5
The Bodhisattva Bhumi Model
5
The Non-Duality Model
5
The Sudden Schools of Awakening
5
The God Models
5
The Unity Models
5
The Love Models
5
The Equanimity Models
5
The No-Preferences Models
5
The âNothing To Doâ and âYou Are Already Thereâ Schools
6
57.Kasinas, Powers, and Retreats
6
58.Introduction to the Powers
6
59.Are the Powers Real?
6
60.Paradigm Fluency
6
63.Definitions of the Powers
6
64.Ethics and the Powers
6
65.How to Cultivate the Powers
6
66.Made Pliant and Malleable
6
67.Benefits of the Powers
6
Fire Kasina Practice
6
Morality and Magick
5
The Meaning Models
5
The Ultimate Reality versus Unreality Models
6
61.Crazy?
6
62.Those Damn FairiesâŠ
662
THE NON-DUALITY MODEL
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The non-duality model is without doubt my favorite of them all. It essentially says that the goal is to stop a process of identification that turns some patterns of sensations into a doer, perceiver, centerpoint, soul, agent, or self in some very fundamental perceptual way. By seeing these sensations as they are, the process can be seen through gradually until one day the last holdout of duality flips over and there are no more sensations that trick the mind in this way.
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My favorite quote that articulates this model is from a sutta called the BÄhiya Sutta in the Udana (Ud 1.10). In it, the Buddha was talking with BÄhiya of the Bark-cloth (gotta love it!) and said that realization involves this direct insight: âIn the seeing just the seen, in the hearing just the heard, in the sensed just the sensed, in the cognized just the cognizedâ, and then BÄhiya of the Bark-cloth was promptly killed by a cow.
663
I may repeat this quote about the sense doors just being exactly themselves without any additional complexity just to make the point of how preposterously profound it is. Basically, there is just a field of sensations, as there was before, but now all these sensations are progressively just seen to be as they are, and all the sensations that we generally call âmeâ are just a part of this process. In this model presented by the Buddha, direct experience of sensate clarity provides the basis of awakening and eliminates the sense of separation and the dualism of the perceiver. Remember, the Buddha was not into unity as the answer, having rejected that on numerous occasions, nor was he into duality, clearly, which yields (you guessed it) non-duality. Yay, Theravada! So simple! So direct! So immediate! So practical! I just love it.
1024
- KASINAS, POWERS, AND RETREATS
1024
As background reading, I had pored over the standard sources, such as the Vimuttimagga and Visuddhimagga, both basically the high-concentration versions of grimoires (old spellbooks), along with the standard Pali canonical sources, as well as texts like Bhante Gunaratanaâs The Jhanas in Theravada Buddhist Meditation and The Path of Serenity and Insight, and some standard magickal texts from the Western tradition.
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have extremely high standards for the concentration state and give every bit of unbridled attention power to attending to the nimitta, which is the strong, clean, glowing internal image that appears to the meditator when doing certain concentration practices.
1027
- INTRODUCTION TO THE POWERS
1028
there is the general and obvious stigma around acknowledging the existence and functioning of magick and the powers that comes from the influence of frameworks such as scientific materialism and the like. Many view anyone who gives serious thought to the question of magick as being at best naive and at worst seriously delusional, and even barking crazy.
1028
Many people have told me that by writing about the powers I risk giving people the idea that I am simply an insane quack and thus risk jeopardizing not only my own credibility but the trust they are able to put in the sound and practical information presented in other sections of the book.
1028
Experiences that lend themselves to interpretations that something magickal has occurred are relatively common in the world and more common when people start to do meditation practice. By the time people have very strong concentration, either of the moment-to-moment type cultivated by insight practices or of the shamatha type cultivated by more traditional concentration practices, having experiences of what are generally called the powers is par for the course,
1029
Thus, I firmly believe that not talking about the powers would be irresponsible, as it is generally a terrible idea to send people into experiential territory that can be much harder to process without functional, skillful frameworks and normalization.
1063
- DEFINITIONS OF THE POWERS
1063
standard lists in some of the earliest extant texts of the Pali canon (such as that found in sutta DN 2, Samaññaphala or âFruits of the Contemplative Lifeâ).
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bi-location and poly-location
appearing and disappearing
walking through objects
flying
delving into the earth
walking on water
touching the sun and moon
traveling to other realms
producing various objects
hearing sounds both near and far (aka the âdivine earâ)
seeing things both near and far (aka the âdivine eyeâ, which is broad and involves things like perceiving other classes of beings, knowing things about faraway places, which we might also call âremote viewingâ, etc.)
knowing the mind states and mental qualities of others
recalling past lives
seeing beings pass away and being reborn according to their karma
the clear perception that cuts off delusion and brings wisdom.
