Coming to this place, and what we may find here

Coming more quickly to Step 9

Once we've learned to navigate Steps 1 to 8, and to sit in this place of stillness, we may be able to find our way there more quickly. We may not always have to work our way labouriously through Steps 1 to 8. At least that is what I've found, especially when I've been practising on a daily or near-daily basis. As your experience of the steps grows, you may begin to find the same.

When no reactivity is present

One thing you may find after a time is that when you arrive at Step 7 (Experiencing reactivity), that no issues arise today and no reactivity occurs. You honestly don't detect any clinging or aversion, any anger or even annoyance, any fear or any other emotional reactions. No unexplained bodily tension suggests a pattern of emotional holding in the body. No issues trouble you. So there is nothing to sit with in Step 7 and nothing to bring to stillness in Step 8. In that case you move directly from the well-being of Step 6 into the practice of Step 9.

How long it may take to reach this point when no further issues arise may well be rather variable. Some of us are carrying much more pain than others. Some of us are able to let go of that pain more easily. Human beings are infinitely variable, yet the hope of liberation from whatever conditioning we may have received in life, is a hope to which all of us may hold, and towards which all of us may move with this practice.

When the full body-stillness is already present

Another thing you may find is that the bodily stillness of Step 4 is present, even as you begin to sit. When that happens I just go back to ensure I really am hearing whatever sounds arise, I really do know my in-breaths and out-breaths, and then I need to spend a little time coming to experience the whole body (Step 3). All three of those experiences we need to take with us into the following steps, so it is important to be sure they are present, though it will take only a few moments.

Feeling a sense of aliveness at Step 3.

For the whole body experience, you may well be able to look for a feeling of aliveness thoughout the body. Having come to the whole-body experience a few times, the body learns it, and can then return to it more easily. I find it is especially noticeable in the limbs, just a little less noticeable in the head, but perhaps more reluctant to appear in the torso. Yet it may spread, breath by breath, and you may be able to encourage that spread by bringing awareness to the places where it seems absent or weak. And then, having already attained the stillness of Step 4, can you move directly from Step 3 to Step 5?

That involves nothing more than intensifying the sensations you are already feeling. That feeling of aliveness is already a weak form of pīti and needs only to be developed further. Once you're fully familiar with doing the body-scan, you know your way around the body by feel. Without any verbal prompting you can now focus your awareness on one area after another, developing the sensations into an even, full-body, single experience.

A mind that is not entirely silent

Perhaps one or two thoughts do come up. Things I'm a bit anxious about may make themselves known. If so, I make a note of what they are, and then dismiss them. Letting go of all anxieties, I can sit, in total bodily and mental stillness. This is healing, health-giving, wholesome. And then, when enough is enough, I can get up and set about whatever I need to do today, including those things I was a bit anxious about.

Taking the longer journey again

These shortcuts only work if I've been practising frequently, on a near-daily basis or even (on a retreat) several times a day. Even then, it remains helpful to take the longer journey through Step 5 from time to time, generating the enhanced body-sensitivity. However, when I get caught up in life's busyness again, when I fail to sit in the stillness for several days, then I may well need to work my way slowly through all the Anapana steps before I can come back to the double stillness of Step 9. But I know the route back.

What we may find here

A vast empty space

We may experience Step 9 as the opening up of a vast space. The mind is no longer reacting to everything it encounters. The usual chatter of the mind grows quiet. We may lose our bearings, yet there are choices to make here. In this vast silent space we may start to revel in the experience of emptiness. We may also find that without the reactivity, there is no ego here, and we may see that as the experience of not-self.

The early Buddhists found this an experience of limitless space, limitless consciousness, nothingness, and eventually wondered whether consciousness itself was fading into something else. These are the four so-called "formless states" which they added to the four stages of jhāna. In doing this they adopted Brahmanic forms of absorption into their practice. At the same time they became more interested in philosophical questions, and lost the original focus on non-reactivity and a psychological transformation.

What remains and what doesn't

But this space is not entirely empty, and it is helpful to consider what is here, as well as what isn't.

Breathing is here

As one firm starting point, we may notice that breathing is here. The text is explicit, we experience Step 9 as we breathe in and as we breathe out. The breath may have become quite slow and shallow, but it is still happening. We should not lose contact with the breath. If we do, we may well lose our bearings here.

The whole body is here

And if the breath is here, then the whole body is also here. The breath is happening and can be experienced in several parts of the body. Only a whole body can breathe, so Step 3 is also part of this experience. Notice too that hearing and other bodily sensations also remain.

Our experience of the whole body will have changed since we first took Step 3. By now we will have experienced pīti throughout the whole body, and sukha. Some of the pīti, the enhanced body sensitivity, may remain when we first come to Step 9, though it will fade as we remain here. But while some remains, we may hold onto it. The well-being too will continue, and it will be helpful to remain in contact with it.

