Talks in Crimea

Inchegery Navnatkh Sampradaya Parampara
Sudak 24th of July 2004
 

Sumiran: I want to say a couple of words about the practice of sitting.

When you are sitting, point your attention to the “I am” feeling. What does it mean to point attention to this feeling? You are conscious of your consciousness, Why does one need this? So that the «I am» feeling is not softly transformed into “I am not” during the practice. This happens sometimes. A man who is experienced in practice enough, never falls asleep, no matter how tired he is. An ordinary person when being sat to practice doesn’t hesitate to sleep, why not? There is nothing to do, why not to sleep? It’s the nature of one’s psychics – it is awake only when there are some stimulators: TV, images, sounds. When there are a few stimulators, our consciousness is so weak, that it stops being aware and falls asleep. The first that you start learning is to be present without stimulation. Only your «I am» feeling is enough in order not to sleep. You fix your attention at this feeling and try not to lose it – simply speaking – not to fall asleep. The second point is that usually when we know that we “are”, at the same time we get self-defined – we know “who” we are. Beside the “I am” feeling, we have the image of ourselves being constantly created.
Your first target is to adhere to the «I am» feeling, not to lose it. The second target is not to create the image of oneself, not to have an image of oneself. The mind creates an image; and you destroy it. You say – I am not this. Why? Because when you are sitting, all the problems that appear in the psychics are only possible when you are someone. Your rights, your obligations, your future is connected not to the «I am» feeling, but to your image. You have to pay attention to it. When there is an image of oneself, future and past appear, offenses, expectations, problems appear. If there is no image, then whatever problems come, there is no one at home for them. Who they are going to cause problems to? The image of oneself is the root that all other psychological difficulties come from. They are based exactly on that there is someone, and certain psychological difficulties start coming to this someone. Your target is not to work with problems, but to work with that there is no one who has problems. When there is no you, there are no problems. When you weren’t born yet, did you have problems? The dead don’t have problems, either. What was the insight of the people of meditation? They understood that it is not necessary to die, in order not to have problems.

Physical problems are not so vast – to eat, to sleep – the body doesn’t need much. The greatest part of your problems is of the psychological nature. They refer not to the body that doesn’t need so much, but to the expectations, ambitions, jealousy, fears. This whole complex is based not on the body, but on the psychological image of oneself, that is “who I am” and “who I must be”. Thus, as soon as we create an idea of oneself, an idea of our life, of how it should be, a huge amount of psychological tensions appear. But initially we create an idea of oneself. In Zen practice we destroy this idea of oneself. I don’t know who I am, I am no one. If I am no one, I mustn’t think about the future, I mustn’t make some plans, there can be no offences. In this state you sit. This is a very interesting state, try to find it. You are invulnerable to the mind in this state. Because the mind is a thought. A thought can touch only a thought, and your image of yourself is also a thought. Why do thoughts touch you? You are also a thought. A computer pirate can kill only a computer hero. He cannot kill you, if you are sitting in front of the computer. The thought can cause anxiety only to a thought. And how do we identify ourselves with a thought? I identify myself with the “I’-image. I know that I am that and that and that. Consequently all the other thoughts that come to our consciousness correlate to our image, hook it, and we start being emotionally involved, and there starts the unfolding of all our psychological life. Then we say – “I won’t create myself as a thought, as an image”, then when the thoughts appear in your head, you don’t fight with them, they simply don’t make problem to you. To whom they are going to make problems? Your target is not to be a thought that is fighting with the other thoughts as usually people do in practice. They are sitting and thinking “I am getting ready for the enlightenment, I have to destroy all the other thoughts”, especially the negative ones, pleasant ones can remain for some time”. That is they are a thought, an idea of “who I am” that is working with them, etc. There is another approach in za-zen – you simply don’t have images of oneself, that is why the presence of thoughts in your head doesn’t represent any problems. They simply come and go. What does it have to do with you? You are, but you are not an image, you are simply present. That is why you are moving into the «I am» feeling, into this presence, rejecting any definition of oneself as someone. This is the only thing you have to do when you are sitting. That is not to lose the «I am» feeling, to put all the attention to this feeling, and not to be identified as something. You will get a certain psychological effect, and not only psychological, and it will constantly deepen.

