Category: Prem’s Notes

Witnessing where Mindfulness and Self-Inquiry Meet

At first glance, one might think that there is a significant difference between Ramana’s Self-Inquiry and Osho’s Witnessing Meditation. But in my own experience I have found that not to be the case. What I discovered is that Osho’s Watching/Witnessing Meditation incorporates Ramana’s enquiry but also extends out to reach a much larger field of practitioners. How so? you might ask. Okay, here goes.

Ramana Maharshi’s method of self-inquiry is often described as such:
A thought appears.
The question is asked, “To whom does the thought appear?”
The answer, “Me,” arises.
And then the question, “Who is this me? Or who am I?” is enquired into.

Osho has described the following three steps for his watching meditation:
We begin with watching the activities of the body.

With this awareness we then turn inwards to watch the movement of mind, thought.

Even deeper still and ever more subtle we then begin to watch the feelings of the heart.

So where do these seemingly very different approaches to realizing the self overlap, and how are they related?

Ramana begins with “a thought appears.” So, for a thought to appear it presumes that one is watching the movement of mind. For many of us, this is not as easy as one might, excuse the pun, think.

And this is where Osho extends the field. He instructs us to begin with watching the activities of the body. Meaning: we watch, we bring awareness to daily activities, eating, walking, talking, showering, etc. By this bringing awareness we are reclaiming our consciousness. We are increasing our own capacity of being aware. We are learning the art of watching. We are beginning to be more conscious.

His next step is to take this awareness and begin to watch the movement of mind. First, we watch our continual getting lost into thought and then remembering which brings us momentarily out of the stream. This process takes time because we have to gradually increase our capacity to watch all that appears in consciousness. Soon we are able to see thought as something separate from our watching and slowly disidentification begins, but still we are drawn out into the fray again and again. But then there is one more instruction that Osho adds and that is to watch without grasping or rejecting, to watch without judging the thoughts, to watch without analyzing the thought stream. Through this quality of watching, we begin to see that it is “the grasping and rejecting, the judging and analyzing” that is keeping us tethered to the stream of thought. It is how we remain identified with thought. A thought appears and we grab onto it because we like it and go for a ride. Or a thought appears that we find unpleasant and we push it down not to be looked at. Or we judge our getting lost into a thought or even analyze why we are attracted to such a thought.

But when we discover watching without grasping or rejecting, without judging or analyzing we are able to disengage, disidentify with thought and remain the watcher. And it is the same process for feelings, moods, emotions.

It is here that Ramana’s second step comes in. He says, we ask, “To whom does the thought appear?” We are not able to ask this as long as we are glued together with the stream of thought, as long as we are grasping, judging, etc. With the quality of watching that Osho has instructed there is space for the inquiry, “To whom does the thought appear?” Here we are in the double-pointed arrow that Osho speaks about. The arrow pointing back is the enquiry – to whom does that thought appear.

Osho instructs us to remain in this watching with the double-pointed arrow, watching without judging, analzying … and slowly, slowly the content that the outward-pointing arrow is pointing to begins to disappear. It no longer has the fuel to continue because it was being supplied by the identification, by the engagement.

And it is here that Ramana’s inquiry of “who am I” is relevant. Here in this disengaged awareness, this witnessing without an object, one’s own true nature as the witnessing consciousness is revealed. And it is indeed who we are.

I have been known to say that Osho’s witnessing meditation is the bee’s knees of meditation because it incorporates both mindfulness and self-enquiry. And so it is, and so it does.

A big shout to those who have persisted in their questions requiring me to articulate ever more clearly this insight.

-purushottama

See all 0f Prem’s notes.

The Double-Pointed Arrow of Watchingness

Osho speaks often about watching the mind without grasping or rejecting, without judging, without analyzing. And he also speaks about watching with a double-pointed arrow of awareness.

