The third level of meditation is choice-less with no-thing to do. No object of your focus (as opposed to the nose in level 1 and the body in level 2). It is level 3 for a reason. It is hard to not have an object of focus and not have your mind take over with thoughts of past/present/future. You’ll know you are ready when the body scans of meditation 2 return nothing but neutrality while you maintain laser focused access concentration.

This is why you must first learn to sit your mind with the use of level 1 to form laser concentration and level 2 to de-program/condition with neutrality. Once de-conditioned and with strong neutrality, choice-less awareness is a little easier.

Using the game analogy: Think of neutrality as your strongest force-field honed by all previous adversaries of your meditation efforts and lived existence. Your concentrated laser as the sharpest tool against mind’s formations. Your knowledge of impermanence as your strength to endure the strongest tests of neutrality. Your position as the observer allowing no blows to a self structure.

Rest upon the empirical wisdom you have achieved thus far as it’s strength is about to be tested. Sit, be still and await the “big boss” of dark night (see warning at bottom for description).

  • Sounds counter-intuitive and not nothing. You might have already been doing this but if not, it is a potential step you can take. You’ll be staring out at the back of your eye-lids or at least that is what you think. Now rest in choiceless awareness.

  • Don’t search for something to see, nor give what you see attention. You are going for closed-eyed peripheral vision and you are resting in it with no force. The dude abides.

  • You are going to be met with some interesting spacial experiences. Don’t get stuck wondering around so to speak. It will be enticing to search all the newly accessed levels/spaces to find the gate, or simply to explore formations, but what is sought pervades and is beyond form.

    This is kinda like realizing you are in a dream and intending to progress forward instead of being fooled. Gently and subtly suggest progressing forward. The formless gates are a fickle business. Be patient, be choiceless and be neutral for as long as it takes, and then some.

Practice Daily: Ideally with a dash of 1, 2 and mostly 3 if you are to that level and ability. Otherwise, spend an hour with meditation 1 or 2. They need adequate development.

When ready, sit for a long undetermined duration (something north of 90 minutes). Equate it to the longest waiting line you have ever queued up to. “Negative” sensations are needed to tune and strengthen neutrality. It is through the suffering door that the full weight of impermanence can be known and the self structure can be seen for what it is, nothing.

Go empirically know, meditate.

  • Roller Coaster Ride Warning for Meditation/Depth

    • Brief Warning

    • Longer Warning

    • 12 Stages of Introspect

    The Very Brief Warning: Meditation can lead to intense emotions, thoughts and sensations. It can lead to the recalling of your big and small traumas. Essentially, any moment of your life can come up in your mind leading to re-experiencing the embarrassment, the anger, the sadness. These memories still have stored, unprocessed emotions and sensation. We typically shove them down into the subconscious and avoid them. We may even cover them up with drugs and/or addictions.

    Instead of playing exhausting memory whack-a-mole, why not address these memories with neutrality as an alternative approach. See their impermanence. Let them have their full expression and figuratively digest them instead of being lodged/stuck memories. They’ll come up if they come up, don’t go search’n, but be ready for a new way to address them.

    You could do Eye-Movement Desensitization & Reprocessing (EMDR) with a therapist prior to potentially taking on your trauma alone. It might lead to a way better meditation experience but it is not required and is also very intense.

    Ready to meditate? Start or continue the course on Depth

    The Quite Detailed Warning & Guide:

    Meditation aint easy. Most people find just the initial efforts/stages to be too hard and deterring. Most don’t realize what is possible, what they are capable of because they give up. Some don’t get past initial pain and discomfort to truly ride the full roller coaster because the moment discomfort arises they end the meditation. Being this will be a roller coaster analogy, you have to imagine that there will be some fear, despair and maybe some disgust. Sometimes there is even a wish for the ride to be over. For those traversing into serious meditation with the intent of achieving higher levels of insight, this warning is for you.

    Naming religious figures, and religions themselves, is intentionally being avoided here because it closes so many people’s doors. These tools should be known by everyone, every faith and scientist. The following is an attempt to further distance terms and framing from any particular religion. A framework that you can take an experiential approach towards so that there is no blind faith. This is achieved through Introspect, the root word of introspection, and a new way to conceptualize meditative wisdom.

