I vividly remembering "making the decision" to swear as a child as much as possible. I remember telling myself that swearing made me more accessible to others and it would help mask my brightness.
Since learning this early skill, I've gotten into arguments where I've sworn at people, done the screaming at people in traffic thing, and occasionally swore at people online.
In private, I would swear at tons of people, in my mind. I believed this was a very human thing, very normal.
I'm entering a transitory part of my enlightenment journey where path is coming for my swears.
A few years ago, I got the stop swearing dialog box after a bright sit.
You should stop swearing. Do you stop (Y/N)?
I felt that was pretty lame, so I said no. I didn't really understand the impact swearing had on me.
About a year ago the dialog box appeared again, again after a bright sit.
You should stop swearing. (Y/N)?
Yes - Press Enter to confirm.
A bit more urgent, but I pressed Esc, and moved on.
In the last few days as I've been swimming in a bath of more or less infinite joy and piti, I find that if I swear, the piti feeling ... lessens. If I even intention a swear word, the cocoon of joy pops.
So this time around I'm taking a vow to not swear. Not because anyone told me, or it's a rule, or because I want to cultivate virtue and not swearing is virtuous, but because swearing directly impacts my own happiness in real time.
I just never had the sensitivity to notice. I'm trying to stay in a place of non-stop Metta, non-stop love for myself and others and this action is now locked out to me.
This is a partial transcript from a YouTube video by Ajahn Brahm called Seven Steps to Heaven (and One Beyond). (the link skips directly there).
There is a lot in this video besides this section, but this is a pretty important point.
...
Great question.
Can you be addicted to being in the Jhanas? The answer is yes.
It's stated in the Pāsādika Sutta of the Dīgha Nikāya.
If anyone asks you monks and nuns can you be addicted to the pleasures of the jhanas ... you should answer ... yes.
... because you are telling the truth.
Now what happens to you, if you are addicted to the pleasures of the jhanas?
Only four things can happen to you if you are addicted to the pleasures of the jhanas: stream winning, once returning, non-returning, and full enlightenment.
This is the referenced text in DN 29
...
“It’s possible that wanderers of other sects might say, ‘Living devoted to these four devotions to pleasure, friends, what fruits, what rewards can be expected?’
“The wanderers of other sects saying that are to be told, ‘Living devoted to these four devotions to pleasure, friends, four fruits, four rewards can be expected. Which four?
“‘Friends, there is the case where a monk, with the wasting away of (the first) three fetters, is a stream-enterer, certain, never again destined for the lower realms, headed for self-awakening. This is the first fruit, the first reward.
“‘Further, friends, the monk—with the wasting away of (the first) three fetters, and with the attenuation of passion, aversion, & delusion—is a once-returner; who, on returning only once more to this world, will make an ending to stress. This is the second fruit, the second reward.
“‘Further, the monk—with the wasting away of the five lower fetters—is due to arise spontaneously (in the Pure Abodes), there to totally unbind, destined never again to return from that world. This is the third fruit, the third reward.
“‘Further, the monk—with the ending of effluents—enters & remains in the effluent-free awareness-release & discernment-release, having directly known & realized it for himself right in the here & now.
“‘Living devoted to these four devotions to pleasure, friends, these four fruits, these four rewards can be expected.’
Alt Title: MN 58 Flowchart.
Here is a diagram based on MN 58.
Now at that time a baby boy was lying face-up on the prince’s lap. So the Blessed One said to the prince, “What do you think, prince? If this young boy, through your own negligence or that of the nurse, were to take a stick or a piece of gravel into its mouth, what would you do?”
“I would take it out, lord. If I couldn’t get it out right away, then holding its head in my left hand and crooking a finger of my right, I would take it out, even if it meant drawing blood. Why is that? Because I have sympathy for the young boy.”
“In the same way, prince:
[1] In the case of words that the Tathāgata knows to be unfactual, untrue, unbeneficial [or: not connected with the goal], unendearing & disagreeable to others, he does not say them.
[2] In the case of words that the Tathāgata knows to be factual, true, unbeneficial, unendearing & disagreeable to others, he does not say them.
[3] In the case of words that the Tathāgata knows to be factual, true, beneficial, but unendearing & disagreeable to others, he has a sense of the proper time for saying them.
[4] In the case of words that the Tathāgata knows to be unfactual, untrue, unbeneficial, but endearing & agreeable to others, he does not say them.
[5] In the case of words that the Tathāgata knows to be factual, true, unbeneficial, but endearing & agreeable to others, he does not say them.[6] In the case of words that the Tathāgata knows to be factual, true, beneficial, and endearing & agreeable to others, he has a sense of the proper time for saying them. Why is that? Because the Tathāgata has sympathy for living beings.
David Burns wrote a book called Feeling Good which uses CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy) to list 10 types of mental distortions that are worth examining.
What all distortions share is they substitute an idea for reality.
All or Nothing Thinking attempts to put things into one of two buckets Good/Bad, White/Black, Right/Wrong, Heavenly/Evil, Up/Down.
Reality is a mixture of lots of categories, never just two categories.