After experimenting with these two viewpoints, it has been my discovery that they are two ways of describing the exact same phenomenon. When we manage to watch without grasping or rejecting, without judging, without analyzing we find ourselves watching with a double-pointed awareness. If we find ourselves in watching with the double-pointed arrow we discover that we are indeed watching without grasping or rejecting, etc., and we see that it is the grasping, the rejecting, the judging, the analyzing that is preventing us from having the double-pointed awareness

So whichever viewpoint we are more suited to, they both will be describing the same quality of watchingness. The key is watching without being drawn out (grasping, rejecting …) into the fray. This watching without being drawn out creates the second arrow of awareness.

-purushottama

See all 0f Prem’s notes.

The End of Seeking?

These days on every corner you can find a teacher holding “satsang” and telling you that they have come to the end of seeking.

Ask them how they came to the end of seeking. Did they come to this realization without seeking, or did they first go through many trials and tribulations of seeking to finally arrive at the end of seeking.

And if they did, in fact, come through seeking, what is the value of telling others about their own non-seeking? Is it to brag? Are they not doing a disservice to those who are still in the midst of their journey? Should they not encourage others to continue to the end of their own seeking without trying to cut short the journey through some false non-existent short cut?

Or was it just some accidental happening, in which case, what is the value of telling others about that which is only a personal event and which cannot be reproduced?

There are probably many who have discovered their own inner landscape spontaneously, or even accidentally, but they are not of much help to others. No, rather than hang out with these satsang teachers, seek out the teachings of masters who are skilled at guiding others out of their delusions, confusions and misunderstandings. Once out of the quagmire, one finds the light shining with ever such splendor and it is then, and only then that seeking disappears.

-purushottama

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Watching and also Forgetting the Content

This last week’s meditation program, Program #05: Like the Empty Sky it has No Boundaries, inspired the latest posting on another koan.

Osho speaks about both watching the mind and forgetting the content. The two together seem to be quite a paradox. If I watch the mind, how can I forget the content? And if I forget the content, how can I watch the mind? When I first try to put into practice both of these instructions, I find that I am constantly flipping back and forth. So how can I simultaneously watch the activities of the mind and forget the content?

What I have found is that if I watch the mind in the same way as I watch a movie or a television show then indeed there is no way to both watch and forget the content. But if I watch with the qualities that are prescribed by Osho, that is watching without grasping and without rejecting, watching without analyzing, and watching without judging and at the same time remember that I am the watcher and not the content (the double-pointed arrow), then slowly, slowly the content begins to evaporate and I am left with only a watchingness without content. And so, here I am watching, and the content is forgotten, or more accurately the content has disappeared on its own, and there is no more flipping back and forth, at least until of course I fall out of watching with these qualities.

-purushottama

For more on this topic, you may wish to explore:

The Awakening of the Double-Pointed Arrow

Meditation Involves all Three

Awakening Before Enlightenment

After Awakening Before Enlightenment

See all 0f Prem’s notes.

Meditation Involves all Three

Osho often talks about the difference between concentration, contemplation and meditation or dhyana. Mostly, he is making a distinction in order to prod us on into real meditation or dhyana. But just this morning, and it is so obvious I am almost embarrassed to say that it was a realization, I did, in fact, realize that meditation involves all three. Many times, when I begin my sitting, I first gather myself to move out of identification with the mind into being able to watch the mind. So first, I am focusing my energy into watching. This is concentration.

Only after the watching is concentrated am I able to watch the mind with indifference, to watch the mind like I would watch a river flow from the bank. This watching is equal to contemplation. Just letting the thoughts flow without interference.

If I am able to watch without grasping, without rejecting, without judging and without analyzing, then the flow of thought begins to subside. It is the grasping, rejecting, judging, interfering that perpetuates the movement of thought. When I am able to watch without doing those things and thought subsides, that is when dhyana begins to be revealed. When there is nothing to be seen and there is only watchingness, awareness aware of itself, that is dhyana.