1063
It is an oddly short list, given the wide range of what people may experience and cultivate, and given the vast range of powers described in the early canonical material. The Visuddhimagga (V, 28â39 or so) adds:
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sitting on empty space
manipulating weather and causing earthquakes
causing smoke, fires, and sparks
creating lights to see by
burning up the body at the death of an arahant
causing darkness
altering our appearance
turning objects into gold
creating objects in various specific colors
dispelling darkness
banishing stiffness and torpor
revealing hidden things
1063
This also is a pretty short list. I will add to these the following very abbreviated list of some of the more common things that people can get into:
knowing things about other people (such as their past, motivations, and thoughts)
knowing things about the future
having various helpful intuitions
seeing, feeling, and manipulating energy, chakras, energy channels, and auras in ourselves and others
healing various things in ourselves and others
sending and receiving messages in various ways
influencing the course of various events
1075
- HOW TO CULTIVATE THE POWERS
1075
If we want to cultivate the powers and greatly increase the chances of them occurring with some degree of reliability and repeatability, we must generally attain very âhardâ jhanic states with the specific intention to attain these experiences, though they can and often do arise spontaneously. The
1075
Visuddhimagga in chapters four, five, twelve, and thirteen, and the Vimuttimagga (less encyclopedic but much more readable) in chapter eight, section one, and in chapter eleven, spell out in great depth and detail how to attain siddhis. While their instructions are so straightforward that you may miss their profundity, just follow them as stated and see what happens. You could also check out Bhante Gunaratanaâs excellent work, The Path of Serenity and Insight. Simply follow the directions and explore, as these instructions are as accurate as they come.
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While Theravada Buddhism clearly states how to obtain the siddhis, it does not say much that is explicit, well-organized, or practical about how to use them, or about their benefits and dangers. Tantra and many other traditions (such as some of the pre-Buddhist shamanic traditions) do a much better job of dealing with these, and so I am trying to bring some of that same level of explicit advice to this end of the world of meditation. We might also check out the later writings of Carlos Castaneda when he was not so fascinated with hallucinogens, such as The Art of Dreaming, or go to an ashram or monastery that focuses on the magickal aspects of spiritual training, such as Pa Auk Sayadawâs tradition, or check out traditions such as ceremonial magick, Wicca, Thelema, the Golden Dawn, and the Astrum Argenteum.
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kasina practices for getting into hard jhanas as they give you such nice, immediate, basically foolproof feedback on exactly how you are doing.
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Start by choosing an external object such as a colored disk, candle flame, or something similarly neutral. If you are training in a tradition that advocates specific, symbolic, positive images, use one of those as is appropriate to the instructions of your lineage. Once you close your eyes and focus on the after-image, what happens with that image will be directly related to your strength of concentration. When your concentration is strong, the images are clear and bright and take over your world, and when it is weak, well, that doesnât happen in the same way.
1077
As mentioned a bit later, the fire kasina was the method I used initially to get into the territory where the powers were very easily available. I strongly recommend that practice for this reason. I added a mantra at points to engage other parts of the brain, but doing so is not necessary, though it is true that mantra repetition and visualization are the two practices most likely to get you into powers territory, and combining them really ups the ante. Any mantra-based practice on its own is also very powers-prone.
1078
While the fourth jhana is traditionally said to be the basis for the siddhis, simply getting so strongly into the first jhana such that you can no longer perceive a body, coupled with the previous intention to have these experiences, can sometimes be enough to make them occur. Get really into the jhana, leave it, resolve to have these experiences, and see what happens. Repeat as necessary. If that doesnât work, learn to visualize clearly the colors white, blue, red, and yellow as stable experiences. Expand them out to fill your whole field of experience, and then repeat the above instruction. If that doesnât work, find the rare, skilled fellow adventurers who will guide you into this esoteric territory. Better yet, find good skilled friends before getting into this territory!
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All right, back to how to do this: once you have enough concentration to get into hard fourth jhana with a range of objects and colors, the following is the traditional Theravada Buddhist Powers 101 with some practical points thrown in.
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Think the whole thing through before you proceed. Feel your intentions, possible outcomes, and your gut reactions to those extremely carefully. Never, ever, skip this step if you can possibly help it. This step not only helps to keep you from seriously screwing up, it is actually part of the spell and a very important part of the set-up. Essential things to include are:
what you are intending or requesting
how to phrase it or intend it, being as specific as you possibly can
why you are asking for that, particularly if there is some more fundamental desire you hope to fulfill that you should focus on while letting the less important specifics happen as they may
exactly who or what is involved
every single possible good and bad ramification of what you are about to do that you can possibly think of, realizing that you are guaranteed not to understand anything resembling the full causal implications of what you do. Still, thinking it through very thoroughly is extremely important. Really take your time with this, visualizing the whole impulse of the magick and its implications, resonances, and echoes out in time and space as far as it could possibly go.
