Tag: how it works

Headless, so what? How the headless experiments work (in my experience)

moe 2 Comments

I love the Headless Way and the headless experiments.

The Headless Way is simple, egalitarian, to the point, easily accessible, and aligned with what mystics throughout time and across traditions have talked about.

THE HEADLESS WAY & DOUGLAS HARDING

It was developed in the mid-1900s by Douglas Harding, and he continued to develop experiments, write books, and share what he had found with friends until his death in 2007.

I was introduced to it by a fellow Breema student in Oregon a few years earlier and immediately fell in love with the approach. He clearly got it, talked about it in a beautifully simple way, had simple experiments to help clarify it, and the organization is egalitarian and essentially non-hierarchical.

The best way to get started may be through their website and Harding’s book On Having No Head: Zen and the Rediscovery of the Obvious.

HAVING NO HEAD

The main pointer is right in the title: We are headless. In our own first-person experience, we don’t have a head. We cannot see our own head.

I assume that may seem odd to many: So what if I can’t see my own head? I know it’s still here. I know I am this human self.

That’s because this is all about what we can discover and explore for ourselves. That’s where the magic is and that’s where it begins to make sense.

THE POINTING EXPERIMENT

The main experiment is quite simple:

Point at things where you are. Notice the shape, texture, color, and so on. Notice they are objects in space. Point to your legs, belly, and chest and notice they too are objects in space. Then point back to where you are looking out from. What do you find there?

And if we want to be more leading: Do you find a head? Or do you find you are space for the world?

WHAT I FIND

What I find is that in my own immediate first-person experience, I have no head. I can’t see my head. Where others see a head, I find a pink blob, sensations, and awake space it’s all happening within and as. My whole world happens within and as this awake space.

How is it to notice this? How is it to keep noticing it? How is it for this human self to live within and from this noticing?

HOW IT SEEMS TO WORK

It’s all about the noticing, of course. No explanation is really needed. But it can be interesting and helpful.

Here is a brief explanation of how it seems to work:

We are trained to think we most fundamentally are this human self. It’s not wrong that we are his human self. It’s here with us as content of our experience quite often, apart from in some dreams and occasionally other states and experiences. It’s what others take us to be. It’s what our passport tells us we are. It’s an assumption that works relatively well in a practical sense.

We may also have ideas of “having” a soul or consciousness, as some kind of appendix. We may even have ideas of being that or something similar.

Let’s set all of that aside. This is about our own first-person experience. What am I to myself, in my own first-person experience?

When I look here, where others see a head, I find a pink blob (what others may call my nose), I find sensations (roughly where others see a head), and nothing else really in terms of the content of experience.

I also find awake space. The pink blob, the sensations, and everything else including the wider world, happens within and as awake space.

Am I more fundamentally this awake space? Noticing there is no head here and noticing the awake space it’s all happening within and as helps me find that. I rest in and as that noticing. I rest in noticing myself as this awake space my world – the whole world to me – happens within and as.

To myself, I am not fundamentally anything within this world. I am not fundamentally this human self. I am not fundamentally a doer or observer. The world, and this human self, happen on its own. It all lives its own life. It all comes and goes. It’s all in apparently inevitable change.

I also notice other aspects of this.

What I am – this awake space – seems to form itself into the experience and forms of this human self and the wider world. It forms itself into what appears in (what a thought may divide into and call) the sense fields.

I notice that the world to me is like a dream. It has a dreamlike nature. It happens within and as the awake space I am, just like night dreams and any state and experience.

I also find that there is something even more fundamental in my nature, and that is capacity. I am even more fundamentally capacity for it all – the awake space and all it forms itself into.

A FEW OTHER HEADLESS EXPERIMENTS

There are other headless experiments to help us notice this, to bring our nature more into the foreground in noticing, and to help explore different aspects of our nature.

One I find powerful is making a face-sized hole in a sheet of paper. Notice what you see through the hole – notice them as objects with shape, color, texture, and so on. Then notice the opening itself, notice it as a clear and open space, a space full of the objects on the other side. Then move the paper closer to where you are looking from, and notice how you become that wide open space full of the world.

For instance, I can take a ruler and measure something. I find there is a specific distance between any two objects. If I turn the ruler 90 degrees so the two ends align and measure the distance between something and where I am, I find there is no distance. Everything happens within and as the awake space I am.

I can also notice that when this human self moves within a landscape, for instance in a car, the landscape moves through me. This human self moves within the landscape, and the landscape moves through me. When this human self moves within a room, the room moves within me.

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Waking up issues, parts, and subpersonalities

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I enjoy using the befriend & awaken process these days, as I have written about in other articles. (It’s a process that draws on elements from a range of approaches, others have come up with similar processes, this one is one I have developed for myself since it seems to work the best for me, and I don’t think anyone else calls it “befriend & awaken”.)

One of the last steps in that process is to awaken issues or parts and subpersonalities.

What does it mean to awaken issues? Or awaken parts and subpersonalities?

THE PROCESS

When I do this part of the process, I go through a few steps.

I connect with the issue or subpersonality through the previous steps, feel the sensation aspect of it, connect with the painful story behind it, and so on.

I notice my own nature and that I am capacity for the world as it appears to me, and that the world as it appears to me happens within and as what I am. (I find myself as what a thought may call consciousness, and that the world to me happens within and as consciousness.)