-purushottama

For more on this topic, you may wish to explore:

The Awakening of the Double-Pointed Arrow

Watching and Forgetting the Content

Awakening Before Enlightenment

After Awakening Before Enlightenment

See all 0f Prem’s notes.

 

The Awakening of the Double-Pointed Arrow

It seems to me that the awakening of the double-pointed arrow is the fulcrum point, the nexus, of meditation. Before the awakening, all meditation is an exercise in creating and realizing the double-pointed arrow. After the awakening of the double-pointed arrow, meditation is about stabilization, and then with this stabilized awareness – the witness – the transformation occurs.

 

 

What is the double-pointed arrow? The simplest definition is awareness, or the witness. It is not only awareness of objects but also awareness of our own subjectivity, hence the witness. Without this element, there is no possibility of transformation. In fact, it is because of this element of a double-pointed arrow, the witness, that transformation takes place.

When we begin by watching the activities of the body or watching the breath, we are endeavoring, knowingly or unknowingly, to create the level of awareness where one is also aware of oneself, the double-pointed arrow.

It is in the activity of watching the mind that the turning point happens. It is by watching the mind that one becomes aware of being something other than the mind, and this is precisely the awakening of the double-pointed arrow, the awakening of the witness. It is important to point out that this awareness of being something beyond the mind is not just an intellectual or conceptual understanding. But rather it is the experience of there being thought (mind) but also the knowingness, the actual experiencing of being something beyond the mind, hence the double-pointed arrow.

And it is here after one first becomes aware of this double-pointed arrow that the work of stabilization takes place. For some time, one finds oneself shifting back and forth between pre-awakening and post-awakening until finally this state of double-pointed arrow is stabilized. This shifting back and forth is natural to the stabilization process.

From this stabilized watching, we witness the heart, and transformation gains momentum until finally what is watched is watchingness itself, being, the witness. At this point there is no longer a double-pointed arrow, just a single all-encompassing awareness. Here the observer is the observed. Here there is no center and no periphery, there is only oneness.

Bodhi Svaha!

-purushottama

For more on this topic, you may wish to explore:

Meditation Involves all Three

Watching and Forgetting the Content

Awakening Before Enlightenment

After Awakening Before Enlightenment

See all 0f Prem’s notes.

Witnessing is the Bee’s Knees of Meditation

Months ago, we began the module Osho Tantra and the Secrets of Meditation with the first three of Shiva’s 112 meditation techniques, Between Two Breaths, As Breath Turns from Down to Up, and Whenever In-Breath and Out-Breath Fuse, all three of these meditation techniques focused on the breath. We moved on to the third eye with Attention Between Eyebrows and self-remembering with Be Aware You Are.

With the technique Wherever Your Mind is Wandering, we began to get a glimpse of witnessing. With Consider Your Essence as Light Rays Rising, we explored the chakras. We tossed attachment for body aside with You are Everywhere and dropped thinking with Thinking No Thing.

And then we moved on to the more subtle techniques, including Contemplate Something Beyond Perception, and the sublime Put Mindstuff in Such Inexpressible Fineness. In our last Tantra program, we entered shunyam, emptiness with Suppose Your Passive Form to be an Empty Room.

In today’s program, we will come to the end of Osho Tantra and the Secrets of Meditation with this the twentieth program. This program is based on the last of the meditation techniques from The Book of Secrets, number 112 of the Vigyan Bhairav Tantra and is called Enter Space, Supportless, Eternal, Still.

Yesterday in our dialogue the topic of blending techniques and whether Osho’s Witnessing Meditation is a technique and not to be blended with the 112 techniques.

Yes, we are instructed not to blend the techniques. But Osho’s Witnessing is not a technique. What is it? It is “seeing what is, without interfering.” We watch the activities of the body (what is), we watch the activities of the mind (what is), we watch the activities of the heart (what is), all without interfering. It is simply witnessing. Witnessing is not a technique. It is Zazen Meditation. It is sitting silently, doing nothing.