1080
Once you feel that the desired working is clean, good, ethical, and skillful, rise from the first to the fourth jhana. Build each jhana up carefully and fully along the way so that you have a good foundation from which to work. The stronger the concentration, the better. The more time you have to build up concentration momentum, the better. For example, doing strict concentration practice sixteen hours per day for a week is obviously better than just rising up the light end of the jhanas in daily life during a brief sit. Those who can access the formless realms should rise all the way through them as well, as the potentiation effect that comes from the post-eighth junction point is very real. Those who have the capacity to enter nirodha samapatti could go that high, though its afterglow is a paradox, in that it is one of the most powerful platforms for magick and yet one of the mind states that is so chill that whatever concerned you and caused you to want to do magick is likely to be swamped by that same long-lived afterglow.
1080
However high you are able to rise, leave that state and formally intend to make happen whatever you want to occur, which is to release the full pulse of the energy of your intention into the world without hesitation or restraint. If you are going to do this, make sure you commit to it, which is why the third step is so important. Let it go, chill out, and see what happens.
1081
Please note that there are several interesting features of this approach that might be missed on reading it but are unlikely to be missed in practice. First, thinking through the whole spell and its possible implications will change your relationship to the issue, particularly if you do this formally, properly, and deliberately, and give it enough time. Second, if you really think far back down the chain to why you want something and if there was something more basic that the initial object of desire represented for you, and then trace that back to some root needâthat in and of itself is likely to do something very useful in your relationship to the object of the spell. Third, getting high up into jhanas is also very purifying, which is their function.
1081
The natural result of being up in high jhanasâor recently up in high jhanasâis a temporary lessening of the craving, aversion, fear, anger, entanglement, anxiety, or whatever else it was that was causing you to want to do magick in the first place. That is a great outcome most of the time. There is an old stock and standard paradigm about spiritual practice that says that the highest states make for the most powerful magick while giving rise to the least interest in actually performing powerful magick. This has a solid basis in reality, as hopefully you will notice for yourself as a result of your own good practice.
1081
8 Which I correlate with âThe Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel (HGA)â, based on long conversations with accomplished Thelemic and members of the IOT (Illuminates of Thanateros, a chaos magick order).
1078
The powers can also arise spontaneously from insight practice, particularly at stage four, the Arising and Passing Away,8
1082
- MADE PLIANT AND MALLEABLE
1082
Most people generally donât get their concentration strong enough to get to the stage that is described in the old texts by the standard phrase âthe mind made pliant and malleableâ, but if they do, they will be richly rewarded.
1082
In the malleable phase, whatever you turn your intention towards just shows up, with the qualifier that some magickal feats will be easier for some than others.
1084
This is the stage where you can really see what the world of the siddhis is about,
1124
- BHAVANA SOCIETY 2001 RETREAT
1125
FIRE KASINA PRACTICE
1125
I placed the oil lamp about five feet (1.5 meters) from me, stared at the flame until I felt a perceptual shift, closed my eyes, stabilized on the visual purple after-image that would become âthe learning signâ, which was something more coherent, and that would turn into the nimitta, which was a bright red dot. This would shudder, destabilize, roll off to the sides, and finally fade. I would open my eyes and try again. I did this hundreds of times, with each pass taking just a few minutes.
1125
As this practice progressed, the red dot would appear more rapidly, stabilize more rapidly and grow more clear and clean. Then, instead of ending there, I would get to the next phase, where the red dot had a spinning gold star in it and small purple and green rings around it, and the starâs spinning velocity and direction were tied to the breath, faster in the middle, slower towards the end, in the classic way of the A&P. Then that would fade and I would open my eyes, start again, and build up from there: candle flame, after-image, red dot, slightly bigger red dot with spinning star and a bit of green, blue, and purple around it, and then open my eyes and repeat, again and again.
1126
Then, instead of stopping there, a black disk started showing up after the red spinning dot, and I didnât know what to do with that. Having faith that something good would occur if I just kept paying attention and concentrating, I stayed with the black disk, which would do strange things and sometimes have various shimmering internal colors until it would finally fade also, and then I would open my eyes and return to the flame. The basic sequence now was: look at the flame, close eyes, see after-image, red dot, red spinning dot, gold intricate shimmering star with darker moving borders around it, black disk (sometimes with subtle nuance inside it), open eyes, and do it again.
1126
Then I started to notice vague but very complex, beautiful, whitish lines running as tangents to the black disk all around it (some would argue that all color and elemental kasinas lead to the white kasina eventually), and then these started to shift into subtle moiré patterns, and then those began to spread out, wider and wider, and then they finally started to wrap slightly around to the sides, sort of like staring into the inside of a large sphere. Then those would become vague and I would open my eyes and repeat the sequence again. So now the sequence was: flame, after-image, red dot, red dot with spinning gold stuff (it was becoming more and more intricate than just a star), black disk, black disk with tangential whitish moiré lines around it, space out, open eyes, repeat. This whole sequence was still taking maybe a few minutes.