I notice that the nature of the issue or part is the same as mine. It happens within and as what I am, so it – by necessity – has the same nature as me.

I rest in that noticing.

I invite the issue or part to recognize its own nature and rest in that noticing.

I invite whatever shifts to shift, to reorganize within this conscious noticing of what’s already here.

HOW DOES IT WORK?

How does this work? What is it that happens?

As mentioned, this is all already happening within and as what I am. Any issue, part, and subpersonality – and any content of experience – already happens within and as what I am. It already has the same nature as I do.

When they were formed, they were typically formed within separation consciousness. They were formed when the whole of me, or most of what I am, operated from separation consciousness. And they still function and operate within separation consciousness. That’s why they are issues. That’s why they seek some form of resolution.

By consciously noticing their nature, and resting in and as that noticing, I – as a whole – recognize their nature. This shifts how I relate to them. I recognize them as myself. I recognize them as having the same nature as I do. This is part of the befriending. This helps me shift out of reactivity and reacting to them from habitual patterns, which also come from separation consciousness.

I then invite these parts of me to notice their own nature and rest in that noticing. This shifts how this part of consciousness relates to itself. It wakes up to its own nature. It wakes up to itself having taken the form of the issue or the part and subpersonality. And that sets something in motion. The part tends to reorganize and align with a more conscious noticing of itself as oneness. (AKA healing.)

On the one hand, it all happens here and now, and any ideas of past, future and present happen here and now. And on the other hand, this is a process. The more time I spend resting in this noticing, and resting in inviting these parts of me to notice their nature, the more there is a realignment.

Exactly what happens is always a bit of a surprise. It lives its own life. I – as the whole – just notice it shift, unravel, and realign.

And, as so often, the way this is presented makes it sound like a clean and orderly process. It’s often not. It’s often messy. These parts of us are tied up in knots, and the unknotting process isn’t always so tidy or clean.

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How it works: Pray for your enemies / Love your enemies

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But to those of you who will listen, I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.

– Luke 6:27-28, The New Testament

But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven.

– Matthew 5: 44-45, The New Testament

Then Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.”

– Luke 23:34, The New Testament

If your enemy is hungry, give him food to eat, and if he is thirsty, give him water to drink.

– Proverbs 25:21, The Bible

A RADICAL POINTER

Pray for your enemies. Love your enemies.

This is a radical pointer in many ways. It goes against what culture and society often teaches us.

And I also find it’s profoundly transforming as I explore it and apply it to my life.

IT REQUIRES HEALTHY BOUNDARIES

One of the things our culture teaches us is that we should avoid or punish our enemies, and that kindness can hurt us. That is true if we mistake kindness and love with having poor boundaries.

One of the upsides of exploring to forgive and love our enemies is that it requires us to have healthy boundaries.

We can love our “enemies” and still be good stewards of our own life, have healthy boundaries, prevent harm to others, hold people accountable for their actions, and so on.

I’ll get back to these fears later.

WHO OR WHAT IS MY ENEMY?

Who or what is my enemy?

The obvious example is another human being or a being of some kind.

And it goes beyond this. I find that just about anything can be made into an enemy in my mind. I can secretly, or not so secretly, hold any situation or part of myself or my experience as an enemy.

WHERE DO I START?

Where do I start in this process?

The simplest is to find understanding for them. What in their background explains their views, feelings, and behavior? Often, hurt people hurt people.

The more I find myself in them, and them in myself, the more I see that we are in the same boat.

I can take any statement I have about them, turn it around to be about myself, and find specific and genuine examples of how and when it’s true. It won’t look the same, but the essence will be the same. This is a sobering exploration and it gives understanding and a sense of being in the same boat.

This also goes for parts of me. If they are reactive or compulsive, it’s because they are like scared or hurt animals or children. They are confused. I also find that they are here for me. They want to protect me, even if the way they sometimes go about it can create trouble. They come from confused love.

HOW DO I PRAY FOR MY ENEMIES?

How do I pray for my enemies?

The simplest and most direct is a prayer of well wishing, to pray for all the best for them. This especially applies to living beings my mind holds as an enemy.

I also find that a more structured approach can be helpful. It offers additional guidance and support for my attention.

I especially like ho’oponopono and tonglen, and there are also similar approaches like Metta from Buddhism. These work equally well for external enemies as with myself as a whole and parts of me.

EXPLORING MY OWN ENEMY IMAGES

I also identify and explore the parts of me holding something as an enemy. Often through dialog, inquiry, or a befriending process.

For instance, I can use Voice Dialog or the Big Mind process. I can explore it with The Work of Byron Katie or the Kiloby Inquiries (sense field explorations). I can notice and allow, telling it that it can stay for as long as it wants, thank it for protecting me, and thank it for its love for me.

I have written about this in other articles so won’t go into details here.

NOTICE WHAT IT BRINGS UP IN ME

Engaging in these explorations sometimes brings up fears, beliefs, and contractions in me.

I get to see what in me is not onboard with wishing the best for my perceived enemy.

And I can then get to know these, including through the same approaches as I mentioned above: dialog, inquiry, or a heart-centered practice like ho’o or tonglen.

I can help these contractions in me to relax, feel met and understood, and maybe align with what’s more true.

