Once upon a time I was a student of anatomy. I used to have weekly classes in the morgue examining preserved specimens of parts of human bodies. One week an arm, the next week half a head...However much I tried to be scientific about it this was always a confronting, emotionally challenging experience. After every session all my colleagues went to the pub. I didn't drink and went alone back to my room to meditate.

One of these days I spent a whole afternoon examining the hamstrings of a dead man's leg, playing with the different tissues to get the feel for their texture so that I could feel for the different structures under the skin of a live patient. This was my most intimate contact so far. I left the session feeling strange, disoriented. As I was walking along the street on my way home I felt my own legs underneath me and to my complete surprise a perfect image arose of the inside of one of my legs, like x-ray vision. I saw my hamstrings working bathed in the most sublime, cool light. For a moment I felt an enormous sense of lightness and freedom. I had never felt happier yet I knew not why.

That moment changed my life. A part of me, a part that has grown and grown, has been looking for that sense of freedom ever since.



I offer this for your reflection

Ajahn Kalyāno
http://www.openthesky.co.uk/

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Many years ago as a layman I was travelling in the south of Chile. One full moon night I had a very powerful, lucid dream where I was kneeling down, sick and covered in warts and my Dhamma teacher at that time, Ajahn Sumedho, appeared and cured me with a great blast of light. The following morning I was walking along with my Chilean companion. I had a wart on my hand that had been there almost two years. I had a habit of scratching it but as I  began to do this, remembering the dream of the night before, it immediately came off.

I was completely stunned and stood there looking at my companion who began to smile. Before I could tell her about the dream she began to tell me how in the night she had taken some threads from my shirt and buried them in the ground, saying an ancient magic spell. She knew me and my scientific background and was pleased to be able to show me there may be more to life than I might have thought. But all I could think about was Ajahn Sumedho.

Many years later as a monk I was able to tell Ajahn Sumedho the story. He laughed out laud and said, jokingly,

"Yes Kalyano, at night I fly around the world curing people of their warts."

I could not seem to get him to take the story seriously but the fact was that the dream and the period that followed had felt like some kind of deep healing and had, in addition, opened up my whole view of the world. It was one of the reasons I had ordained with him as a monk, for the magic.





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​I offer this for your reflection

Ajahn Kalyāno
http://www.openthesky.co.uk/

In so many ways, even as far as uploading consciousness and achieving 'virtual immortality', man seems to be hoping to be saved by the computer. I would say the opposite could be true. Ultimately man's survival in more ways than one relies not on the computer but on doing what the computer cannot do. Firstly this is because in that way we are not made redundant by computers. Secondly, much deeper than this, because the impermanent, conditioned mind is like a computer programmed for survival. I would say that it is our own inner computer that binds us to an impermanent world.

This can include binary feeling as data even though the inner computer does not feel. The mind and body become entangled through this encoding. Feeling, pleasant and unpleasant is the binary code of the body that locks our minds into associative spins between mind and matter.

By contrast freedom lies in the great mysteries of consciousness and beauty. These two should be the focus of our efforts to avoid becoming trapped in an automatic world of binary thought and feeling. Here is all the wild, natural magic of the mind that emerges from emptiness and returns to emptiness in its pure acts of creativity.

The mind that includes emptiness cannot be coded and drawn into the endless reactive stream of the conditioned mind. The mind can even become based in its perception of emptiness. This is freedom.

Also, as a footnote, I think that if we consider the nature of mind in a deep way, not just on a superficial level as merely thought, computer analogies to human consciousness start to look fundamentally flawed. On a deeper level of information we cannot divide physical and mental processes. In a computer the software does not have a formative effect on the hardware so these are easy to divide. By contrast in biology the information contained within living organisms has a formative role in the development and control of the body.

If we understand our minds to be like computers we are limiting their potential to form the very substance that carries the information.






I offer this for your reflection

Ajahn Kalyāno
http://www.openthesky.co.uk/

When we have the conditions to dedicate ourselves to meditation and study, we can do well developing our practice. If, however, we cannot learn to protect our mindfulness our path will be a manic one of gain and loss. A healthier practice is to develop our mindfulness in good conditions and then seek to protect and maintain it through challenging situations. This, in addition to the solitary practise, is the second way to strengthen our minds.
 