1127
The next part took the subtlest concentration to get past; it took broad concentration, trusting concentration, easy concentration, like looking at something just with your peripheral vision, like trying not to spook an animal by looking at it. I would go up through the sequence to the whitish moiré lines, and then somehow, far out on the periphery and mostly out of phase with attention, these rainbow flux-lines started showing up and moving in very complex ways and curling into patterns that reminded me of Aztec art, all with manifold radial symmetry. Getting through this phase required letting the images do their thing and allowing the attention to go broad and sort of dreamy. Then that would fade and I would open my eyes and do it again.
1128
The next phase blew my mind, and it was here that I began to understand the awesome power of kasinas to make concentration strong and facilitate all sorts of experiences and attainments I would have been quite skeptical of before.
1128
I would go up the sequence and get to the Aztec rainbow flux-line phase, and then I would space out, and then the most amazing visuals started happening: huge vistas would unfold with a level of three-dimensionality, detail, and vastness that amazed me. These contained all sorts of profound images: black holes, tantric beings, Buddhas, and the like. These were perceived with a degree of detail that I never thought my imagination could possibly come up with. They were luminous, intelligent, and interactive.
1128
Finally, a Fruition would occur, and many of my best descriptions of the three doors come from this period. The black hole would spin and take out everything with it and the Fruition would occur. The tantric deity and I would recognize that the same intelligence or awareness was in each of us and our eyes would collapse into each otherâs and the Fruition would occur. Then I would open my eyes and do it again.
1129
Now practice got even more interesting. I started to notice that my concentration was doing all sorts of things on its own and hinting at avenues of experiences and abilities that I had no idea about before. I canât remember the exact sequence of what came next, so these are listed without a firm chronology to them. Basically, they all occurred between more formal candle-flame practice sessions and at times when trying to get to sleep at night or during other periods as specified.
1129
Red: I started playing with just getting the kasina off my own eyelid colors without using an external object. I would stare at the inside of my closed eyes and started taking red as object, building up the strength of the red color until finally, when I opened my eyes, I noticed that everything was red, just as the texts stated would be the case for someone working on the red kasina. I started noticing that I could just intend to visualize objects as red and they would show up: things like a red alligator. I just wanted one to show up, and there it was. I visualized all kinds of strange animals and other objects and there they were, red and glowing. Eventually I could visualize red things while walking around, which was a new level of concentration for me, so now I practiced that while walking during my red phase on that retreat.
1129
Pentagrams: I had gone through a period of more formal Golden Dawn/Crowley/Donald Michael Kraigâinfluenced practice with Robert Burns, and had been very frustrated that I couldnât see the symbols I was drawing in the air during rituals such as the classic âlesser banishing ritual of the pentagramâ. It suddenly occurred to me in this phase to try this again and, voilĂ ! I put my finger to the air, and suddenly everything slowed down, space seemed to thicken slightly, and a blue flame rolled off of my finger and onto space like floating radioactive syrup that lingered there in a way that it never had before. It was truly a cool feeling. Now I got what they were talking about.
1130
Chakras: during one of the group sits, suddenly I could see energy channels, and the more I looked, the more I saw. I could not only see them but also feel them and manipulate them. I felt blockages, tangles, strange places that seemed just wrong in my newly discovered energetic system, so I set about to repair these, feeling into them and straightening them out and causing energy to flow more cleanly and clearly in the channels.
1130
Finally, after about an hour of this, when I stood up I felt totally different, with a posture that felt much healthier. The impression at the time was that this is what I imagined tai chi masters must feel.
1131
Manipulating flame: here is the part that really got my attention far and beyond all the rest of it. I remember my Thelemic friend Robert Burns talking about moving a flame around with intention, and so, just on a lark, I decided to see if I could do that. In classic magickal style, I used the candle flame to go up the standard sequence in which I was quite fluent by this time, from red dot to Fruition, and then opened my eyes, intended to move the flame, and nothing happened. Then, about three seconds later, this blast of orange, purple, and white light (similar to what shoots from the guns used in the movie Ghostbusters to zap the ghosts) shot down through my body, across the room and into the oil lamp flame, and it flickered hard sideways for a few seconds, then righted itself.
1131
That day it was calm and clear, the cabin had no windows open, because it was deep into winter, and the oil lamp had a fluted protective glass around the flame. I had been staring at it for days and it hadnât wavered once. Thus, my immediate question was: did I move the flame, or did I just imagine that the flame moved and saw that as what I wanted to see? Without someone else there, I canât tell you the answer.
1133
That dawning insight led to the real punchline of the moving candle flame: all âinternalâ intentions, thoughts, and mental states mattered, were causal, were spell-casting, were powerful, and molded some part of the causal world. Thus, every single moment of âinternalâ experience must have ethics applied to it, because it matters, as it is an integral part of this whole space of manifestation.