IT HEALS MY RELATIONSHIPS

Why would I pray for my enemy? Why would I find love for them?

In general, it helps society function better. The more we can find genuine understanding and well-wishing for others, while maintaining or developing healthy boundaries, the better society tends to function.

I also find that it heals my relationship with others and the world. Finding genuine love, compassion, and well-wishing for others, and finding more peace with challenging situations, helps me heal my relationship with others and the world.

It heals my relationship with myself and my experiences. How I relate to others and the world is how I relate to parts of myself and my experience. The more I heal my relationship with the world, the more I heal my relationship with myself.

Ultimately, this process helps me align more with reality.

AN EXPERIMENT

All of this is something to try out for ourselves.

What happens? What does it bring up in me? How does it change over time?

A NOTE AUGUST 2026

It’s August 2026 and I happened upon this among the many articles that are more or less complete and still unpublished. I have five thousand articles as drafts. I did a bit of cleanup before publishing it, and I see I would have organized and written it differently now.

I also had an interesting experience in being on the receiving end of these pointers. I see that they are for me now. What I wrote five years ago is for me in this moment. I had gone into some enemy images last night, and now get to explore and apply what I write about here!

I am taking some time to find understanding for someone in my life. (He is trying to do his best, and is a little clunky in doing it.) Wish the best for him, and find where it’s genuine. And also notice that the contraction in me comes from fear, a wish to protect me, and love for me. I may do tonglen later.

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Befriending and awakening contractions: How it works

moe Leave a comment

I am enjoying the befriend & awaken process these days.

It’s simple. Direct. Intimate. And supports healing, awakening, and embodiment.

I have written about this before, directly and indirectly, and thought I would revisit the topic here.

How does the befriend and awaken process work?

WHAT IS A CONTRACTION?

A contraction typically has several aspects. The mind aspect can be labeled a stressful and unexamined belief, an emotional issue, trauma, an unloved part of us, and so on. The physical component is a bodily contraction or tension. And this is reflected in blocks in our energy system as well.

BEFRIENDING A CONTRACTION

The process can be as simple or complex as I wish – depending on what seems needed.

I notice the signs of a contraction. The signs of a contraction may be stress, tension, unease, discomfort, struggle, defensiveness, reactivity, and so on.

I bring attention to the physical sensations. This helps ground the attention, and it serves as an anchor so it’s easier to notice the fearful images and words without getting caught up in them. If I notice my attention wandering, or getting caught in stressful images and words, I can bring attention back to the physical sensations of the contraction. (These may and usually will shift over time.)

I thank the contraction for protecting me. Thank you for protecting me. When I have a contraction, I may not be aware that it’s here to protect me. It was formed to protect this human self and an apparent separate self. Also, I may not be very thankful for the contraction. I may see it as a problem.

Thanking it makes me more receptive to seeing if or that it’s here to protect me. Over time, as I befriend and get to know the contraction, I may find genuine gratitude for the contraction. This easier my relationship with it. I find more peace with it. I shift out of my previous struggle with it.

Also, noticing it as a contraction, noticing the physical components of it, and thanking it, helps me see it as an object. It’s a part of my experience here and now. It’s not all of what I am. It’s an object, not a subject. This helps recognize it if or when it comes up later, and it helps release identification with it.

I keep thanking it until I notice a significant shift in how I relate to the contraction, and I can return to the thanking at any point within a session or at a later time. The more I do it, with sincerity, the more shifts tend to happen.

I allow it to get as big as it wants and stay for as long as it wants. Again, I am often in a struggle with the contraction, and this struggle can be more or less conscious. I may try to contain it. I may try to make it go away. And this struggle is part of what keeps the contraction here, and the struggle dynamic is itself uncomfortable. By intentionally allowing it to get as big as it wants and stay for as long as it wants, I go against this old pattern in me. It helps me recognize the old pattern, and that something else is possible. It also helps the contraction itself to unwind and relax.

I notice the space it’s happening within. I cannot find an end to this space. I notice the space and the contraction at the same time. (I may also notice that the contraction has space within it, and perhaps that it is space.) Noticing it as something happening within (and as) infinite space helps “giving it” more space. It helps in recognizing it as an object and disidentifying with it.

I welcome it. At any point in the process, I may intentionally welcome the contraction. Parts of me typically see the contraction as a problem, and it’s not always welcome. When I intentionally welcome it, it goes against this tendency, shows me there is another way, helps me recognize that parts of me do not welcome it, and helps the contraction itself to relax.

I say I love you to the contraction. The more I see it’s here to protect me and comes from love, the easier it is to find genuine love for it. Love is the antidote to the previous struggle with the contraction.

I explore what it wants and needs, and the lack it is coming from. What do you want and need? What sense of lack do you come from? How is it to give it what it needs and wants? How is it to give it what it perceives it lacks? Here, I may explore a few universal needs and lacks.

Typically, I may try to fulfill the needs and wants through the world – people, situations, roles, labels, and so on. That works to some extent, but it doesn’t really work. It never fills the real and deeper needs, wants, and sense of lack.

The only one who can resolve this deeply, and give the contraction what it really needs and wants, is me. I am the only one in the position to do it. I am the only one who can get intimate enough with it since it’s part of me. I am the only one who can touch it.

