermanence. First notice making sensory contact (in Buddhism this includes thoughts about it) with objects of attention. Then notice how automatically you mind creates a positive or negative (sometimes neutral) evaluation of the contact experience. Next this leads to craving/clinging or avoiding the experiences. When we try to avoid negatives, we suffer; when we try to hold on to positives, we suffer. Contemplate these realities as you meditate on your breath.
Now we move to impermanence, hints of so-self, and ultimate realities in experiences. Focus strong attention on the exact point of arising into consciousness of objects, contact with them, and emotional experiences. Do the same with the falling away of these “realities.” Bring strong conscious awareness to your breath, continue to meditate on it. Notice the arising of thoughts about experiences, and note the falling away of thoughts about experiences. Who/what is experiencing these experiences? Are they self, not-self, or no-self. Confused? Just meditate now.
Now just sit quietly, calmly and contemplate what you may have learned from these linked breathing meditations. Any new or clarified insights?

For more information refer to Armstrong, G. (2017). Emptiness: A Practical Guide for Meditators. Somerville, Mass: Wisdom Publications, pp. 13-98.

Anthony R. Quintiliani, PhD., LADC

From the Eleanor R. Liebman Center for Secular Meditation in Monkton, Vermont

Author of Mindful Happiness

New Edition of Mindful Happiness in Production…Coming soon!

March 10, 2015 By Admin

Meditations on Emptiness

An Advanced View on Meditations on Emptiness

An earlier post on the Dalai Lama’s book, Meditations on the Nature of Mind, ended with suggested meditations (my own personal contemplation’s) about emptiness. I will first review those contemplations. Contemplate deeply on what emptiness means personally to you. Contemplate about a time when you received a glimpse of personal emptiness. Contemplate on your experience to see if it was positive, neutral, of negative (happiness, neutral or suffering). Why do you think you experienced it the way you did? Contemplate on ways you may be able to use the experience of emptiness to reduce personal suffering and increase personal happiness. Please do these four contemplations one after the other before you attempt to contemplate of what follows here. I created these suggested contemplations after my own long meditation practices on emptiness. Keep in mind that Lord Marpa noted a very long time ago that only fools think emptiness is the same as nihilism. It is not nihilism. Also remember that when your mind shifts away from the object of your contemplation (emptiness) gently return attention back to the object, AND each time try to go deeper into concentration on your contemplation.

What follows here is a compilation of various insights about meditation on The Middle Way and on emptiness. Some come from The Dalai Lama; some come from T’song-kha-pa; some come from Nargarjuna; some come from Chandrakirti; and, some very far less exquisite ideas come from me. My effort here is to make the wisdom of the wisdom leaders more pragmatic and practical for us today, in our world as it is now. A key concept in the process of becoming enlightened is that we do it more for the sake of others. Thus, the bodhisattva/bodhichitta compassionate action ideals are seriously pursued. Our practice is based on the desired unification of two important bodies: Dharma and Form. The Dharma refers to the body of emptiness and other ultimate realities, and the form refers to the body of Buddha. Pursuit of Buddhist Dharma and the experience of emptiness connect us to the pure path of liberation. Wisdom about no-self, impermanence, dependent origination, karma, causes and effects, interconnectedness, conventional vs ultimate truth, and ultimate emptiness of intrinsic existence of all phenomena – all lead the way to liberation and enlightenment. They all lead us from conceptual knowing to experiential knowing, and from the Samara world of conditioned sense pleasures and suffering to wisdom. In many respects to practice a wisdom-informed life IS to move along the path, The Middle Way to complete realization. In the final analysis of emptiness, there lies a clear implication that there is no such reality as an object becoming established on its own. Therefore, there can be no-self nature, thus no-self. What appears to be concrete in nature is actually made up of totally dependent arisings. One may experience a contradiction here; if we are the Buddha already, does it matter if it is just emptiness? The answer to this inquiry is far more complex than it sounds. Only our thoughts and our minds perceive the concrete self-phenomena as existing in and of their own. The correct view of it all suggests that there is no thought or cognition about Dharma (even if we study it); it is more about post-perceptual experiences and understanding via pure wisdom experiences. T’song-kha-pa noted that in the “profound Middle Way” there is NO independent, intrinsic, concrete self or things. It is pure wisdom of experiential awareness.

Now on to the contemplation practices.

Again, I am creating these on my own as means to experience some glimpse of emptiness in meditation.

1) Contemplate about your own compassionate actions for the benefit of others. When you feel/experience being deep enough into contemplation, add the experience of emptiness to this process. Be mindfully aware of what happens in the experience?
2) Contemplate deeply in the ultimate wisdom that there is no intrinsic existence in any phenomena, including your own contemplation right now. What happens in your experience?
3) Contemplate deeply about how your own life is conditioned via sense pleasures and avoiding suffering. Go even deeper, and contemplate the factors of non-existence (emptiness) in this process. What happens to your experience at this point?
4) Contemplate deeply on the experience of experiential awareness now. Continue until you are experiencing just experiencing without conceptual or cognitive awareness. Now what happens to your experience?
5) Lastly, contemplate deeply on what experiential insights may have been found via your four experiential contemplations. Shift gently to cognition now, and note what the insights are.

Now take a few deep, slow, calm breaths and bring your experiential self back into awareness. Be aware! Move your body slightly before you attempt to stand up. Think about what you might wish to share with others.

For more information refer to The Dalai Lama (Tenzin Gyatso). (2009). The Middle Way: Faith Grounded in Reason. Boston: Wisdom Publications, pp. 119-147. Also refer to The Dalai Lama (Tenzin Gyatso and others). (2011). Meditation on the Nature of Mind. Boston: Wisdom Publications, pp. 126-139.

By Anthony R. Quintiliani, PhD., LADC

From the Eleanor R. Liebman Center for Secular Meditation in Monkton, Vermont

Author of Mindful Happiness

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