Here is a short email I sent out for week 2 of Our January 2024 4 week Immersion.  I send these out to help inspire the group for practice and help frame the group energy based on what is showing up in the group/field.

Hi all!

I took a bit longer getting out this second week theme. But the theme that has been coming up this last week is Absorption (samadhi) and its place in practice. I also added a few people onto this email because I thought they might like this description.

There are many types of samadhi. In Mahayana Buddhism, the model of types of samadhi are:
self and other
no self and other
self and no other
no self and no other

How do we bring ourselves fully into what we are doing and absorb into it? Be that when washing rice for dinner or raking the leaves, or chanting sutras, or playing an instrument? Or running? Or walking. Or sitting, or standing…?

We throw ourselves into each activity we are doing fully, and over time, that creates a type of one-pointedness. This requires no force, but it does require a new type of focus. All of our cells come into oneness, going in one direction, rather than in conflict or scattered. This is a skill but it is also completely natural. And that one pointedness we develop in our meditation and our activity then can begin to deepen. Many of us partly learned this through sussokan, counting and extending the breath completely without force. But the ZZ and NDBM can create it, too, as we align with the energy, the breath and energy unify and we reach the same place.

And maybe some people, like athletes, can only go into oneness sometimes when playing a particular sport. This could be similar to the zone. But this is not useful in other parts of life.

How can we use the standing, the sitting, our daily lives, to develop this one pointedness, becoming it completely, over and over..? The blue collar of the work.

And, in that place of no self and no other, very interesting aspects of our practice begin to ripen and mature and expand. In this place of no self and no other, we connect the dots of deep realizations, feel the subtle terrain of interacting with life in this new unencumbered way. Insights naturally emerge. The rubber hits the road. We do the real homework which allows us to actualize our experience. And a huge energy emerges through this complete letting go. (Something the Taoists call Extreme Yang Qi.) We cannot make this happen. It has to be by release and letting go. This is the real ripening that must happen to go deeper and to be able to truly share this with others.

I would also add that people think samadhi is easy. In fact, it requires real maturing to work with and dialogue with.

So how can we do what we are doing completely, bring ourselves more and more into oneness, and allow this natural process to take over? The great relief for me was seeing that this was all trying to happen when I was completely honest. It felt like Grace, and still does.

People ask me about my state of mind a lot. What is it like? Well, for one, I am so utterly convinced with every cell that I am held by this Grace at all times that much of the other details don’t really matter to me.

Thanks! Let’s keep going!
Core