If external pieces fall into place, I sometimes allow myself to give to the contraction what it needs and wants. I may give it love, safety, support, and so on. This gives temporary relief, but as soon as my external situation changes my relationship to these contractions may change. I may cut off my own love, support, and so on.

So why not do it directly? Why not, as Byron Katie says, cut out the middleman? Why not give to the contraction what it needs without waiting for external situations to change?

I may notice stressful beliefs and examine them. Contractions are created from stressful and unexamined beliefs, so one remedy is to notice these stories and examine them. I may do this informally as part of this process, or I write them down and examine them more thoroughly later. (For instance, using The Work of Byron Katie.)

GENERAL ORIENTATIONS

I approach the contraction with respect. This helps me allow it as it is, welcome it, find curiosity about it, and so on.

I find curiosity about the contraction. Curiosity is part of the whole befriending and awakening process. As long as I react to or act on the contraction, there isn’t much curiosity about it. Intentionally finding curiosity about it shifts my relationship to it. It helps me recognize it as an object, and it helps me explore and get to know it.

I take my time. I stay with and rest with each of these steps. I notice shifts. I notice what else may be needed. I return to some to see what happens. I may return to the whole process at another time.

This is an antidote to the typical quickness of reacting to or acting on the contraction, and the tendency to wish to not stay with it since it may seem uncomfortable and unfamiliar.

Through this process, I may find genuine love for the contraction. I see it’s here to protect me. It comes from love. And this makes it easier for me to find genuine love for it.

I allow this process to transform me. I allow the noticing and resting in the noticing to transform whatever is naturally transformed.

NOTICING THE NATURE OF THE CONTRACTION

After this, I may explore the nature of the contraction.

First, I notice my own nature. I find myself as capacity for the world as it appears to me. I find myself as capacity for any content of experience, whether a thought may label it body, thoughts, emotions, the wider world, and so on. I notice I am what the content of my experience happens within and as. (If I need the help of some structured pointers, I can use Headless Experiments or the Big Mind process, or whatever else works.)

I notice how the contraction relates to what I am. I am capacity for it. It happens within and as what I am. I rest with this noticing.

I notice the contraction is, in a sense, capacity for itself. I invite the contraction to notice its own nature and rest in that noticing and allow whatever needs to shift to shift.

Typically, I may see the contraction as an object and a thing. This noticing process helps me recognize its nature, and it invites it to notice its own nature. It’s easier the more familiar I am with noticing my own nature, and it’s much more simple and direct than it may seem from these words.

This noticing helps shift how I relate to the contraction. I notice its nature. It’s part of the field noticing itself. (There is no I or Other inherent in any of it.)

THE BENEFITS OF NAMING IT CONTRACTION

There are several benefits to calling it a contraction rather than some of the other possible labels. (Issue, belief, trauma, etc.)

It’s simple.

It points to something immediate in our experience.

It’s free of the many associations the other labels may have for us.

It doesn’t require or rest on any particular worldview or ideology.

The process itself supports psychological healing, awakening, and living from this awakening, without needing to use any of those words.

SUPPORTS HEALING, AWAKENING, AND EMBODIMENT

This process supports and invites in healing, awakening, and living from the awakening. And it does so without us having to use any of those words or even having that intention or aim.

All that’s required is a wish to notice and befriend contractions, notice its nature, and rest in that noticing and allowing it to transform me.

Emotional issues come from a stressful belief, identification with painful and unexamined stories, unloved parts of us, and so on.

If there is no noticing of what I am, it comes from holding stories as true, which in turn creates a sense of I and Other and fundamental separation.

If I don’t live from noticing what I am, it’s because I get caught up in unresolved emotional issues, beliefs, trauma, and so on.

And this process supports healing of all of that.

SHIFT FROM SEPARATION CONSCIOUSNESS TO ONENESS

The essence of this process is a shift in how I relate to the contraction.

When I operate from separation consciousness, I identify with the contraction (act on it) or react to it or both, and this creates struggle.

The befriending & waking up process helps shift out of this old pattern and into one that’s more aligned with oneness. It mimicks how I would relate to the contraction from noticing oneness, and it makes it easier to notice the oneness of it all.

ESSENTIAL AND INTIMATE PROCESS

For me, this is a very intimate process, and it goes to essence a wide range of spiritual practices.

When I look at the essence of other spiritual or healing practices, I find it’s typically something included in this befriending & waking up process.

It’s often about finding love for our experience. Examine stressful beliefs. Welcome what’s here. Notice what we are and the nature of our experiences. And so on.

And that’s what this process does in a simple, direct, and intimate way.

It doesn’t mean the other practices are not helpful. It just means that I have a simple and direct way of exploring it, and I can supplement it with any number of other practices.

Note: As I have mentioned in other posts, I have relatively strong brain fog these days (CFS) so these articles are often not as clear or well organized as I would have liked. A part of me wants to rewrite this to make it more clear and to the point, and another part of me knows that’s likely not to happen. So I decided to publish this version instead, with all its warts and imperfections. As someone said, the perfect is the enemy of the good. Or, in this case, the good-enough.

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How it works: Basic meditation

moe Leave a comment

I have an informal series of articles called “how it works”. These are my own experiences with different practices.

So what about basic meditation? How does basic meditation work?

THE ESSENCE

The essence of basic meditation is to notice and allow what’s here in our experience.

We notice. Allow. Notice the space it all happens within. And so on.

