Xenofact

The Gentle and The Firm

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In my readings on Taoism, I recently read through “Immortal Sisters,” one of Thomas Cleary’s early translations, this one of works by female Taoists. It’s a fascinating read of course, and it’s written by a younger, dare I say feistier Cleary with opinions on certain eras of Chinese history that I believe mitigated with time. However I wish to focus on some writings by famed Taoist Immortal Sun Bu-Er and commentary by Chen Yingning (Cleary has a knack for finding and translating not just documents, but often extensive commentary on the same).

The funny thing was the copy I had I’ve had, as of this writing, perhaps two decades or more. I’d forgotten I had it, and as I was working to expand my Taoist readings, I decided it was time. I found much excellent advice, but one piece stood out in particular.

To show how useful this advice was, let me explain the situation where it helped me.

My meditative practice, as I’ve stated before, is based on The Secret of The Golden Flower, where one rests mind on breath while one tunes breath to be slower and even. It’s a simple process, summarizable in, say, a small handbook. However as any practitioner of meditation knows, the actual experience is one that can be discussed endlessly (as many have).

Trying to rest mind on breath and tune that breath isn’t as simple as it may sound, at least for me. One is trying to tune breath, one is trying to rest mind, one is sitting still, one probably has thoughts arising and so on. In my readings of Taoist literature, I’ve found at least a notable part of the obscure symbolism is useful concepts and approaches to help meditation without spelling it out so much your expectations mess you up.

And the writings of Sun Bu-Er provides to have some extremely helpful advice. The specific section is called “Cultivating the Elixir,” and using alchemical symbolism, it states the following:

“Tuning the breath, gather it in the gold crucible.”

“Stabilizing spirit, guard the jade pass.”

Chen Yingning notes in his commentary (which, as per classic Taoism, is far longer than the things he comments on) that this is about the kind of concentration one uses. Breath requires strong concentration, resting the mind requires gentle concentration.

And, suddenly, I understood meditation more.

There I am tuning my breath – slower and more even all the time. That requires firmness, strength. Your whole body is engaged. That strength ensures a refined breath.

There I am resting my mind – and that is best done gently. We all know what it’s like to force our mind to do things – our mind wrestling with our mind is a painful thing. But when I rest my mind on breath, I can make it gentler and gentler.

It’s firm and gentle, mind and breath, yin and yang – pairings are understandably common in Taoist meditation. A little addition to my understanding of meditation thanks to a modern translator and the writers of the past. A little more for my journey down the path.

That’s a funny thing about meditative practices, about spiritual practices in general. You have to do it, you have to get your hands dirty, and you can’t get lost in scripture and notes and endless spinning thoughts. At the same time you have to read and expand your mind, never think you have the answers – or even all the questions.

It requires a kind of curiosity, a willingness to get into the readings – like a meditation. Be open to surprises.

Just like me with a copy of a book I got decades ago.

–Xenofact

Keeping That Notebook

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In my meditative and mystical practices, I’ve tried to figure the best way to keep notes. I’d keep notes, but it was a pain to review them. I’d try to type them up and of course end up with a pile of notes that I’d have to search to make any use of. I’d also feel bad about this.

At the same time having records to review is very useful. You want to look at what you experienced. You want to improve your meditative techniques. Writing it down helps out.

But then there’s the other problem of writing things down to keep records. YOu might get caught up in your records, have too many expectations, try to force experiences. Once you get notes you can review, you can end up getting obsessed with those.

As you can tell, I think about this a lot. OK, I overthink this a lot. But here’s a technique I’m currently trying that may help you out. I use this for meditative work, psychological improvement, and some mysticism.

Try this out.

ONE. Get a notebook. I like one that’s of a good size. Actually buy a few so you don’t have to run back to the store all the time. Have a pen with it at all times.

TWO. When you sit down to engage in your spiritual practices, write down the date, what you did, and any lessons learned. I “star” things I really want to remember next time I meditate. If you do several practices give them their own page.

THREE. Every time you sit down to engage in your spiritual practices, look back at your last entry, especially the “starred” entries. You might look back a few days if you need to.