    Knowledge becomes wisdom (accumulation of introspects) once it is personally witnessed and experienced. The knowledge is detailed below in stages with the use of analogies and humor. The beginning is the “light stuff,” like getting on the ride and starting the climb. This is still necessary as you need to learn to sit with neutrality towards experience until it reveals its impermanence. You’ll then grip this like the safety bar that will carry you through many jarring twists and turns of the scariest roller coaster you’ll ever ride. You can get a taste of these when reading and reflecting on them, but meditation is a more proficient and sharp tool. Would you rather read about a ride or directly experience it yourself. Meditate.

    So enough of this lead up. You're here for an attempt to sufficiently warn you of the very intense experiences that could cross your path if you choose to pursue a complete ride. The analogy breaks down with thinking it is one experience. There are many meditation-sits with no known amount or duration. It could take you days, months, decades or longer. At least you’ll know the ride is possible, its components and a simple vehicle called depth. May you navigate efficiently.

    The 12 stages of Introspect

    1st Stage: Witnessing your mind

    Do you ever hear your inner voice talking, your thoughts? Maybe it is narrating your day, your activities. Maybe it is judging others. What is your inner narrative doing right now? Take a moment to witness.

    [Insert Adequate Moment Here]

    Who witnessed your inner voice? Who witnesses your thoughts?

    The idea is to see thoughts as thoughts and not particularly you, the witness.  It is also to see the body as the body and not particularly you, the witness. Meditate with eyes closed and explore this for yourself. Don’t take my word for it. Don’t have blind faith regarding this.

    Do: Meditation 1, within Depth, may reveal this. While you are focusing on your primary object, and tending by sitting your mind, you’ll find it difficult to not witness the components of your mental processes.

    2nd Stage: Witnessing Cause It Effects You

    Stages are progressive things so if you have the last one experienced you're ready to witness cause and effect. Basically your mind is an association machine that can interweave thoughts, emotions, sensations and behaviors like a two step dance of cause and effect. If you have a thought (cause), you could have any number of effects such as another thought, emotion, sensation or behavior. In turn, the effect can become the cause of the next effect. Do you see the chain of association your mind is taking you on?

    Example:

    I say apples, you think ______. I say blood, you think _______. You think about something that discomforts you, I say witness the sensations with neutrality until they reveal their impermanence by changing.

    This is happening all the time. Whether you are aware of it or not. Meditation allows for this to be seen more clearly. It also allows for an alternative “effect” path to be taken of neutrality and non-reaction through strong determination. Through such an alternative approach to the causes of the mind, you witness impermanence of the figurative itch without itching.

    Do: Meditation 1, within Depth, may reveal this. While you are focusing on your primary object, and tending by sitting your mind, you’ll find it difficult to not witness these associations as well solidify new ones. By not itching the itch, you are disrupting the typical causal relationship of relieving the itch and you are coding in neutrality and the introspect of impermanence. This is the goal.

    3rd Stage: Real-ity Ingredients

    Eventually you will start to gain the upper hand in the gentle wrestling match. You're not pro but you are getting better. You start to see thoughts, emotions and sensations arise and they take you for quite a walk but you catch them. Their antics are on full display and the witness is patiently waiting for them to demonstrate their impermanence (ingredient 1). This walk, or wrestle if you like that analogy, will get tiresome. It will cause you emotional and physical pain, suffering (ingredient 2). You may already be freaking out about being the witness to the mind/self (ingredient 3) and now you have to suffer. In this stage you start to fully understand these ingredients. Once you categorize, or note, them as you see them they lose their power over you. They demonstrate their instability if you stick with your strong determination and continuously work to sit your mind.

    The physical, emotional and mental pain (all suffering) in this stage should not be underestimated, thus the warning. It is up to you if you want to calibrate your neutrality with what arises through strong determination and these ingredients. The main gist of this introspect is that you gain experience that these three real-ity ingredients are based in truth and that neutrality to all experience is possible. Go witness it.