1133
after moving the candle flame, I began to think, âHoly shit, every frigginâ thought and feeling is a magickal act, a part of how I shape this world, even if their effects are very subtle, or even imperceptible, as thoughts and feelings come thousands per hour, and their cumulative effect must be something substantial. Wow, have I been a total idiot.â
1133
by playing a juvenile recreational game with the powers, I finally began to get some actual insight into the profundity of the first few lines mentioned already from one of the most commonly read of all Buddhist texts, the Dhammapada, which clearly states in the most unambiguous terms: âAll actions are led by the mind. Mind is their master. Mind is their maker. Act or speak with a defiled state of mind, and suffering will follow.â My appreciation for the profound importance of morality training was greatly increased by those experiences of trying to move the candle flame.
373
- KASINA PRACTICE
373
Pick a kasina such as a blue disk, a computer-generated blue circle on a black background, or (my favorite) a candle flame. You can find YouTube videos of a candle burning for just this purpose, saving you the cost of actual candles and the fire-risk. Any lightbulb will do. You could use the LED on your phone. You could use a plate. You could use a brick, for that matter, but brighter objects and objects having greater color contrast with their background make it easier, so a brick would do better against, say, a blue or green surface. If you are choosing a colored disk, it should be a few inches in diameter for most people. Even a saucer, a can top, jar lid, or piece of construction paper will work for this, but candle flames produce a nice retinal burn that helps make the initial stages more rewarding. For those who see colors, even subtle ones, when they close their eyes or are in the dark, you can even bootstrap a kasina off those with enough careful attention to the colors and to cultivating and organizing them, a skill that takes merely practice to learn.
374
For those using something like a candle or plate, place the chosen kasina object about four to five feet (about 1 to 1.6 meters) in front of you and slightly below eye level such that your gaze rests on it easily. Make sure the background setting of your image is something boring, plain, and neutral so that distracting images are not introduced. Sit comfortably and at ease with a posture that is upright and aligned, but not tense or rigid. Comfort is moderately important, as pain can be very distracting initially. I personally also like lying on a couch or on a bed and staring at an overhead light. If you try a strong light source, like a lightbulb, then having something that you can flop down over your eyes once you have stared at the kasina object will help block the light coming through your eyelids and allow a greater appreciation of the fine details of internally generated images. Fine details happen to be important in this practice.
374
Stare at the kasina with relaxed eyes and facial muscles until you feel a shift in which the color starts to bleed around the edges of the kasina if you shift your eyes, or when you notice some visual distortion. This might take from thirty seconds to a minute or two. Then close your eyes and fix on the visual purple after-image (a general term, which doesnât imply the image will necessarily be purple, but that it will be the complementary color of the object which, if the object is yellow, will be purple), and pay attention to this to the exclusion of everything else, if possible. So, if the external kasina object is bright, the initial visual purple after-image will be dark, and if the kasina is dark, the after-image will be light. The visual purple image may wander, spin off to the side, morph, flicker, or fade, but donât worry about that initially, just keep your attention on it, tracking exactly what it does with a high degree of interest in the fine specifics of every little movement, change, and wiggle.
375
When whatever organized images fade totally away and there is nothing but the visual static on the inside of your eyelids, open your eyes, stare at the image again as before, wait for the burn into your retinas again, and close your eyes and focus on the image again until it is gone again. Repeating this again and again will eventually build up something powerful. At some point, you will start to notice something beyond just the visual purple after-image, and instead something clean, bright, and more defined will begin to glow.
375
If you are using a candle flame, this should be a red dot;13 stay with that red dot, regardless of what it does, until it is finally gone, and then open your eyes and go back to the flame or disk or whatever again. If you are using some other object, then the image should relate in some way to the color but seem more purified and clean. Continue to repeat the cycle over and over. Consistency in a short period of time with few breaks really helps make this happen and maintains the concentration muscles, which tend to fade very rapidly if we stop practicing. Give all attention to the colors, and really commit to making that happen moment after moment.
376
At some point the created image will begin to get clearer, brighter, more refined, and more stable. If you are using a candle flame and its subsequent red dot as image, it will tend to gain green, blue, and purple rings around it with intricate yellow rapidly moving fine complex lines in the middle that shift and spin at high speed. Paying attention to that high-speed spinning and movement will develop good attention-tuning skills that translate extremely well to other meditation styles.
376
The more refined dot (it might be some other shape, depending on what object you start with) is called the nimitta in the Pali commentaries. The nimitta will eventually start to do strange things, such as oscillate between a black dot and some greenish-yellow dot, or other variants on this theme. It may acquire all sorts of fine details, change color many times, develop into other images, and even begin to seem alive, like you are watching an animation. The larger the nimitta, the more remarkable the show that it can produce, particularly in terms of exquisite little nuances, images, colors, and shimmering variability. As practice grows stronger, you will notice that your internal intentions and inclinations have more and more control of what shapes and colors the nimitta becomes, as well as where it is in the visual field and how it moves.