Because we are already doing much, in order to come to doing nothing, something has to change. What has to change is that we have to stop the doing. How do we stop the doing, i.e., thinking, dreaming, etc.? We stop thinking by watching our thinking without interacting.

It also seems to me with almost every one of the 112 techniques witnessing comes into play.

For example:

Attention Between Eyebrows, Let Mind Be Before Thought. How do we “let mind be before thought”? By watching mind with indifference.

Eyes Closed See your Inner Being in Detail. How do we “see our inner being in detail”? By not going out and interacting with mind.

When Singing, Seeing, Tasting, Be Aware You Are. How do we become aware we are? By not being in thinking. By watching the body in singing, etc. with a double pointed arrow. The double pointed arrow means, “remember you are.”

Wherever Your Mind is Wandering. We watch our mind wandering but without grasping, rejecting, analyzing, judging.

Before Desire and Before Knowing. Ditto.

Thinking No Thing. Witnessing.

Suppose You Contemplate Something Beyond Perception. Ditto.

Perceive One Being as Knower and Known. The double pointed arrow of the witness.

Put Mindstuff in Such Inexpressible Fineness. How do we “put mindstuff in such inexpressible fineness”? By watching, by witnessing.

And all the rest even up to the last technique, Enter Space, Supportless, Eternal, Still. How to enter that space? We enter by sitting silently, doing nothing, just remaining a witness until there is nothing left to witness. Just supportless, eternal, still.

So yes, we are instructed not to blend the techniques, but witnessing is not a technique and is at the very core of each of these techniques. And it is through watching, witnessing, that we enter these techniques, and it is by watching, witnessing, that we arrive at the space which these techniques are pointing.

So, why do I refer to Osho’s Witnessing Meditation (O-Meditation) as the “bee’s knees?” Because it is the way and the goal, the first step is the last step.

-purushottama

See all 0f Prem’s notes.

 

I Have a Confession to Make

On this day, December 11th, in which Osho came into this world, I have a confession to make. Even though Osho spoke continuously about the need for meditation and introduced us to the 112 meditation techniques of the Vigyan Bhairav Tantra, developed his active meditations in order to bring us more quickly into meditation, and while in the body spoke for hours daily bringing us into a listening meditation, I did not regularly sit in meditation until 20 years after he left the body.

And to be honest, for most of those 20 years, I was deceiving myself into thinking that I didn’t need to spend time in sitting meditation because I was meditating all the time. I don’t think that was true, but even if it was, to be watching the activities of the body, eating, walking, relating with others, working or even watching the breath is only the first step in Osho’s Vipassana meditation. And as he tells us, the second step is watching the activities of the mind (thought), and the third step is watching the activities of the heart (feelings). I found that the only way I can really watch my mind is by sitting silently and looking directly at the movement of thought. It is in this watching without grasping, without rejecting, without analyzing and without judgment that occasionally I find myself out of mind.

But since that time 14 years ago, I have sat for an hour a day, every day, with the exception of only a couple of long flight nights. In the beginning, perhaps you could have called it a practice, but I am not even sure of that, but certainly for many years it has been, and continues to be, just a joy to be in those moments when occasionally everything comes to a stop. And so, in gratitude to all that has come before I can only say, “meditate, meditate, meditate, just for the sheer joy of it.” And as the Beatles used to sing, “Jai Guru Dev.”

-purushottama

You may also like to read: The Three Steps of Awareness.

See all 0f Prem’s notes.

The Swimming Dragon

Many years ago, I stumbled across a very simple ch’i kung (qigong) exercise that has stayed with me through the years. Every now and then I return to it and just last week was one of those times. But now as the years roll by, it is an even more important addition to my daily life. Being reminded of the joy of discovery of this extremely simple yet powerful practice, I wanted to share it.