    Do: Meditation 2

    4th Stage: Real-ity Firehose

    So you’re feeling high and mighty because you are meeting pain with neutrality are you? Past memories, not a problem. Future worries, not so bad. Eventually you have a well oiled machine of neutrality. And what happens with well oiled machines? They go faster. What does this look like to a person sitting on a cushion with their eyes closed? Well, a lot of things. I am not going to name all the formations and I’ll let you figure that out. They aren’t important to study, or get attached to, but they are potent distractions to hone your neutrality and concentration with. While meditating, equate formations (all sensory experiences) to distracting products of a dream that should be met with neutrality. Sit your mind.

    Ultimately, your neutrality “salve/balm” will become quite good towards all formations. Your knowledge of the “real-ity ingredients” become default beliefs that take no effort to apply. With this combo, your mind's outputs will eventually go into rapid fire like a firehose of experience in which they arise and pass faster than you can fully comprehend and you’ll just be the witness on the side.

    Do you see how all of these introspects are stacking? Almost like the rise of a roller coaster ride that has peaked. Or, to weave another metaphor being used, the entry to overcoming the final boss of the video game called “Dark Night.”

    Do:Meditation 2 until your body scans return no more activation (memories, traumas, activations, ego pull/pushes). Once body scans are figuratively “clear,” move to Meditation 3. As you activate your closed eyes and stare forward with peripheral vision activated, you’ll rest in what is sometimes termed “choiceless awareness.” This is the gateless gate of formless realms. Kinda like the darkness of some roller coasters before the drop.

    Personal note:

    I neglected my tail bone area in meditation 2 and was already pretty good with meditation 3. I used this area as my object of focus for a body scan during a lengthy sit (2 hours+). This progressed me through the 4th stage to get over the roller coaster rise and to the point of no return, “roller-coaster enterer.”

    Warning, you are possibly going to have a kundalini experience (almost like ancient heavy energy gears are automatically engaged, one by one, up your spine). Chakra by chakra, it energizes up to the crown chakra pinnacle of the ride. Before this happened to me I thought chakras were bull. Sit and be still. These too are formations and impermanent.

    I’ll add, with no particular scientific evidence, that riding the roller coaster on a full moon gives you an edge.

    5th Stage: Abyss of Despair

    Pretty sweet name for a component of a roller coaster that isn’t hyped. You will now be put to the ultimate test of your neutrality, strong determination and knowledge of the real-ity ingredients. The stage, and the proceeding, are going to throw you about to put it very very lightly. Remember, you are simply sitting on a cushion with your eyes closed but probably knocked off of your primary object of focus and holding on for dear life.

    Similarly to the initial drop of a roller coaster, you might start to feel a falling feeling with all the body rush that it entails. There could even be similar sounds that you hear as if you were falling and oddly the sounds of a roller coaster (Kinda joking). It is hard to describe. You’ll know it is despair as you’ll be going through a kind of dissolution that you can’t stop (Kinda like a roller coaster ride).

    Do: Rely upon the introspects and tools that you have gained from your meditation practice. Try to be neutral to the experience without focusing on a particular object (meditation 3). See it as impermanent like you have done with everything else. It’s purpose is to tune your neutrality to the highest calibration. The ride does end, just don’t jump off in the middle.

    6th Stage: The loop of Fear

    Roller coaster rides don’t slow down, much anyways. I don’t know how long each stage is going to be for you but if you're still on the ride, be ready. You might not be seeing anything at all while you experience immense fear for no reason at all (Not even an evident roller coaster loop). You could develop mind formations towards this unexplained fear because that is what the mind does. So your ride has an abominable snowman. Maybe it doesn’t. The fear you’ll experience might be a fear that you have never experienced before in your entire life and one that you might equate with death. Are you sold yet?

    Do: Remember that it is in your mind and you are on a cushion to achieve a stage not seen by most. So ride the ride. Also remember to apply neutrality to your experiences and know that they are impermanent, not you and definitely suffering. Sit with strong determination. I mean, how bad can it get?

    7th Stage: This isn’t fun anymore.

    Well you're probably extremely drained from the exhilaration, the sinking feeling of dissolution and the immense fear. You could feel miserable.  Find the upside, at least you have a reason to feel miserable. This stage could be brief, it could be long, it could be the end of your ride if you do not take it in stride.

    Do: Meet misery with neutrality, strong determination and a knowing that it is impermanent. You are honing your neutrality with some intense stuff so that it can fully form. See it as the tuner and I think your approach to this stage will be much easier. When you are on a ride, it is hard to focus on anything but the ride as the object of your focus. This is meditation 3.