When attention gets caught up in the content of thoughts, we may – through grace – notice and go back to noticing and allowing. We again notice the thoughts as thoughts.

NOTICE IT’S ALREADY ALLOWED AND NOTICED

After a while, we may notice that what’s here in our experience is already allowed. It’s already here. It’s allowed by life, the mind, and the space it happens within.

We may also notice that it is, in a sense, already noticed since it’s already happening within consciousness.

If we assume we notice and allow, we are one step behind. So we can instead notice it’s all already allowed and noticed. We notice what’s already here.

INSIGHTS INTO THE DYNAMICS OF THE MIND

Noticing and allowing can give us innumerable insights into the dynamics of the mind.

For instance, we may find that the essence of this practice is, in a sense, to notice thoughts instead of getting caught in the content of thought. That’s what allows the magic to happen.

We may notice that when we get distracted, we get distracted by the content of a thought. Our attention gets fascinated by and goes into the stories the thoughts tell us. Our attention gets drawn to it because the stories seem real and important one way or another. And that happens when they have a charge for us.

During this practice, we may notice that our attention is distracted and we bring our attention back to noticing and allowing. This is grace. We didn’t make this happened. It just happened.

We may find that noticing and allowing is ultimately what’s most comfortable, even if our impulse is to get caught up in what’s surfacing. We can notice and allow even those impulses.

We may notice that as we get more used to noticing and allowing, it gradually becomes a new habit. It becomes easier. Our mind deepens a new groove. We can train our mind. Life trains itself.

TRAINING A MORE STABLE ATTENTION

We can train a more stable attention by placing our attention on anything, notice when our attention gets distracted, and then bringing attention back to the object. In Buddhism, this object is often the sensations of the breath in the nose.

Most (all?) spiritual practices involve some discipline and will inherently train a more stable attention, and basic meditation is no exception.

When it comes to basic meditation, this doesn’t come from placing attention on something specific. But it comes from the discipline inherent in noticing what’s here in our experience rather than having our attention to get caught up in the content of thoughts.

NOTICING WHAT WE ARE

Through noticing and allowing, we may notice that all our content of experience comes and goes and lives its own life. Thoughts come and go. Emotions come and go. Sounds come and go. Sensations come and go. And so on. Nothing stays. It all lives its own life.

We may then find that what we most fundamentally are is what all of this happens within and as. We are capacity for it all.

We may have taken ourselves to most fundamentally be this human self, and we find that we more fundamentally are what it all – our whole field of experience – happens within and as.

Here, we also find that our field of experience – which includes this human self and the wider world – is a seamless whole. It’s one. Any boundaries come from an overlay of mental images and words and are, quite literally, imagined.

UNPROCESSED MATERIAL

When we notice and allow, we’ll notice unprocessed psychological material coming to the surface. Old memories come up. Old emotions. Old painful thought patterns.

These always surface, and while in daily life we can often distract ourselves, that’s less easy during a noticing and allowing practice. We may try to distract ourselves, but we are – at the very least – more aware of what’s going on.

If we can sit with this, and we do this over time, we may discover a few things.

We may notice that we shift between several different ways of relating to what’s surfacing. We’ll get caught up in it. Try to distract ourselves from it. Try to push it away. Get curious about it. Befriend it. And we’ll likely keep shifting between these and more ways of relating to it.

We may gradually viscerally get that struggling with what’s surfacing isn’t really working. What we struggle with will keep coming back. And getting caught in the struggle only adds to the discomfort.

We may find that noticing and allowing even this unprocessed material is what’s ultimately most comfortable, even if our instinct is to struggle with it. And that we can notice and allow even our impulse to struggle with it.

We can find a yes to the no in us that comes up in relation to this.

This helps us befriend and find healing for how we relate to uncomfortable experiences. And it helps this unprocessed material to find healing – through it surfacing and us noticing, feeling, befriending, allowing it, and allowing its transformation. (Additional practices and work can help and deepen this process.)

BRINGING INTO DAILY LIFE

As we get more used to noticing and allowing, it becomes a new habit.

And that means we may find ourselves more often doing it in our daily life, outside of any more formal practice. It becomes a new way of being.

Sometimes, we need to get engaged in the content of thought in our work, when we talk with people, and so on. We may sometimes still get caught up in the stories of stressful thoughts. And more often, we may find we relate to stressful thoughts as thoughts instead of getting caught up in their stories.

BASIC MEDITATION

Why is it called basic meditation?

I assume it’s for several reasons.

It’s an essential and simple practice.

It’s useful at any phase in our process, from the beginning to the end (death).

It’s a central practice in several spiritual traditions. (In Zen, which I am most familiar with, it’s called Shikantaza.)

Some say that the purpose of basic meditation is for us to find and become familiar with our true nature, and that’s not wrong.

And whether or not we notice what we are, it does a lot more. We gain insights into the dynamics of the mind. It trains a more stable attention. It allows unprocessed material to surface, be befriended, and find healing. Noticing and allowing can become a new habit we bring with us into daily life, and this helps us more often notice thoughts as thoughts without getting caught up in the content of their stories.

NOTES

As with anything else, this reflects my own experiences, biases, and limitations. It’s also inevitably informed by what I have heard others say about this and other spiritual practices, although I have only included what I have found in my own experience.

