Mastering the Core Teachings of Buddha - An Unusually Hardcore Dharma Book

Where are their edges? Only take on this practice if you are willing to try to work on this level, the level that tries to figure out what thoughts actually are rather than what they mean or imply.

If my thoughts are somewhat auditory, I begin by trying to perceive each syllable of the current thought and then each syllable’s beginning and ending. If they are somewhat visual, I try to perceive every instant in which a mental image presents itself. If they seem somewhat physical, such as the memory of a movement or feeling, I try to perceive exactly how long each little sensation of this memory lasts. This sort of investigation can actually be fairly easy to do and yet is quite powerful.

Things can also get a bit odd quickly when doing this sort of practice, but I don’t worry about that. Sometimes thoughts can begin to sound like the auditory strobing section of the song “Crimson and Clover,”

where it sounds like they are standing at a spinning microphone.

Sometimes the images in our head can begin to flash and flicker.

Sometimes our very sense of attention can begin to strobe. This is the point! The sensations that imply a mind and mental processes are discontinuous, impermanent.

Again, this practice requires steadiness and determination, as well as precision. When I am really engaged with this, there is no time to be lost in the content of the thoughts, as I am trying too hard to be clear about the beginning and ending of each little flicker, squawk and pulse which makes up thought. This can be an especially fun practice when difficult thoughts are distracting me from a physical sensation. I can turn on them, break them down into meaningless little blips, little vibrations of suchness, and then they don’t have the power to cause me any trouble. They just scatter like confetti. They are seen as they are: small, 24

The Three Characteristics

quick and harmless. They have a message to convey, but then they are gone.

When I am done with this exercise, I return to physical objects and their arising and passing. However, I have found taking on the sensations that make up thoughts to be another very useful exercise for developing concentration and penetrating the illusion of continuity. It doesn’t matter if they are “good thoughts” or “bad thoughts,” as all mental sensations are also dripping with ultimate truth that is just waiting to be discovered, and thus I can proceed in my investigation with confidence regardless of what arises. Whether our illusions are penetrated using physical sensations or mental sensations is actually completely irrelevant.

Hopefully these exercises will give you some idea about how one might practice understanding impermanence. Impermanence is a true mark of ultimate reality, so just understanding this again and again can be sufficient to drum it into our thick heads, debunk the illusion of continuity, and once this is drummed into our thick heads we are free.

This can be a subtle business, so be patient and persevere. Remember all three trainings. Following flickering sensations and understanding the other two characteristics of suffering and no-self that they manifest can be a powerful and direct cause for deep insights and awakenings.

For five years of my practice I was basically a One Technique Freak, and that technique was noticing how sensations flicker. I would do it as often as I could, i.e. basically whenever I didn’t have to be doing something that required concentration on the specifics of my life. I would be riding an elevator, just trying to see when I could feel each foot, or lying down to sleep and noticing how many times I could experience the sensations of my breath in each second. I also tried to notice this aspect of things for every single sensation that occurred during my formal practice. I used lots of objects, usually those that were presenting strongly at that time, and would use some variations on the above techniques as well as some others that I will mention shortly to keep me from getting stuck, but the aspect of my world that I tried to notice, things flickering, was always the same. I found that by making this sort of commitment to understanding one of the most basic 25

The Three Characteristics

assumptions of insight practices I was able to make fast progress and gain the ultimate insights I was looking for.

SUFFERING

The next characteristic is suff ering or un satisfactori nes s.

Sounds grim or pessimistic at first, and perhaps deservedly so in one sense, but it is also a powerful statement that our moment-to-moment experience will not permanently satisfy ever. It will never happen. Why?

Because everything is impermanent, that's one reason why! I just said that nothing lasts, meaning that you can actually experience everything that you normally think of as a solid world arising and passing instant to instant. So what could last for even the blink of an eye to satisfy?

Nothing!