377
Eventually, the nimitta may fade entirely despite progress in concentration, only to return a bit altered, then fade, then return a bit altered, then fade, and finally will just be gone. On repeated cycles through this, you will notice that, after looking at the flame (or other object) and closing your eyes, more of the background of the candle flame will also generate after-images around the central image. Some of those more peripheral images may begin to stabilize into sheets of blue, purple, or some other color, even as the red dot itself is fading to black. Up to this point, basically everyone I know experiences nearly the same sequence when they do this practice. That cannot be said for what happens next.
377
That blackness or visual static in the background can then become what I call âthe murkâ. The murk is frustrating until your concentration gets stronger, because while you may be practicing more and more, after you go through your sequence of images in the center of attention, the center of attention becomes more and more vague and dark and strange. The first point about navigating in the murk is that dark colors, such as black and grey, are totally valid kasina objects you can play with and pay attention to. This a concentration practice, so if you stop concentrating when the colors become colors you donât like or werenât expecting, then your concentration will flag and you will fall back.
377
The murk is unlikely to initially have anything like the clean, clear, interesting organization and brilliance you can obtain from the nimitta. If you continue to pay attention to the visuals, even if they stop producing much in the way of nice red dots or the like, then you will eventually get to understand what the murk is about. Eventually, subtly organized images and colors will begin to emerge quietly from the darkness if you just pay very careful attention to the darkness and strangeness as it is.
378
When the murk arises, initially it is very helpful to just open your eyes and go back to the flame or other object and cycle again. The more times we cycle up from the kasina object through the initial organized images to the murk, the more the murk will begin to organize. However, past a certain point, focusing on the central nimitta itself wonât get you as far as things can go, as it is too narrow. However, cycling begins to develop slowly and organize the area outside and around the nimitta such that, when we begin to transition to something that is much more broad and inclusive, there is more to pay attention to that is interesting enough to hold our attention.
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For many people, getting to the better side of the murk requires some significant number of hours, such as eight to twelve per day for a few days, but a few will have natural talent and be able to get into this territory on lower doses. For those who think that this is a long time, realize that it is relatively short in the grand scheme of things, and the rewards for this sort of effort applied to kasina practice are nothing short of remarkable,
379
One of the initial qualities of the murk is that it causes us to space out, get lost in thought, and have a hard time concentrating. Until we build that wiring, our brains tend to fatigue and head off down more familiar sidetracks. We just practice to build the wiring through repetition of the cycle of looking at the object, seeing the nimitta, tracking it through all its changes until it vanishes finally, getting to the murk, tracking it until we space out, opening our eyes, staring at the object, and repeating the cycle again and again and again. With repetition, we get good at the changes. They become familiar, and the concentration power grows. We space out less. We recover more rapidly when we do. We pick up immediately after subtle state-shifts that used to throw us off our game. Images grow more defined and predictable, and we get used to the now familiar sequence of images and perceptual changes. Then comes the question of how far to go out into the murk and when to bail and open our eyes and look at the external kasina object again. Most people, after practicing awhile, start going longer and longer into the murk, as they begin to uncover its secrets. Still, there is nothing wrong with recharging on the external object and diving back into the colors and mysteries.
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Once we begin to attain more organized colors beyond just black and grey emerging from the gloom of the murk, we come to a fork in the path, and I leave it to you to determine which fork you wish to take. Both forks are rewarding, but they produce different effects. The summary of these forks is that in one, we pick a color or, in the other, we allow the images to do whatever they do across a range of colors and pay more attention to the shapes that the colors organize into. Most will end up doing some fusion of both, so really this is a spectrum of options and practice styles more than a dichotomy. Again, either style may also be used to bootstrap a kasina off the subtle colors we can see naturally on the inside of our eyelids with our eyes closed or in a dark room. So, if you find yourself lying awake in bed trying to sleep but canât, you can always just use those colors to build a kasina practice, realizing that some are better at this than others.
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The first option takes moving swaths of a specific shade of the colors that arise as object, focusing, say, on red, blue, green, purple, yellow, or some other color, as you prefer. Most people will have a color that they see more easily: initially you should pick that one. I personally can see dark purple very easily. I have a friend whose easiest color is a light blue. Another friend is good at red. Why do we each have a specific color that is initially easier for us than others? I have no idea. You will have to experiment to see what your easiest color is. Look to the edges around the candle flame as you cycle through watching the flame (or other kasina object), close your eyes, and go through the cycle, as the colors that you get around the periphery are often your easiest color.
