Dharma Rip

I have a friend, Chade-Meng Tan (陳一鳴), who is one of the original Google engineers (in fact, Employee #107!). He has recently created a program called “Search Inside Yourself”  which is based on mindfulness.

A while back, he described in an email to me a significant experience (see below).

I gave him a rather extended response, which he just posted on his blog. If you’re interested, check it out:

Shinzen Young on the in and out of attention (and enlightenment)

(He was also featured in a fantastic WIRED article yesterday!: Enlightenment Engineers)

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From: Chade-Meng Tan (陳一鳴) 
Date: Sat, Dec 15, 2012 at 1:12 AM
Subject: mind of no thought and shamatha
To: Shinzen Young

Honored Teacher,

In the past few weeks, I had been having increasingly frequent moments when my thinking stopped (at least the audio / narrative / chattering mind stopped) and the mind had enough clarity to abide in that space of no-thought.  But everytime it happened, it'd only last one moment, because the next moment, the narrative mind would say, "Hey, look, no thought!"  D'oh!  :)

This time last week, I sat in a short 2+ days retreat led by Jon Kabat-Zinn.  I made a huge stride forward during the retreat.

During the retreat, I became able to arrive at that mind of no-thought repeatedly, and each instance a little longer than it normally would (but still short enough to qualify as "a moment").  I investigated that mind and found that it has 3 features:

1. "Direct experiencing" is very strong, specifically the experience of sensation.  There is brain science that shows the "direct experience" network to be mutually exclusive to the "narrative" network in the brain, and I think I have discovered it experientially.

2. Specifically, audio sensitivity is very high.  In that mind, I became very sensitive to sound.  At first, I wasn't sure of the direction of causality, I thought it was attention to the sound that led to the mind of no-thought, since I was close to a water fountain at the time.  So I moved far away from it to a "quiet" spot and found that, in that mind, I became very sensitive to the air conditioning sound.  Hence, it seems like the no-thought mind lead to heightened audio sensitivity.

3. Seeing without seeing.  I had a very strange visual experience, which I could describe only as "seeing without seeing".  I could clearly see, but I could not perceive visually.  I investigated it and figured out what happened.  In that mind of no-thought, the gaze of the eyes were fixated on one spot.  I realized that when we "see" a scene, the eyes are actually scanning the entire scene and then the mind forms a mental picture.  

When the gaze is fixated, the mind could not form the mental picture and hence it did not "see".  When I returned to seeing "normally" (ie, allowing the eyes to scan the scene), that subtle activity alone was enough to break the no-thought mind.

And then I realized something more profound.  I realized that what Jon Kabat-Zinn calls "awarenessing", which is being here now and attending entirely to the present, specifically to sensations, creates the conditions for no-thought mind, which in turn creates the conditions for quietness of mind, which then creates the conditions for strong shamatha.

In other words, "awarenessing" is the secret ingredient of shamatha!  Wow.

I just wanted to report this progress and, as usual honored teacher, any wisdom from you is greatly appreciated.

Much Metta
Meng

My response: Shinzen Young on the in and out of attention (and enlightenment)

Meet My Mom

Here’s my mom on her 98^th birthday, October 12, 2012, at a Chinese restaurant in her neighborhood Redondo Beach. I and my friend Ann Buck  are taking her out to lunch. Her vibe and comment tell the whole story. (To learn a little bit more about Ann, check out what our mutual friend Jennifer Grey says here.)

Below you'll find some audio clips of my mom reminiscing about my childhood. On the right is her current photo and on the left is how she looked when I was a little boy in the 1940s. You can see where I got my good looks. J  

I have very little natural ability or natural inclination towards meditation. In early life I was unusually wimpy, whiny, and fussy. Also, I was perennially impatient. On top of that, I had a proclivity to be destructive, including towards myself (when I'd get frustrated, I'd bang my head on the sidewalk). I was also pretty mean (just ask my brother).

I actually like for people to know what a poor meditation candidate I am based on the tendencies of my early life. I take it as a positive. If a person like me can be successful, anyone can be successful. You'll hear some of the details in Clip #1. (FYI, a bunch of Yiddish words appear in this dialogue; here are links to their spellings and meanings: kvetch, sitzfleisch, schpilkes, naches.)

Clip 1 (03:48)

In Clip #2, my mom continues to talk about my earlier life and the influences on me, and the changes that I went through. We talk about a famous natural reserve in Arizona called Madera Canyon and the ginormous grasshoppers I used to collect there. My mom also talks about early influences from the Cornell University Department of Entomology, which molded my young mind in a scientific direction.

Clip 2 (03:59)

Although there were some rocky points early on, I'm pleased to say that my relationship with my family of origin has been absolutely wonderful for decades. After my dad passed away in the early 80s, my mom asked me to teach her mindfulness. She's been practicing on her own and coming to retreats ever since then. It doesn't get any better than that!

My brother Howard, my mom, and me as of 2010.

My brother and me at a very early age.

My mom and my dad.

My grandmother holding my mom in front of their house.
I'm guessing the photo is about 100 years old.
The spot where the house was is now under one of the LA freeways. Anicca!

Update: My mom passed away on the morning of Friday, January 31st, 2014. 

זיכרונה לברכה

Buddhist Geeks Conference 2013

Some of you may know I gave the keynote presentation at the inaugural Buddhist Geeks Conference in 2011. I'm happy to be presenting again in August of 2013. 

This year I’ll be offering a number of presentations, the first of which is a 20-minute TED-style talk. I’ll also be dialoguing with David Vago on the research we started at Harvard last year. This will be the first opportunity for the two of us to make a joint presentation on these findings. We’ll be doing this through a new format called BG Dialogue, a 90-minute discussion including a live question and answer period from the audience.

You’ll find some more specifics on registration below.

All the best,

Shinzen

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Buddhist Geeks Conference

August 16-18, 2013

Boulder, Colorado

This year’s list of presenters includes Reggie Ray, Marianne Elliott, Rick Hanson, Diane Hamilton, Kenneth Folk, Sofia Diaz, Lodro Rinzler, David Vago, and many more....

|| Register here || 

Get your Early Bird Ticket before May 31^st and save $75.