This practice is called Inchegery Navnatkh Sampradaya Parampara. An ancient practice that originates from Risho Dattreiya who was the incarnation of Vishnu, Brahma and Shiva. This tradition of the concentration of attention or enclosing consciousness to itself, that is, we enclose attention to the attention, because attention is the feeling of existence itself. Perception that perceives not the objects but itself is the “«I am» feeling”. This is the symbol of the snake biting its tail. The next parallel step is not to allow the mind to define you as an object. That’s it, there is nothing else to do.
This practice is not connected to any vision of the future, there is not a doer here, because the doer implies that you do something; and here you do nothing. Just being present and not self-defining. That is you don’t create anything. Mostly the practices are based on the idea that you become someone, and here you become no one. The idea of becoming is the idea of the ego, it brings conflict anyway. There is not any becoming here, no time, you are always present. And as you don’t self-define you don’t need to develop yourself. Due to this the conflict “what if I don’t have enough time, life is so short” disappears. You don’t need time, where are you rushing? This is how you throw the neurosis of the hurry away. You sit, you can’t have problems arising – because there is no one to have problems, there is no one to develop either. And you get into a certain state that is silence, serenity, peace, love. There is no fear in this state; what is there to be afraid of - I have disappeared, but still remained. It is very interesting – I have disappeared as someone, but remained as life.

Seeker: We may match it as a kind of home where there is nothing, no attributes. There are the walls as such, and I may be compared to emptiness that has these walls. Or one shouldn’t do this? Border the emptiness so that no thoughts came, so that nothing hooked. Surround oneself by this round or one shouldn’t imagine these pictures?

S.: Why do you need the walls? If you have taken away everything, take away the walls also.

Seeker: And who am I who anyway exists? That is I have greater space than the room, the house?

S.: Why not? We want to be more than a man, but to stay within the boundaries of one’s walls.

Seeker: See, you are again about these walls, perhaps I am behind the walls…

S.: It is an analogy, when we take the room with furniture, it is assumed that the room itself is our personal consciousness. Why personal? Because there are walls that define the borders. There is furniture in the room – this is our emotions, feelings, experiences – this is what fills us.
Then the first step – we take the furniture out of the room. Only the quality of emptiness remains – this is our pure consciousness, but it still has the walls that form our personal nature, our separation.

Seeker 2: The walls are the personality?

S.: Look, the furniture is the ideas about oneself, and the walls are the idea of having borders. That is the furniture inside the room is an idea, the wall is also an idea. Furniture as such is the idea who I am, and the wall is the idea that I have borders. This is also an idea. One can not stick to it, then we can imagine not a room, but just space, to say more precise it is not being imagined, it is being experienced. Reality shouldn’t be imagined, we just perceive what is.

The “I am” feeling is not a concept, not a thought in the common meaning of this word; it is good by that it is not a form of our idea. And, say, the images, thoughts are secondary – I want to think – I do think, I don’t want to – I don’t, and so on. That is why the «I am» feeling has a certain quality which makes it closer to reality, because it shouldn’t be thought of in order to be. We make an emphasis on it, we don’t think it is, we feel it, and we just don’t lose attention to this feeling. The awareness of the images during meditation is necessary to the people who are unable to keep attention at the «I am» feeling from jump. This approach makes the psychics of a man more stable and mature, so that later on one could focus attention at the “I am” feeling and keep attention without using an image. Some people have so weak psychics and bodies that when they start concentrating at this feeling they simply either fall asleep, or begin being involved into thoughts. Then additional images are given to them. Earlier or later they must leave them aside. I offer you to refuse from these crutches at one go.