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Everywhere you see a bit of that color, even if it just seems to be part of some vague shift or swatch of moving vagueness, focus on that, attempting to cultivate a sense of rapture regarding that color. If the visual field is more like disorganized static, then just start to notice the little bits of that static that are of the chosen color. Eventually, you will start to notice that your attention reinforces the chosen color, makes it stronger, and can begin not only to move the chosen color, but to amplify it, to increase it, and finally begin to fill in the visual field with it. When you have gotten good at this, you will be able to fill in the whole of the visual field with that specific color. As the visual field will likely be pixelated at this point, fine-grained awareness of minute details across the field will help. Learning to have a wide yet fine-grained awareness is what this part of the practice is about. It just comes with repetition.
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When cultivating a color has been done very well for long enough, you will see the chosen color everywhere even when opening your eyes, as if you were wearing glasses of that specific color. This is one of those effects mentioned in the old texts that is still surprising, at least for me, when it actually happens. When you get even better, you will gain what I call âcolor controlâ, in which you can turn the color into another color just by inclining the mind towards that other color and waiting a few seconds for it to shift to that new color. Initially you may see an irregular mix of the two colors, as the new color begins to seep in. Eventually, inclinations to change colors result in uniform, clean color transitions. This takes practice, and initially it is easier to change the color to colors that are close to it, such as blue into green, rather than trying to change green into red, for example. Eventually, we get so that we can change the whole visual field to any color and make them bright, stable, and vibrant, refining the color to the exact hue that we preferâbasically the ultimate in âinterior designâ.
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By this point, you should also be able to do other things, such as draw in the air with that color with your finger and see what you drew hanging in the air. Going slowly at first and starting in a darker room or doing this outside at night makes learning how to see these drawn colors easier. Eventually, this can be done just fine in a bright room or outdoors in daylight. By this point, you should also be able to shape that color into any object you wish just by gently inclining your mind to have that happen. They may be vague and shifty at first but, with practice, they get clearer, more detailed, and more stable. It is often completely surprising that something that was initially so hard should be so natural, like you have always known how to do this. If you try for this and it doesnât happen, just practice more, as that is the key to concentration practices. High doses in short periods of time produce vastly better results than little practice periods spread across many days, as there is a momentum to these practices that fades rapidly after we cut the practice power.
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If we take the second fork, we pay attention not to a specific color, but to how the subtle colors in the murk are organizing, because if you pay attention to them for long enough, they will begin to form objects that become more and more recognizable. Initially, it is a lot easier just to let this go where it will. We may start simply, noticing subtle washes and patches of color moving around. These may begin to become more coherent, more defined, and brighter. As these begin to form into more definite and complex objects, we may get out of the way to let them form further. Subtle details and fine-grained nuances may begin to appear.
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There is a different sort of looking that is half-daydream and half-eyelid colors that we must adopt to make this work, a partial pivot to inner dreamworld visuals. It is not easy to explain exactly how this is done, and you will have to experiment. The initial strongly focused concentration that worked for the red dot or other initial object wonât work as well here. Attention must be broader, more open, and accepting. It must rely more on curiosity, fascination, and the effect of repeated practice than on effort and control. It must also notice fine and subtle details and give them permission to start to organize in their own way, which, given time and repetition, they will begin to do.
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Objects that arise in this phase of practice tend to have repetitious elements to them. They also tend to have some depth and complexity. They can also be disturbing, with reasons for this explained later, but the short answer is that the insight practice equivalent of this territory involves some stages that can be frightening. In this territory, I have seen rows of narrow lines, spirals, vortices, doors, tunnels, canyons, fields of skulls, fingers and mushrooms, insects, snakes, and other strange creatures, as well as campfires, complex patterns that resembled fractals or Spirograph patterns crossed with Aztec writing, vast abstract landscapes, and many other strange images. These may spread out across the whole visual field. Recent conditioning and your own tendencies will likely determine some of this, but other aspects of the reasons for the specific forms this takes may be hard to sort out. Luckily, from one point of view, none of the reasons nor the specifics of the images really matter so long as you use them to build strong concentration.
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The key here is just to watch the images do what they do and follow along concentrating on the images as objects. From another practice perspective, the images do matter, particularly if you are doing something such as cultivating the image of a specific deity, dakini, symbol, Tarot card, etc. Eventually, even if the images start out doing their own thing, you will start to learn that you can modify the images, incline to images you prefer, and morph the images to suit your tastes. In this, you must learn to live with a few seconds delay between intentions and the images changing. If you try to force this you will not succeed but, if you use finesse and have patience and give the mind time to process your suggestions and nudges, you can learn to craft remarkable inner art.
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As we get better at this, we will notice that the murk (now well-defined and, really, no longer earning that name) and the nimitta become much more interactive with each other. You can start right off taking the images around the nimitta as object and the nimitta will progress through its cycles as you cultivate the background around it. You can learn to have the nimitta and background move together, interface with each other, with the background seeming to radiate out from around the nimitta, moving over it, moving behind it, rotating with it, merging into it, and having all sorts of other complex interactions with it. We learn to control these interactions through repetition of the cycle.