As we develop our practise further, toward samādhi, more refined states can give us the impression of being somehow concrete and stable in and of themselves (as being an 'energy' or 'our true nature') but this is not the case. In this sense the brightness and space of samādhi can be deluding. These states are a manifestation of emptiness – not something but an absence of something. We can need to think like this, talk about our experience like this, to change our perception of the results of our practice, or we will be heading in the wrong direction, towards spiritual materialism and not toward freedom.

Ultimately all our states of mind, without exception, arise and are sustained by a perception. So it is wisdom, stable, liberating perception, that protects the mind.

When, over time, we discover the vulnerable nature of refined states, instead of looking to stabilise them with wisdom we can try to do so in other (dysfunctional) ways. Typically we can shut ourselves away and just end up worrying about the next time we have to go out! There are also many more subtle dysfunctional ways arising from a lack of understanding of the mind. For example we can find ourselves defending the brightness of the mind against the darkness of others. The brightness of our mind is effected by our own dark side but not directly by that of others. When we start to see the darkness of the impure mind, we can falsely see that we are directly effected by the impure thoughts of others, we can take this darkness to be poisoning us without the other person saying a word. The darkness of others' minds is not a threat, it cannot effect us directly but only if we share or are affected by the unwholesome perceptions that are at its source, not through some mysterious dark energy. All states of mind arise from perception. If we see the suffering of such darkness we will be moved to compassion. Compassion is not poison.

What we will also discover is that not all negative thoughts are dark. Some wise thoughts are negative but take the mind even brighter as it lets go of attachment. The distinction we have to make is between wholesome and unwholesome, skilful or unskilful rather than between positive or negative. Wholesome or skilful thoughts are that which lead to a more peaceful happy mind – the happiness of peace being the happiest happiness of all. A mind that is reliant on being positive to be happy is a mind that is relying on the world. If we have an inner happiness we can see both the positive and negative things of the world equally. 

This distinction of wholesome or unwholesome will be made for us once we start to be able to see the brightness or darkness of the heart or 'citta' directly. There are very many surprises here for the practitioner discovering what is truly a spiritual path and what is not. It is important to realise that we then have a different value system. Sexual desire for example darkens the mind. It is not that we think that there is something wrong with sex but that we come to enjoy and value the bright mind more highly. Until we can see like this for ourselves (this is quite late on in the path) we are reliant on faith and the guidance of others further on in the path.





I offer this for your reflection

Ajahn Kalyāno
http://www.openthesky.co.uk

Yoga and ch’i kung and other associated body work or therapies are examples of bodily practices that were originally spiritual in nature and purpose. Both however have become materialised, or  'physicalised' in their move to the West. Because there was no cultural understanding of the phenomenon of samādhi – the phenomenon of chakras or of ch’i – the brightness within the body was taken to be some kind of energy rather than a manifestation of emptiness. This is a natural enough mistake to make when we associate physical exercise with the generation of energy of some kind. It is a mistake that will be reinforced over and over if the people coming to learn these skills are looking for energy.

This mistake can end up leading us in completely the wrong direction. It is not that we do not find energy through our practice, but that this is a phenomenon of mind rather than a physical energy. Instead of trying to find this emptiness and to keep the emptiness empty we try to create something. We do not see that the emptiness is filled by, obstructed by, our desire – even this desire to create energy. Or usually we do not see the emptiness at all but associate spiritual energy with more mundane feelings that are, after all, experienced in the body too.

The same mistake is thankfully true of dark, negative energy as well. Interestingly people can see that this is associated with a negative state of mind (perhaps what is obviously negative is clearer than that which is truly positive) but again it is 'physicalised' so that people become afraid of being effected by the negative thoughts of others. The darkness of others' minds is not a threat, it cannot effect us directly but only if we share the unwholesome ideas or perceptions that are at its source. Yet on this basis people are excluded from meditation retreats if they are not vegan or eat garlic and on it goes to the point where anyone with a problem could find themselves excluded until they can sort themselves out. So much for compassion. Where this leads us internally is no less scary. We can be led into a never-ending effort to purify ourselves of something that is not really there – through a deep confusion between the physical purity of diet or exercise and the purity of the mind.

People also run away from all this to seek spiritual seclusion, but this is supposed to be aimed at getting us away from our desires and calming the mind toward Nibbāna; it is not a way to get away from everything we don't like, away from bad old saṃsāra. This is just following our desire in the opposite direction. This is wrongly blaming the world for the suffering that comes ultimately from our own desire and craving.