Zen teachers like to just give the basic instructions, and this allows us to discover for ourselves without being too colored by expectations. There is a lot of wisdom in that approach. The other side of this is that us westerners like transparency, which is why I am writing this.

How does The Work of Byron Katie work?

moe Leave a comment

How does The Work of Byron Katie work?

Here is some of what I am noticing:

Judge Your Neighbor Worksheet (JYN): Identifying our stressful beliefs is helpful in itself, as is admitting to ourselves that we are judgmental about others and what these judgments are about. It’s the first step in a process that allows us to shift from identifying with the thought to seeing it as an object and examining it.

Question 1: Is it true? This question opens our mind to the possibility that our stressful thought about something or someone isn’t true. It puts the question in there. It allows us to notice the part of our mind that already knows we cannot really know if the thought is true.

Question 2: Can you know for certain it’s true? Again, helps open our mind to the possibility that we cannot know for certain if the stressful thought is true. It reminds us that we cannot know for certain, even if we tell ourselves the thought is true and it feels true at the moment.

Question 3: What happens, how do you react, when you have that thought? This helps us explore and notice the real consequences of holding the stressful thought as true. Often, we are only partially aware of these consequences, and we may blame them on the situation the thoughts are about rather than the belief itself. Here, we get to explore it more thoroughly and systematically.

We get to see some of the many unpleasant consequences of the belief, and that they are consequences of holding the thought as true. This makes it easier for the mind to answer the following questions more sincerely, and it opens the possibility for further seeing the thought as a thought, and for not actively fueling the belief since it’s more clear to us that it doesn’t really help.

Question 4: Who would you be without the thought, in the same situation? Again, it opens the mind to another possibility. How would it be if the belief didn’t exist in me, in the same situation that previously triggered the belief? Would I be more at peace? Does it open for more clarity? Kindness? Would I still be able to take care of myself? How would I respond in that same situation?

Turnarounds: The previous questions may open our minds sufficiently so we can sit more honestly and sincerely with the turnarounds. In what way is each reversal of the initial stressful thought equally or more true? Can I find specific and concrete examples, even if they seem small? Can I find in myself what I see in the other? This helps us see that each of these thoughts – the initial stressful one and its reversals – has some validity, none of them has any final or absolute truth, and one or more of the reversals may even resonate more with us than the original one.

When we use The Work, it helps to be facilitated by an experienced facilitator. This person can help us stay grounded, close to the experience and what’s true for us, and they can help us look at it from angles we would otherwise miss.

Having an open-minded, kind, and insightful witness is healing in itself. This person shows us it’s possible to be open-minded, kind, curious, and gentle with our thoughts and experiences, including the stressful ones and the ones we may initially feel shame about.

As always, there is a lot more to say about this. This is just what comes to me now.

How it works: Awakening

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I know the title is a little presumptuous! Although it’s also good to demystify awakening to the extent it’s possible.

First, what is awakening?

It’s what we are noticing itself.

What we are is what our experience happens within and as. (We can put may labels on it, like consciousness or awakeness, and those labels also happen within and as what we are.)

Usually, what we are does not notice itself. Our mind takes itself to be something within the content of its experience, and that something is generally this human self. How that happens can be described from different angles. At one level, it happens when the mind takes any story as true and identifies with the viewpoint of the story. That shifts our experience of being what we are and into something that happens within the content of our experience. We experience ourselves as an object in the world and a particular viewpoint. What this is shifts with the story our mind happens to engage with at the moment. And, as a general container, we take ourselves to be this human self. That’s not wrong, but it’s just a small part of what we are.

What’s the process of awakening?

What we are can notice itself in glimpses. More or less clearly. Out of the blue or from intentional exploration. And it can also notice itself more stably through different states and situations in daily life.

For most of us, what we are comes into the foreground in daily life without us really noticing. It can happen through flow experiences, or any time we “forget” or “lose” ourselves in what’s happening. Why don’t we notice? Perhaps because it’s so ordinary. Or not so strong. Or that we think we know what we are – this human self – and this is not that.

It can happen out of the blue without any obvious precursor. And it can also happen gradually or more suddenly as a(n apparent) consequence of intentional exploration. I’ll say more about this below.

Initially, what we are may more easily notice itself in certain situations (which is where the intentional exploration comes in). And over time, it can notice itself through changing states and also in more and more situations in daily life. It can clarify and become more stable, and this process of living from it in more situations in daily life is called embodiment.

Also initially, we may still take ourselves to fundamentally be a separate being although one that’s ONE with everything. This tends to clarify and we realize that we were never this apparently separate being. What we are just started noticing itself more clearly. In a popular phrase: it woke up of the dream of being a separate being.

What we are noticing itself is often a bit fluid and changing throughout the day. It can be more or less in the foreground and more or less obvious or clear. It’s often a gentle context for our daily life. After a while, it becomes ordinary while also somewhat extraordinary.

As a human being, we are much the same even when what we are notices itself. It doesn’t magically and all of a sudden transform us. (Although that can happen.) This means we tend to have the same emotional issues, hangups, and traumas before and within awakening.

When these emotional issues are triggered, it tends to hijack our attention and we temporarily take ourselves to be separate. What we are noticing itself goes into the background and is overshadowed by our old patterns. This is why healing of emotional issues is vital for embodiment, for living more from what we are in more daily life situations.