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At some point, the level of mastery that we generate by going down either fork (color or form) can give us the abilities of the other fork, since with strong enough concentration, our whole inner landscape becomes subject to our control and we can make the images however we wish and the colors exactly as we prefer. I remember on retreat one time when I managed to craft dragons (geek much?) of the exact shape and colors that I wished, with scales of just the proper iridescence, eyes of just the right glint, and breathing golden fire just like a good dragon should. They would smile and nod knowingly exactly as you would imagine happy dragons doing. When you get to that level of control, whatever you wish to see, you will see it.
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At some point past the color swaths and patterns of the images of either fork, we may enter realms of liquid fluency and mastery that are open, vast, hyper-real, and seemingly alive. We may seemingly find ourselves entirely into those worlds, as if we are fully lucid dreaming and yet totally awake at the same time. Attempts at control in that territory will often cause some regression of the image if done without finesse. More practice again makes this easier.
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One trick that can help is pre-scripting the experience by making resolutions about what you want to see before you start a new cycle, then letting the intention go and allowing the cycle to run on its own (which it should be doing easily by this point). As you get good at this, when the hyper-real territory shows up, it will be as you asked it to be and often much more, as if a master CGI specialist suddenly custom-crafted the images with a level of detail and perfection far beyond what you may have ever imagined your mind could generate and then fully immersed you in that world. At this point, the elaborate visualizations you find in some of the traditions of the Vajrayana suddenly seem and then become vastly more attainable. Ask and ye shall receive. Seek and ye shall find. Just be careful what you seek, as you may notice that images and other effects in that realm of the hyper-real can also cause proportionally strong reactions in us.
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Take a kasina practice far enough following the simple advice above, and whole realms of remarkable capabilities will open to you. I will later call this phase with the hyper-real CGI effects the âmalleable phaseâ, and if you get there, you will understand why. Reality can be altered to a surprising degree in this phase, and not just when on the cushion. These are some of the possible endpoints of color-based or elemental kasina practices, but certainly not the only ones. There is some difference between the traditions, with some holding the view that a stable wash of bright white permeating awareness is a good endpoint. Other traditions hold that hyper-real images and other well-developed effects of very strong concentration are their endpoints. Basically, those are all good endpoints, and the ability to get into one generally comes with the ability to rapidly get into the others, so try for one and then have fun getting into the others.
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In that same spirit, take your now highly-concentrated mind and direct it to various skillful tasks and explorations, such as the various qualities of the jhanas, and see what happens. In fact, more bodily jhanic elements such as bliss and stillness will likely show long before hyper-defined images. Many of us find that the hardest part of navigating the later stages of kasina visuals is avoiding turning attention to the understandably captivating bodily bliss and peaceful components and thus ignoring the visuals to some degree. Others of us will notice that the bodily bliss and peace components help chill out the mind, reduce agitation, enhance rapture, and thus improve the ability to stabilize attention on the visuals and their finer yet broader components.
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Some of us will notice that, after some period, the blissful components become less interesting, as if some healing has taken place, and we can then go back to the visuals less distracted by the bodily elements. Others among us will notice a natural oscillation between bodily jhanic components and the visuals as part of their standard sequence of rising through the changing objects. For some of us, using kasina images to get to the bliss and equanimity is the motivation, so at that point we will then just tune in to these qualities for their own sake.
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Still others of us will notice that a wide range of very specific feelings and qualities deemed worthy of cultivation can be generated and nurtured to remarkable degrees along with images that are designed to enhance those images. Those of us with a more recreational bent will likely find these capabilities fascinating. Those of us with a more spiritual bent will likely find them extremely empowering and practice-enhancing. Those with both aspects, such as myself, will likely find the whole process to be the remarkable set of opportunities it is. May we use those opportunities and abilities well and skillfully for the benefit of all beings! This is a resolution I find helpful for keeping things on track, and I repeat it often between practice periods when doing these practices.
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Speaking of elements, those who do one element, such as the fire element, for a long time (say, 150 hours at eight to fifteen hours per day as a rough guide for a competent practitioner) may start to notice that this practice can have other surprising elemental effects, such as generating heat in the body if doing a fire element practice, such as candle flame.
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While earlier I said that the object didnât matter so much, each kasina object, such as one based on an element or image, can generate surprising effects if practice is taken far enough, effects it takes a pretty magickal worldview to explain. If the elemental effect of, say, fire kasina, gets to be too much, add in other elements, such as water, air, and earth, or even space, spending some time focusing on those also. Literally going to a lake, stream, or ocean may help. Focusing on a glass of water would do in a pinch. Walking barefoot on the earth may help. Spending time staring at the sky or some other open space may help.