Let us consider also the example of sexual, tantric practice. Here there can be a confusion between the rapture of orgasm which arises out of the body and the rapture of samādhi. It is tempting to say that this confusion has been exploited by gurus since time immemorial. These kinds of rapture are, however, of a completely different nature. The rapture of samādhi is an explosive opening, a feeling that opens the mind free of attachment and desire. But they are both rapturous so again an easy mistake to make and yet again a mistake that, this time so very obviously, takes us in a completely different direction. It is true also that the heart chakra is the most powerful of all, but this is not associated with our romantic feelings of love but with a higher kind of love, an unconditional love in which we let go of our attachment to one individual and love all beings the same – and it is the letting go of the first that gains us the second form of love.

Moreover, sexual exploitation is not the only kind of exploitation in quasi-spiritual circles. In modern consumer spirituality a lot of money can be made from making people's relatively ordinary experiences seem more special. In this way there is no need to do all the hard work of the spiritual life but just to do the nice exercises and then form a nice and spiritual view of ourselves. The reality is that nobody gets samādhi easily, but also that this experience is far more marvellous than anyone can imagine. So spiritual life above all is the one that requires the most dedication in order to break through, otherwise it will not be so special, yet people with real faith can be prepared to practice for life-times, through all kind of hardships, to finally get there. One tiny glimpse of samādhi sets a seed so deep that it is enough for someone never to look back. However, someone who has not experienced this should be careful to criticise lesser pleasures or they risk just entering into a dry idealism; so many monks and nuns do this and become gradually more and more miserable. The clever ones make do with a walk on the beach.

A further mistake of the same we can make is to think that highly spiritual beings have limitless physical energy or resources, they can even mistakenly think this themselves or that their selflessness can end up taking them beyond their physical limits. We should not be disappointed by our limits. If we had no such limit as spiritual practitioners would we not eventually find ourselves with an indestructible mind in a worn out body unable to escape? Doesn't sound good. The Buddha himself relinquished his old body when it wore out.

But lets not fall into seeing such considerations as negative. All of this kind of thinking is neither placing some kind of limit on our spiritual endeavour. Nor is such discrimination just a dry intellectual exercise. It is rather wrong understanding that limits us. Confining ourselves to an energy or bodily feeling is what is limiting us in time or space. 

Perhaps we can need to recognise how our spiritual practise can become tainted by the desire for power or to be something special in the world. Or maybe our hope is for a physical healing beyond the limits of our minds. In contrast if we can humbly bow and let go then we can have found something real that we can come to realise is everlasting. Something within the world that is also beyond the world. We have found freedom and true spirituality, not just another kind of slavery in spiritual materialism and it will not be hard to let go of a lesser happiness for a far greater one.





I offer this for your reflection

Ajahn Kalyāno
http://www.openthesky.co.uk/

When I was eighteen I took a gap year before going to University. I knew I would be studying psychology so I decided to get some work experience and got a job as a nursing assistant in a large hospital for people with mental handicaps. On my first day I was given a list of patients to help with their bath. I went to find the first one and helped him to wash himself as best I could. When I stepped out of the bathroom to take a towel I found that all the other patients on the list were standing naked outside the bathroom, all with their towels neatly folded over their arms and I realised how institutionalised life here really was.

My duties were simple and routine. Bathing, dressing, shaving, serving food and calling for a nurse if anything happened I couldn't handle. The job was like looking after big babies, having to try to see what they were asking for when they were upset. I had to put myself in their simple shoes and keep my eyes on just the basic necessities of life. I came to love them. I was amazed how content they could be with so little in life. The experience was an immensely earthing one and I began to realise just how simple life could be if you did not think about it too much. I could see the suffering of all my intellectual craving. Perhaps you can too if you have the same craving, reading this article in its deliberately simple style! 

As for me, going on to college I was left with a nagging doubt about all the thinking. I wanted to try to help in what seemed like bigger ways and thought to use my brain, but in my vacations I would go straight back to simple nursing with a sense of relief. 

As a monk, thankfully, I have rediscovered the simple life. Now, however, this simplicity covers even my thinking. Even though the deeper realities that emerge out of the contemplative life can be hard to describe, as an experience they are completely simple and clarifying of all our life experience.