Is a mental tendency to see a pattern and infer a future result. If I failed at doing something twice, I could infer more attempts will end in failure. If this person said something mean to me before I could infer they are going to say something mean in the future.
Overgeneralization tries to predict the future.
Our minds have evolved to pay special attention to negative outcomes, because in earlier times they could have killed us. Mental filter wants to focus solely on the negative outcomes until they are all we see.
Mental Filter focuses us on the negatives.
Close to Mental Filter is Discounting the Positives. The difference is if something positive does happen, it gets discounted to zero and doesn’t count. No amount of success is ever enough, it was luck.
Discounting the Positives turns positives into negatives.
There are two ways we can jump to conclusions:
Mind Reading - Assuming what others are thinking, especially assuming negative thoughts.
Fortune Telling - Assuming stuff is going to go badly, especially with no evidence.
Jumping to Conclusions assumes the worst vs letting reality play itself out.
Magnification is making something much worse than it is and Minimization is making something far less important.
Magnification and Minimization distort reality to fit our internal biases.
Emotions aren’t thoughts and thoughts aren’t emotions. This isn’t the easiest thing to disentangle. Ideally we live from a place that integrates both thoughts and feelings so one or the other isn’t ruling our lives.
Sadness is a feeling which tells us we’ve lost something.
Anger is a feeling which tells us about a transgression.
Feeling sadness doesn’t mean we will be lonely forever, it’s just sadness. Feeling anger doesn’t mean we are a monster, we are just angry.
Emotional Reasoning, substitutes an emotion for our whole being. Emotions are part of us, they aren’t all of us.
Shoulds are essentially views, the way the world ought to be. Shoulds always come with judgement, and judgement like the should is an overlay of reality, it isn’t reality.
I should be this way, this should be that way, reality should be this way, this shouldn’t happen, this must happen, etc.
Shoulds lead to endless self-criticism, a voice which is never content, always asking for more. Shoulds can lead us to judge ourselves much more harshly then we’d judge a friend, a family member, or even a stranger.
Should Statements reject the world as it is and substitute in a view of how things should be.
Calling someone an idiot is dismissive, suddenly what they are saying isn’t relevant anymore. Similar titles are loser, fool, and stupid. There are endless labels. Be exceptionally careful with labels, even positive ones.
Labeling solidifies reality so we don’t have to understand its complexity.
Stuff beyond our control happens, but to personalize blame, someone must be responsible. Finding fault even for morally neutral choices makes blame where there wasn’t any. Sometimes we are responsible, and we blame others. Sometimes others are responsible, and we blame ourselves.
Personalization and Blame seek to assign cause and morality to everything.
Really happy to have these, it feels like each breath is joy. At a certain point, the joy broke and became raw equanimity. Had visions of how intimate we are to interact with the air directly, impulses towards nature and taking care of the air. Felt the lungs as vibrations. Hard to separate from Anapanasati (Mindfulness of Breathing) kept coming back to the lungs as a discrete entity.
I struggle with ARFID, I ended up doing a few mantras to encourage some weight gain
… and a few others.
I’m in the queer community and one of the few people without colored hair. It’s one way we signal to others we are safe to talk to. I think I’m going to dye my hair dark blue. I also realized I need to get on a regular schedule again with washing my hair and in general taking better care of it.
I suffer from acne, and dandruff. I need to see a dermatologist, and get more regular with skincare. I’ll buy a few products and be more gentle with myself regarding how I view my own skin and expectations of it. Realized part of the problem with me being in 3rd person, vs 1st person (hyper-vigilance) is I don’t map myself to being “in my skin” but “above or outside it”. I’ll do more sensation play to move my mental map. Drinking more water would also help.
I’ve been thinking about … instead of trying for high-end experiences, why don’t I just raise the water level, permanently. Like, what can I do, to forever lock out some kinds of negative experiences?
I have persistent tension in my genital region, so this session I set out to … figure out what was going on there.
That took a while, but I started directing mantras at it.
May I love and accept my body.
May I love and accept my sensations.
Eventually it dissolved, I was holding an unbelievable amount of tension there.
At some point, I realized I was … waiting for the meditation to be over, so I felt … if the hindrances are my friends, why don’t I just make Metta lines for each and every aversion that comes up?
May I love and accept the time it takes to meditate.
May I love and accept this itch.
May I love and accept my posture.
At some point, I realized I stepped into the brahmavihara of Metta, completely, for the first time, where everything in my sensate field was … wrapped in unconditional universal love.
And I started weeping.
May I love and accept myself unconditionally.
May I love and accept others unconditionally.
May I love and accept the present moment unconditionally.
As experiences came up I started to just … wrap them in love.
May I accept my fear with love.
May I accept my anger with love.
May I accept my ill-will with love.
May I love and accept my anxiety.
Then I started finding small things:
May I let go of judgement.
May I let go of ill-will.
May I embrace my own failures.
May I embrace the failures of others.
May I embrace my own mistakes.
May I embrace the mistakes of others.
May I understand others are on their own journey.
May I not seek to control everything.
It didn’t feel like thinking, the lines came from the beyond, as I touched each one, I could feel parts of identity melting. I could feel each thing I had held as me being let go of.