There seems to be many different variations on the practice. If you search in YouTube, you will find several. But I want to recommend this particular variation as taught by Master Tzu Kuo Shih.  From the back of his book, we learn: Master Shih is a fifth-generation doctor of traditional Chinese medicine (including acupuncture and herbal treatment). Born in Shanghai, he is the first in the West to teach the Swimming Dragon, as well as certain other previously secret forms. Noted in China as a ch’i kung and t’ai chi master, doctor and cancer specialist, as well as painter and writer.

When I first learned of this practice, Master Shih was still living in Kingston, New York. Unfortunately, I never met him in person. However, Amido and I did travel to Connecticut a few years back to attend a Swimming Dragon workshop that was being taught by one of his daughters. Consequently, I learned the practice through Master Shih’s book, The Swimming Dragon, and his video, and then brushed up on my technique with the workshop. The book is still available from Amazon, but I have not been able to find copies of the video available for sale. I am posting a link to view and download the video below. I am also posting two other videos, the first is probably the best for learning. It is from a direct student of Master Shih and is very clear in its instruction. The second video is from someone who was self-taught and learned Master Shih’s version of The Swimming dragon through his book and video – demonstrating the movement.

Personally, I think that it is best to use both the book and the videos. The book is much more detailed about the practice and also introduces a few ch’i kung meditations which include the Sitting Dragon Meditation. The videos are extremely helpful in getting the movement right.

Enjoy!

-purushottama

This is from one of Master Shih’s direct students, very clear in its instructions.

The second is from a self-taught student.

And the third is from Master Shih himself. You can either watch from the link below or download The Swimming Dragon, Master Shih video (I apologize for the quality, but I think still helpful).

See all 0f Prem’s notes.

 

A New Look at the Three Gachchhamis

Recently, I’ve been considering the three Gachchhamis, or the three jewels as they are known in the world of Buddhism.

First, I should point out that there is a difference in the order of the three jewels and the three Gachchhamis as recited by the Osho sannyasins.

In the Buddhist world they are:

I take refuge in the Buddha

I take refuge in the Dharma

I take refuge in the Sangha

But for his sannyasins, Osho changed the order to:

First: Buddham Sharanam Gachchhami – I bow down to the feet of the Awakened One

Second: Sangham Sharanam Gachchhami – I bow down to the Community of the Awakened One

And third: Dhammam Sharanam Gachchhami – I bow down to the Ultimate Teaching of the Awakened One

So as I mentioned, I have been considering these three steps recently. A few years ago, I wrote an essay on the Gachchhamis, Be a Light Unto Ourselves, which is my own personal account of how they acted on me through my journey. When retelling this account to others, I realized that I needed a broader narrative for it to be relevant to contemporary seekers. While they certainly have deep resonance in my own life and perhaps for others who share similar experiences, it is limiting for those who find themselves in very different circumstances.

After some contemplation, a new way of looking, a more universal way of looking at the three jewels dawned on me.

The first Gachchhami, “I take refuge in the Awakened One” means one comes in contact with, becomes open to the teaching of spiritual awakening, of enlightenment, and is drawn into the mystery. It is tremendously important to move into this discovery more and more. It happens by stumbling across a book, a video on YouTube, listening to an audio, and for some, even just seeing the photograph of one in whom the greatest transformation has occurred.

The second Gachchhami, “I take refuge in the Sangha of the Awakened One” means we then come in contact with, become open to a community of, those who are interested in enlightenment, in spiritual awakening, and through this contact, we gain support and are able to nurture our own journey. This may happen through social media, online meditation meetings, and of course, in person events and meditations. We may even come to know about the vast community of enlightened masters, both the ancient ones and the contemporary seers.

And the third Gachchhami, “I take refuge in the Ultimate Teaching of the Awakened One” means we begin to internalize and start actualizing our own awakening. We begin to see all that is preventing us from realizing our own true nature. We discover what real meditation is. We discover the witnessing consciousness, and we become open to our potentiality, the destiny of our very own enlightenment. Surely this is the only way to pay tribute to those who have come before, by becoming a light unto ourselves.

-purushottama

See all 0f Prem’s notes.