Pleasant feelings are here

Two other things remain here. In Step 9 we are asked to experience our state of mind. We no longer experience emotional reactivity, but our capacity for feelings is not lost and the experience of happiness is still part of this place. Suffused with well-being, and freed from reactivity, we may find this a pleasant place. We may find a small smile on our lips, like the smile on the Buddha's lips when he is portrayed in Jhāna practice. Step 9 will lead us into Steps 10, 11 and 12 in this third phase of the practice. Step 10 shows us that gladness or contentment belongs in this place.

The mind is here, with thoughts and memories

The mind too is still here, allowing us to explore this place. We may ask ourselves, "What remains here, and what doesn't?" Is this an experience of not-self, or of no self-centredness? The absence of ego is not the same as the total absence of a self. Yet the self that remains may be a little-known self to us.

Thoughts may still arise, and any memories that come up will be our memories. Our minds may still bring to mind people or situations familiar to us. If that happens, notice how the mind works. Without reactivity and without self-centredness we may have some surprisingly new thoughts about those people or situations. The mind may discover new insights here, and the heart may grow into a great-heartedness. Compassion may arise in this place. Clarity of purpose may arise. Step 11 shows us that our emotions will be composed, and our thoughts collected.

We may see things in new ways

Yet this is not a place for sustained thinking. Thoughts may arise, but we hear them as we hear the sounds that arise. Most of them will come and go, and we don't need to engage with them or interact with them. We notice them, but we let them come and let them go again. Our minds are changing, growing, developing. That's why we may see things in new ways.

Occasionally something will arise that we do wish to engage with. Seeing it afresh with eyes of dispassion may well be a healing and growing experience for us. Step 12 will show us the mind is liberated, set free from a number of ways in which it had been restricted as we tried to defend the ego and maintain our self-centredness. In this new freedom we grow and mature. The longer we remain here, the more growth we may hope will occur.

Yet we cannot remain here

Like all the places we visit in our practice, though, we cannot remain in them for ever. However fruitful this place may be, we must remain aware of its limits. At some point, enough will be enough for today. We can return to it another time, but when it has served its purpose for now, it's time to bring our practice to an end. More than ever though, we may need to just sit quietly for a time before we move on to whatever else life holds for us today.

What is this place?

The state of non-reactivity

This is a place we find we're able to return to, perhaps with increasing ease. This mindful and dispassionate stillness which welcomes us, and in which we're able to sit, to hear, and then to let go of thoughts and issues that come up for us, will give stability to our lives. If we wish to give a name to this stillness we could simply call it the state of non-reactivity. But there is another name we could use, one that may surprise you.

Nirvana, the ending of reactivity

We could also call it "Nirvana" (in Pāli nibbāna). The word means, "ceasing to burn, going out.^{Footnote 1} It's what happens to a flame when it runs out of fuel. It simply goes out. And it's what happens to our passions, our anger, our fear, our greed, and all the others, when we come to the stilling of our reactivity. They are no longer active. They disappear. We find we can respond to the issues in life in new ways.

Here's a text from the Saṃyutta Nikāya which tells us directly what nirvana is, or at least, what it meant at one time.

"'Nirvana, nirvana', they say. But what is 'nirvana'?"
"The ending of greed, the ending of hate, the ending of delusion, this, friend, is called 'nirvana'." ^{Footnote 2}

This is the dispassionate state we are brought to in Phase Three, when our reactivity has been stilled at Step 8. In Step 9 we experience this state and get to know it. In Steps 10 to 12 we explore various aspects of this state, and the condition of our minds when we are in it.

A place of great wholeness

Here in Phase Three of our practice we find we can embrace all of life. There are no good bits or bad bits. There is a great wholeness here. Every hurt we have ever known, every fear that ever arises, every joy, every blessing, every person we have ever known, every experience we have passed through or will pass through belongs in this place.

Not everything can be held in mind in any single moment, but whatever does arise is part of this greater whole. None of it can be refused or rejected. We may not understand how each part belongs, but without each and every part of my life, of our lives, the whole universe could not be what it is. Everything I have ever passed through and experienced has shaped what I am now. Without all of that, the good and the bad, the pleasant and the unpleasant alike, I would not be what I am, neither could I write these pages.

Where everything and everyone belongs

Can we accept with dispassion whatever we do become aware of? Whatever arises in life, in our outer environment, in the constitution and the decay of this body, or in the ever-changing contents of heart-and-mind—every emotion, everything of which we become aware, every part of life belongs. Whether we understand it or not, whatever way it may affect us, it belongs.

We belong, and each event and experience belongs to the one wholeness of which we are part. All of it we can embrace and accept with dispassion. Whatever is happening, in the microcosm of my life, or in the macrocosm of the universe, belongs, and brings to perfection this great adventure not only of my life, but of Life itself.

Footnotes

1. DOP, nibbāna, Vol. 2, p. 580.
2. SN 38.1 More of this short sutta, with the context of the question and its answer, is given in the page on Nirvana.