The field really opened up, and there wasn’t anything in the center anymore. I dropped a ton of weight I don’t think I’ll pick up again.
This feels and seems like a big deal.
Time: 40 minutes.
Style:
Somatic awareness - Reginald Ray .
Metta - Sharon Salzberg & TWIM.
Do nothing - Shinzen Young.
Deity Practice - Theoi Hellenist, self lead.
Jhana - Rob Burbea + Leigh Brassington.
Said my deity prayers then had the practice spontaneously arise.
Started with:
May I love and accept myself exactly as I am.
This helps get me into the acceptance mode which is necessary to say the harder lines. After I while I transitioned into:
May I be safe.
May I be well.
May I be happy.
May I be peaceful and at ease.
Did that for a click, felt pretty good, then transitioned to practice for my deity.
May Ariadne be safe.
May Ariadne be well.
May Ariadne be happy.
May Ariadne be peaceful and at ease.
Did that for a few clicks, then transitioned to a joined practice.
May we be safe.
May we be well,
May we be happy.
May we be peaceful and at ease.
At some point Ariadne takes over, and it becomes 10 directions practice.
May all beings be safe.
May all beings be well.
May all beings be happy.
May all beings be peaceful at ease.
I feel the vows in the background wanting to be integrated with the lines so they morph into:
May all beings realize safety.
May all beings realize wellness.
May all beings realize happiness.
May all beings realize serenity.
My being starts to walk the jhanic-arc, so integrating that practice becomes:
May all beings realize happiness.
May all beings realize joy.
May all beings realize contentment.
May all beings realize balance.
May all beings realize presence.
May all beings realize connection.
May all beings realize stillness.
May all beings realize to the dream.
May all beings realize freedom.
It gets insanely bright, words drop away, just hang out there until the bell rings.
These instructions build on this set from Shinzen Young - Do Nothing
Just sit but instead of doing anything notice that quality of mind that asks you to do stuff. You are looking for agency, intention, doing, pushes, grabs, anything that says “pay attention to me.”
Notice where … in the mind these perceptions are. What is it about a sensation that has a sense of doing-ness to it?
If you feel an itch, how do you know to scratch it? Can you trace the chain?
If you want to move, how do you know to move? Can you trace the chain?
If you want to do so-and-so practice, what sensation tells you to do the practice?
If you want to leave the cushion, what sensation tells you to leave the cushion?
If a thought occurs, what sensation says “pay attention to me?” Can you notice the chain?
Can you notice a doing, and … not do it? Really try to not do something.
Disclaimer: I am an advanced technical meditation practitioner. These instructions can reveal a lot about yourself. I don’t know of a similar set of instructions, I used these to help understand if I should transition.
cw: body dysphoria
This work is based on two articles by Zinnia Jones.
That was Dysphoria? 8 signs and symptoms of indirect gender dysphoria.
Depersonalization in gender dysphoria - widespread and widely unrecognized.
You will be trying to sense gender dysphoria and gender euphoria respectively:
More ease vs less ease.
Easier vs harder.
More emotions vs fewer emotions.
More agency vs less agency.
More presence vs less presence.
More connection vs less connection.
There are actually a few kinds of meditations possible here two kinds: mental and physical.
Calm your mind using any method you are familiar with. Let yourself enter fantasy. Be non-judgmental … it’s your mind you have complete privacy.
What would it be like to be a different gender?
Can you see yourself doing gendered activities? (Example: Makeup?)
Can you see yourself doing non-gendered activities? (Example: Eating?)
Who are you socializing with? (What is their gender?)
Notice your level of engagement (Are you into this? Distracted?)
If you change genders (yourself) does the imagery change?
Do you feel gender dysphoria?
Do you feel gender euphoria?
This meditation is about body awareness. It may be uncomfortable for some.
Calm your mind using any method you are familiar with. Be non-judgmental … it’s your body and you have complete privacy.
Find a dark quiet place you will not be disturbed.
Get naked.
Touch yourself on a non-erogenous zone, notice the feeling tone (pleasant, unpleasant, neutral)
Touch your genitals – what is the feeling tone? Can you do this without any fabrication?
You are trying to notice the difference between different spots on the body, with as little between you and the sensations as possible. Some spots may be pleasant, some may be unpleasant, some may be neutral. Again look for signs of euphoria vs dysphoria.
(v1.0 - May 20 2020)
(This post is retro-active. These are some lines I wrote out on a Metta Retreat)
cw: self-harm
Metta meditation is usually a wish for goodwill or kindness.
Karuna meditation is usually a wish for beings to be free from suffering.
Lines from my diary
May I be free from suffering.
May I be free from pain.
May I see and be free of self-hate.
May I be free from self-criticism.
May my self-compassion be unconditional.
May I see and reduce the harm I cause to myself & others.
May I be free of suicidal intent.
May I see and be free of shame.
May I be free from fear & danger.
(How the above is supposed to work is, you pick a line or two or three, and you just repeat them, holding the intention sincerely. If you can, feel and cultivate what that intention feels like, and feel and cultivate felt emotional responses. Be as gentle as possible.)
(written 24-Jan-2021)