FOUR. After doing this for awhile, you’ll accumulate certain “practices” for your spiritual work that help. Create a list and then every day, before practice, write it down again for that day. You may update it or tweak it as you go. You might even remove items or consolidate them.

I found this hits a sweet spot. I sit down and review past learnings. I restate best practices. I keep notes that I’ll review the next date, and maybe improve my best practices. It’s a last-time review, a helpful checklist, and a chance to reflect.

It’s also not burdensome, or overly complicated, or leads to a pile of notes I don’t know what to do with. Instead I have a regularly reviewed (and thus remembered) checklist and some useful notes. I carry forward the best and most useful of what I’ve learned, and by writing it down again and again I remember it as well as contemplate it.

As for writing down and recording more detailed guides and information I am experimenting with that. It’s still in the experimental stage, and I have some success in trying writing up a “short guide” for breath meditation and updating it now and then. But I’ve not done all the things I want to do yet, but as I persist, hopefully I will. My major challenge is the dread of sitting down and trying to write “everything” down. However just writing up this column gives me ideas, so we shall see.

But my own challenges aside, the above method is one I recommend you try. A nice daily review and best-practice list should be easy to start. Besides, I want to hear your experiences!

–Xenofact

The Loop

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I’ve been analyzing desires and obsessions lately as well as how we deal with them. I’m coming to the conclusion that some of the ways we deal with our obsessions end up fueling them. The poison isn’t the medicine, but the poison and medicine feed back into each other.

You think you’ve avoided negative thoughts by shifting to positive ones? Not necessarily.

I started coming to this conclusion two ways.

First, in my energy work, my own Quigong/Circulation methods (you know the ones I discuss carefully since such practices can backfire). Part of that practice is ensuring energies flow smoothly through the body, whether you consider these esoteric energies real or just a metaphor for awareness and relaxation. Such practices make you aware of how your body works, of when you are tense or loose, and how mind and body affection each other.

What I noticed was that, when dealing with stressful situations and ruminations, even when I turned to supposedly pleasant or virtuous thoughts, the tensions remained. In a few cases it would seem even if I’d directed my mind elsewhere, these supposedly more healthy thoughts made it worse. How could I get more tense despite having less negative thoughts?

In terms of Energy Work, it was like I’d have a loop of energy running around in my brain, powering negative thoughts – obsessions, fears, etc. But when I cultivated supposedly positive thoughts, it’d be just another loop. I’d play over something supposedly benevolent over and over, but I was still stuck in a loop.

(This is why, as I have noted, anatomical spiritual models are useful to rethink ourselves).

Secondly, as I noticed these tensions and such, I was analyzing the way my mind worked, supported by my breath meditation. Classic mind-on-breath/breath-on-mind meditations are important, as I’ve held forth on, but one useful side effect is awareness. Now I’m not saying you want to sit down to meditate with that as your goal (in fact, seeking is a barrier to meditation) but hey, enjoy the scenery on the trip

One thing I had noticed in meditation was how loops in my thoughts would work. It was easy to notice a bad habit, but also easy to try to replace it with a good habit. However, when you did that, you’d end up just leaping from habit to habit. Good or bad, obsessions are obsessions and habits can be for good or ill.

I also noticed that I could bounce between one or the other. Either way you got into a habit of looking to have a habit. Trying to get out of a negative obsession with a positive one was still an obsession. In a way you were creating a rut in your mind, and no matter what was in that rut, you would still be in a rut.

No matter the model I used it was pretty apparent – you can get into various negative psychological loops, and you could replace them with positive ones, but were still in a Loop. The two played off of each other.

That was quite a revelation as I had often found ways to cultivate positive habits and they were easy to use to replace negative ones. But the negative ones kept coming back. I had in short, worn a rut in my mind (or my energy channels) that was still there no matter what filled it.

Since that understanding, it’s helped me deal with emotional loops. I can recognize them and I have a metaphor (multiple metaphors) to understand them. I can cultivate habits to step out of the loops and just relax more in general. It’s also a reminder that it’s easy to think you have solved a problem, but are reinforcing part of it.

An emotional loop is a loop no matter how good it feels or what problem you think it solved. I’m also glad to everyone whose work and writing has helped me in meditative practices, they’re why I can see it.

–Xenofact