    8th Stage: A Disgusting Tuner

    Your lived experience will bring this title into your life as well. They too are tuners for your neutrality. So too, deep meditation will apply a disgusting tuner at this stage. Again, you're not in the outer world but you are within the internal world. Your body and mind will collaborate to create this feeling like you are going to throw up, have severe cramps and/or stomach pains.

    Do: It is hard to mistake this stage but you could forget and get up to address it. Stick through this intensity, if you feel it is right to do so, and meet it with neutrality. Know that it too is subject to impermanence and is part of the roller coaster experience.

    9th Stage: A Disenchanting Ride

    At this stage, the roller coaster has flipped you over for far too long. You could be witnessing how much suffering a roller coaster ride can inflict on you. You could be seeing its attributes in the everyday world as well. Your over it, all of it. The whole enchilada. Quite a dark place that you have to tune your neutrality.

    Do: Know this is just a stage of the roller coaster ride. Can’t say how long it will be but know that it is impermanent. Hang on, it is about to get worse. I am really selling this aren’t I?

    10th Stage: Max Out

    So you're upside down, figuratively. Now imagine the roller coaster ride starts to climb, upside down. All the experiences of the last 4 stages, combo’d with the 3 ingredients, start to increase beyond what you thought were their maximums. You really want to get off the ride.

    Do: The same approach is suggested of “ride it out” (if you feel that is the right thing to do). To approach the experiences with neutrality and know that they are impermanent and not you, the witness. Your about to emerge from the dark night of the ride (not to infer that vast black voids are not in your future).

    11th Stage: Tuning Done, Kinda

    The ride seems to crest. You worried about a drop so the sensations of the last stage linger. It appears that you have emerged from the depths. The ride turns over to the right side up and begins to glide on a comforting track, at a comforting speed, like the end of the ride is near. Your neutrality has been significantly tuned and it pervades “you” and all experience. Is this why you rode this ride? To have a highly tuned neutrality to experience?

    The ride seems to be on a forever track going through different figurative clouds. One cloud can feel like boundless empty space. One, a pervasive consciousness is felt. One cloud can feel like there is nothing to experience. One is witnessed in retrospect as it holds neither perception nor non-perception (how could you recall the “cloud” otherwise?).

    Whatever the experience, you are patiently waiting. You might notice that you are ready to proceed to the next without force and with pure patience (a helpful hint). You might move from narrow focus to peripheral to see if this allows for seeing beyond the tree and into the forest (another helpful hint). Either way, it is a test of your choice-less patience to wait at a gateless gate that is the end of the ride. This is for sure meditation 3.

    12th Stage: Unknown Jolt

    Like the end of any ride it can jolt to a stop, except this jolt is not describable. Often described by what is absent, like a frame removed from a movie of experience, it is like a blip of non-experience. You can reflect back to see that it happened (the neither perception nor non-perception thing I was talking about and the proceeding blip/jolt of a cessation).

    It often has certain sensations attributed to it’s afterglow. Some feel an immense neurological shift and a slight headache. Some feel a type of blissful high. Some feel both or other things. What will “you” feel?

    This is why you rode the ride. To see what is beyond the gateless gate and to tune your neutrality to existence. What does such an experience mean to “you”? What does it mean to your perception of reality?

    ——————————-

    Don’t be afraid nor deterred. It is all in your mind, formations, except for the blip of non-experience. That is just experiential proof of something beyond sensory perception and the primary video game. Achieving it three times and earn eternal nothing. Such a prize that is hard for the ego to grasp.

    Without it, you could be stuck playing the game in a myriad of ways with immense suffering, regressions of progress and opportunity. Incentive?

    Hopefully knowing the layout, and intentions of the ride, you’ll have the confidence, patience and determination to see it through in this opportunity. Make it your stated goal (hint).

    Are you ready for another ride or two? The ride does change with each attempt. Not all rides will be like this so don’t get attached to it happening in sequential order or at all. The best approach is to develop a strong neutrality to experience, as it is, with strong determination and an experiential knowledge of: impermanence; suffering; bearing witness.

    Just getting started? This is just the warning. The doing is via Depth.

    Consider that you might need a teacher if stuck on the first ride.

    Good luck!