What Meditation Really Reveals
When you meditate and the conscious mind settles, the first thing you meet is your own subconscious, so difficult experiences in and after meditation are a sign of progress, not failure.
Dandapani pushes back on the idea that meditation is a path of bliss. Closing the eyes, regulating the breath and stilling the body harnesses the conscious mind, and awareness then moves into the subconscious storehouse of everything you have lived. He says the work is to clear what surfaces there, not to sit back and watch it.
What this talk covers
- The belief that you sit down to meditate and experience bliss does not match what actually happens.
- Meditation begins by calming the conscious mind through closing the eyes, regulating the breath and sitting still, after which awareness moves into the subconscious storehouse of everything you have lived.
- In the monastery a wonderful group meditation often meant a difficult day afterwards, because the contents of the subconscious would start coming up.
- Watching and observing is not enough, in the way that observing dirty dishes never cleans the sink, so the instruction is to deal with what comes up.
- On detachment, his guru said it is not feasible to be detached while living in the world, and it is fine to be attached to higher minded people and things and detached from lower minded ones.
If there was dirty dishes in my sink and I was just the observer, is that sink ever going to get clean?Dandapani
Questions
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Because once the conscious mind is calm, awareness moves into the subconscious, which is the storehouse of everything you have experienced. What surfaces is that material, and Dandapani treats it as a sign you are making progress.
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Dandapani says no. If dirty dishes sit in the sink and you only observe them, they are still there in the morning, crusty and hard. The subconscious works the same way, so the material has to be dealt with.
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His guru told him that living in the world makes complete detachment impossible. He is attached to his daughter, his wife and his parents, and the guidance is to be attached to higher minded things and people and detached from lower minded ones.
Transcript
742 words · 4:08
Most people saying that the spiritual path is a path of bliss, the path of happiness. No, it's a frickin horrible path full of endless struggles. You know, the whole notion that I sit down and meditate and experience bliss is bullshit. What is the first thing you encounter when you meditate?
Go back to what we were talking about, the three states of mind, the conscious mind, the subconscious, the super conscious. When I meditate, my goal is to calm or harness the conscious mind. I close my eyes, regulate my breath.
I close my mouth. I still my body by sitting quietly. My conscious mind becomes harness and calm. Now my awareness moved from the conscious mind into the subconscious, which is my storehouse
of life's experiences. What kind of shit you think I'm seeing in there? All kinds of stuff. You know you're making progress in your meditation when you don't have the listful experience,
when you have shitty experiences. In my early years in the monastery, I would have a great meditation. The monks meditated as a group. And when I came out of that meditation and it was so wonderful, I knew I was going to
have a shitty day. Because all the stuff from my subconscious would start to come up. Because you encounter the subconscious as the second realm. becomes the work of organizing the subconscious, dealing with the past, working with all of
that. And once you get the subconscious after a lot of hard personal work organized, then awareness can go through the second floor into the super conscious mind where that bliss, that peace, that highest states of consciousness is.
But you can't get there without going through the second floor. And the second floor is an accumulation of your entire life or lives if you believe in reincarnation. And it is a sign of progress because you have to do the work and that's, there's no way
to go from the first floor to the third floor without bypassing the second floor. And the second floor is made up of all habit patterns that are good or bad, experiences that are good or bad for like, you know, for simple terms, you know, information that's positive or not positive.
And you have to go past that and you'll start to see it. And the goal then is not to ignore it or observe it, you know, just be the watcher. No, the goal is to deal with the stuff. Because if you don't deal with the stuff and just watch it, it doesn't go away.
If there was dirty dishes in my sink and I was just the observer, is that sink ever going to get clean? No, I got to get down and just wash those dishes. Subconscious is no different, too.
I have to do the work. When you take the approach, this passive approach, I'm just going to be the watcher and just observe and just let go. I tried to let go of the daily dishes and the sink, it just doesn't go away.
And I wake up in the morning, I thought, you know, I'll just go to bed and just let go. I'll wake up in the morning, it'll all be gone. And guess what? It's all there, crusty and hard.
Should have done it last night. So do the work. Work with the stuff and the subconscious. And that's the work to be done in order to get to the super conscious here of the
mind. You briefly mentioned that on the spiritual path, the common notion of saying that on the spiritual path, we shouldn't be attached to anything. We should have a sense of detachment. My guru helped clarify that, and he was the first person to bring this to my mind, this perspective that I never heard before.
He said, when you live in the world, it's impossible to be detached. I'm attached to my daughter. I'm attached to certain foods that I like, to clothes or my wife, my parents,
things in my life, people in my life. So he gave the perspective, it's okay to be attached to higher minded things and higher minded people
and be detached from lower minded things and lower minded people. But to be in the world as a household, even as a mom, to be completely detached
is difficult and not even feasible.