I offer this for your reflection

Ajahn Kalyāno
http://www.openthesky.co.uk



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The practice of celibacy, undertaken temporarily or for life as a monk or nun, is central to Buddhism. This practice is undertaken to help us to change our perception of the body, a change which is a necessary part of the process of true and complete liberation from suffering.

The Buddha understood the deepest root of our suffering as human beings as arising out of our attachment to a physical body which is inevitably prone to old age, sickness and death – a sensual perception of the body, our own or that of another person, causes us to hold on to the body as desirable and blinds us to its vulnerable state. This teaching is proven to the deep practitioner who is able, at least momentarily, to see differently. They will be able to let go of attachment to the body and enter into the bliss of samādhi, their first taste of liberation.




I offer this for your reflection

Ajahn Kalyāno
http://www.openthesky.co.uk

Creativity can be a very insightful process. When the mind is peaceful our creations can seem to come from nowhere, we can even find it hard to understand later what we have written ourselves. This can seem very mysterious, like we have found the word of the Lord. But actually it is just the calm mind speaking. To realise this might seem as though it would be disappointing – all the magic lost. It can be like this for a while. We can have to let go of our mystical idea of what we have done until we go deeper and realise that the very calm mind, the still, empty mind of samādhi is already the Lord. Then we realise that we had been on the path, not yet at the goal, but that the goal was also far more amazing than we ever could have imagined.

We are inspired beyond belief, and also very cautious because we are left realising how profound the calm mind can really be – the depth to which we can understand when the mind is calm – but also how quickly we can lose this understanding when the mind is no longer calm.

And where does perfection lie in terms of spiritual creativity? The Buddha himself never speaks about the ultimate, he speaks from the ultimate.







I offer this for your reflection

Ajahn Kalyāno
http://www.openthesky.co.uk

Feelings are highly addictive in and of themselves. As practitioners we must be wary of this and be out to steady our minds in the face of feelings rather than reflexly indulge in pleasure or to try to get away from pain. Body awareness helps – awareness of movement and posture. The physicality of the body has a steadying, grounding effect on feeling.

When feelings are not noted consciously they will turn into moods. Pain or discomfort will make us grumpy. When a pleasant feeling ends we will unhappy. With mindfulness however we can take feeling as information or feedback, and try to act skilfully. 

People who meditate to open up to their feelings over-sensitise and turn neurotic. They can also become confused as to which feelings are self-generated and which are a response to something or someone else. People can even imagine they are beginning to feel other people's feelings directly, as if feeling has become some kind of energy like electricity. This is all deluded. It is not possible to directly feel other people's feelings. This is not empathy. All feelings arise out of perception. Empathy comes from sharing the perception of another person, seeing something for a moment through their eyes. The most powerful feelings come from the most powerful perceptions. 

And a truly open mind is like a question, not an answer. 






I offer this for your reflection

Ajahn Kalyāno
http://www.openthesky.co.uk

It seems that the use of the drug DMT is on the rise amongst people seeking spiritual experiences just like LSD was in the 1960s and 70s. However, because of the way it acts on the nervous system new claims are being made with regards DMT as to the nature of the drug experience. It is claimed that DMT removes filters that normally exist to real phenomena, rather than fabricating an experience. There are several facts that seem to go against this view. Firstly you can have a good or bad trip on DMT just the same as on acid, in fact all kinds of things can be experienced by different individuals. Secondly there is no evidence to show that people tripping on DMT together in the same place ever see the same visions. (Perhaps it is the case that a lack of such objective reality in any such ‘spiritual’ experience is being assumed.) Thirdly a person’s perception of reality is altered by DMT, it is not just that new realms of experience are added.

So overall DMT seems to be a very similar drug to LSD only more powerful by all accounts. 

Short term it may induce ‘high serotonin syndrome’, the symptoms of which are:

    • Confusion.
    • Agitation or restlessness.
    • Dilated pupils.
    • Headache.
    • Changes in blood pressure and/or temperature.
    • Nausea and/or vomiting.
    • Diarrhoea.
    • Rapid heart rate.

There is little evidence available on long-term effects of DMT but these may be assumed to be similar to LSD and involve the exacerbation of any underlying mental illness, and deluding effects such as ‘depersonalisation’ or ‘denormalisation’.





I offer this for your reflection

Ajahn Kalyāno
http://www.openthesky.co.uk/

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