What’s the consequence of awakening?

The only certain one is that the context of our life changes. What we are notices itself and our human life happens within that. Our human life, in itself, doesn’t have to change that much.

In practice, our human life does tend to change. We tend to live more from the experience of oneness, which means a little more open mind and heart and from a bit more compassion and empathy and concern for the far-reaching and long-term consequences of our actions.

It also seems that awakening often starts a process of healing emotional issues. These may come to the surface to be seen, felt, loved, and more consciously included in the oneness. One way to talk about this is that the initial awakening is a global awakening, and this healing process allows more parts of us – the ones still stuck in painful separation consciousness – to awaken and align with the global awakening. As mentioned above, this is also vital for the embodiment process.

How can we understand awakening?

In my mind, there are two ways of understanding or interpreting awakening.

In the small or psychological interpretation, we can say that in our own experience, we are consciousness, and this is what wakes up to itself. Whether there is an actual human being here or an actual physical world, or whether we fundamentally are separate or not, doesn’t really matter. What matters is what we are in our own immediate experience and the pragmatics of this noticing itself and what it does for our life.

In the big or spiritual interpretation, what we are is the same as what all of existence is. All is One, or Spirit, or God, or the Divine, or Brahman, or Big Mind, or Allah. The label is not important.

The small interpretation is helpful because it can make this more approachable for people within a more conventional mindset or setting. The big interpretation is perhaps more inspiring. And both seem to fit (most of!) the data of awakening equally well.

Why are there so many myths about awakening?

There are many myths about awakening: It’s reserved for special people. It’s something unusual. It’s something very different from our ordinary experience. It will solve all our problems. We become a saint. There is something we can call a final or full awakening.

I don’t know why there are so many myths about it. I suspect it’s because it used to be the domain of certain spiritual traditions and they partly obscured it based on misunderstandings and partly had vested interests in making it appear special.

Why is it important?

It’s not for most people and that’s OK. For some of us, it’s important because it’s part of human experience. It says something about who and what we are. It does help us live in a way that’s more conscious of the whole which can help society, humanity, and the Earth.

What are some methods for inviting what we are to notice itself?

These are the traditional spiritual practices and the newer variations on these.

It can help to know the words and the theory, but this is just a starting point and initial pointer. The words are, in themselves, not important.

Training a more stable attention supports this exploration – and anything we do in life – so it’s more than worthwhile to include in our daily life. Even just a few minutes makes a difference.

Basic meditation is to notice and allow. Notice what happens in the sense fields. Allow it all to be as is. This tends to shift identification out of the observed (content of experience) and it makes it easier for what we are to notice itself. (Initially, we may take ourselves to be the observer, and then notice that this too happens within the content of experience.)

Inquiry is a great support. We can get a glimpse of what we are through forms of inquiry like the Big Mind process and the Headless experiments, and also Living Inquiries. Through The Work, we may – over time – find how our thoughts are not true which allows space for what we are to notice itself. And through Living Inquiries, we explore how the mind creates its own experience – including taking itself to be a separate being, this body, the observer, consciousness, etc. This too tends to allow space for what we are to notice itself.

Guidelines for behavior is important to reduce drama and distractions in our life, and they tend to (roughly!) mimic how we naturally live when what we are notices itself and this is more embodied.

Prayer – at least the contemplative and heartfelt variety – helps shift our identification out of the content of our experience, it shifts our attention to a much larger whole, and it creates space for what we are to notice itself.

Heart-centered practices help us reorient. They help us shift from an us-vs-them orientation to befriending the world and our own experience. Again, this creates space for what we are to notice itself, and it mimics how we naturally live when what we are notices itself through daily life.

Body-centered practices can help us train more stable attention. It can also give us an experience of our body-mind wholeness which makes it easier for what we are to notice itself.

Some forms of energy work can also support awakening. I am most familiar with the awakening process supported when we go through the higher levels of Vortex Healing training.

As mentioned above, inviting in healing for emotional issues makes it easier to live from the noticing in more situations in daily life. It supports embodiment.

Note: Apologies for this slightly disorganized article. I chose to write this without outlining or editing too much, not because that’s better but because I felt a little overwhelmed by the thought of organizing and editing it!

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Working with dreams

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I thought I would do a series of articles on how different approaches to healing and awakening work. So here is one on dreams.

In my experience, dreams are the mind digesting either what happened the day before (often more fragmented dreams) or an emotional issue (often more of an unfolding story and sometimes archetypal). I wonder if not this digesting happens most or all of the time, and it just happens to take the form of dreams while we sleep.

Everything in the dream is me. It’s all created by my mind and reflects parts of me and the dynamics between these parts.

The digesting inherent in dreams is likely helpful in itself, and I suspect I don’t even need to remember the dream for it to have some effect in terms of processing, healing, and gaining some insights from it.

And yet, I sometimes also explore the dream more actively, especially if it’s a strong or more archetypal dream.

Here are some of the approaches I find helpful:

Active imagination comes out of Jungian dream work, and here we go back into the dream (imagine ourselves back in it) and interact with the different elements of the dream. For instance, I can take an action and see what the response is, or I can engage in a dialogue with the different dream characters and get a sense of who they are and what they want (both on the surface and what would deeply satisfy them). There is no limit and it can yield a lot of helpful insights. Often, these insights are just at the edge of what we are conscious of, and active imagination can help make them more conscious. (I typically avoid formulaic dream interpretations since dreams seem more juicy, fluid, and sometimes individual than that.)

Active imagination is a form for parts (subpersonality) work, and if we are familiar with a form of parts work, we can use that one.(For me, Voice Dialog and the Big Mind process.)

And then there are the approaches I often write about here.

I can explore the dream through inquiry. For instance, I can do inquiry on any stressful beliefs I had in the dream or about it after waking up (The Work). I can also explore any identities the dream brought up in me, any fears, or any compulsions in the dream or after I woke up (Living Inquiries).

I can use heart-centered practices for anyone (or any thing) in the dream that seemed hurt or uncomfortable in any way. (Ho’o, tonglen, metta.)

I can use energy healing on any emotional issue brought up by the dream, or anything else the dream pointed to as needing resolution or healing. For instance, last year I had a dream about a lake being polluted, so I could intend healing for what that lake represents in me. (Vortex Healing.)

I can do some therapeutic trembling to release any tension from the dream. (TRE)

And I can use any other approach I know and find helpful.

The key is that I can explore dreams as I would anything in daily life, and I can also explore daily life as I would a dream(!). It’s the same mind creating our experience of both.

For instance, active imagination is traditionally used specifically for dreams, although it can be helpful to use it in other areas of life as well. We can use it for situations from past, present, or the imagined future, and it can help us see what these situations mean to us, how we relate to them and find other ways of understanding the situations and relating to them.

How it works: heart-centered practices

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How do heart-centered practices work?

It depends on the particular practice, but here are some general things I have noticed.

They help me reorient. To shift from seeing something as a problem (an enemy, wrong, bad) or neutral, to befriending it, finding kindness towards it, and seeing it as a support. And this goes for anything from a situation, to another person, to myself and parts of myself, to life in general, and God.

My energy systems comes more alive and brightens.

It’s experienced as an opening of the heart. And with that comes an opening of the mind. There is more receptivity, sincerity, curiosity, and interest. (And less rigid, defensive, and fixed views.)

It helps me notice what in me is not quite on board. It helps me notice parts of me where there is still wounding, trauma, identifications, and unfelt feelings, unloved lovables, and unexamined beliefs. I can meet these, allow, rest with. Relate to them with respect, patience, and light curiosity. If it feels right, I can do the heart-centered practice for these scared and unloved parts of me. Or I can explore them through inquiry. Or invite in healing through whatever healing practices are available to me.

These shifts are naturally reflected in my life. I notice when and how this happens. And if it doesn’t, that’s OK and also an invitation to see what’s going on. Something in me may be triggered that temporarily clouds over a more clear and kind way of being.

What are some examples of heart-centered practices? The ones I am most familiar with are ho’oponopno (Hawaii), tonglen (Tibet), heart or Jesus prayer (Christianity), and perhaps also the Christ meditation. (See other articles for descriptions of these.) And there are many more from many different traditions. Heart-centered practices can be profoundly transformative, and that’s something people from all cultures and times have paid attention to.

And what’s the main reason heart-centered practices are so transformative, healing, and central to most spiritual traditions? It’s because they help us align with reality. If all is the divine, then holding onto enemy images brings us out of alignment with that reality. It creates discomfort, stress, and suffering at an individual level, and also social and even ecological problems. Reorienting helps us align with reality, which brings a sense of peace, clarity, kindness, aliveness, and a natural engagement.

Note: I have deliberately used a more conventional language some places here. For instance, everything described here is part of the divine play. It’s the divine temporarily and locally taking itself to be a separate being, and a being that sees parts of the world as an enemy (a problem, bad, wrong etc.). There is nothing inherently wrong in it, but it does create distress and suffering. And that’s the call back to a more conscious alignment with all as the divine.

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How does The Work work?

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How does The Work of Byron Katie work?

As with anything else in life, it’s ultimately a mystery. But we can also say a few things about it.

Here is some things I have noticed:

It’s a confession, and we are seen by another without (or with less) judgment. And that, in itself, is somewhat healing.

And then there are some elements nearly explicit in the process itself.

We get to identify our stressful beliefs about a situation, someone else, life, or ourselves. We get to pinpoint the close (proximal) cause of our stress and suffering.

We get to see that our thoughts about it may not be as true as we initially thought. Our mind opens a bit to other possibilities, and to hold it a bit lighter.

We get to see what happens when we hold onto the thought as true. We get to see the stress and suffering it creates for ourselves, and what it does to our life and our relationship to others.

We get to imagine how it would be if we didn’t hold onto it as true. We get to imagine feeling it.

We get to consider and see the validity in the reversals of the thought, and that the initial thought, as well as its reversals, all have some limited validity to them. This also helps soften our grip on the initial thought.

We get to pick one reversal and see how it is to bring it into our life and how it is to live from it in daily life.

So we get to identify and question our initial stressful thought. Our mind is invited to soften its grip on it, and consider the validity in the reversals. And, as mentioned above, we – in the best case, if we work with an experienced facilitator – feel seen, met, understood, and not judged by another human being, and that in itself is healing, and shows us that we can do the same towards ourselves.

Another way The Work works is that it can give us clarity to act on something in our life that requires our action, and to do so with more clarity, kindness, and hopefully wisdom.