Mindful versus Gnostic 'Noble Silence'

(Buddhism Podcast) What is "noble silence"? The power of mindful speech in Buddhism

(Gnostic Talk) I tried the Gnostic Silence Test, and what answered was not the highest GOD (the Monad).

• Introducing the real GOD of the Universe

I'm Jewish and know better than Jesus

If "God" (GOD, Brahman beyond the God Great Maha Brahma) is the Monad, what is the pleroma? Pleroma (Koine Greek πλήρωμα, literally the "fullness") generally refers to the totality of divine powers. It is used in Gnosticism, as well as in Christian theological contexts. The term also appears in the Epistle to the Colossians [1], which is traditionally attributed to Saint Paul (aka Jewish Saul of Tarsus) the Apostle [2], the real founder of modern Christianity (yes, not Christ, after which it is named).

I'm a Jew and I know better than Jesus (Paul)

The word is used 17 times in the New Testament [3]. In Valentinianism it represents as virtualities of the Son [4]. ETYMOLOGY: The word literally means "fullness," from the verb plēróō (πληρόω, "to fill"), from plḗrēs (πλήρης, "full") [5]. More

• Yaldabaoth: "Child of Darkness/Chaos," the Demiurge
• The Monad (Gnosticism) is highest, unknowable GOD
• Pistis Sophia (Gnostic Wisdom Text)
• The Apocryphon of John
• Who are the Archons controlling the process?
• The [Gnostic Lost] Gospel of Philip

What is Buddhist "noble silence"?

Who are the "noble" ones? (Greco Buddhism)

Noble silence ("enlightening quietude") is a term attributed to the historical Buddha. Practitioners are advised to calm heart/mind by letting go of internal and external chatter.

The Buddha also responded to certain useless or harmful philosophical questions about the ultimate nature of reality. One such instance is when he was asked by a wayward monk named Ven. Malunkyaputta the 14 unanswerable questions.

In similar situations the Buddha often responded to antinomy-based descriptions of reality by saying that both antithetical options presented to him were inappropriate. To answer one way might be true but misleading or comforting but untrue, so that simple silence was a better option until the questioner was ready to receive a direct answer.

A specific reference to noble silence in the Buddha's Teaching (Dhamma or Dharma) involved one occasion when the Buddha told his monastic disciples to discontinue a discussion, saying that in such a congregation the discussion of the sacred Dharma is proper or practicing noble silence [1].

This does not indicate misology or disdain for philosophy on the Buddha's part. Rather, it indicates that he viewed such questions, though popular, as not leading to true and liberating wisdom [2].

The Pali canon

While silence is generally thought to be something visible on the outside of a person — an external state, such as whether or not one is talking — in the Pali canon, a "noble" (enlightened, awakened, or enlightening) state is internal — one synonymous with the stillness of absorption (jhāna).

"What is noble silence?' The thought might occur, 'In one instance a monastic, stilling applied and sustained attention (vitakka and vicara) [knowing without verbalizing or pondering], enters and abides in the second absorption, characterized by rapture and pleasure born of stillness, unification of mind, free of applied and sustained attention — internally certain. This is called noble silence.'"

• 

  Flapping and pushing vs. allowing and gliding

  An analogy is given to explain and distinguish vitakka from vicara as a function of what the mind does with its attention (adverting/turning attention towards, bare awareness, MINDFULNESS, vigilance, calm persistence). It's misleading to use the English word [discursive] "thinking," but it is mental activity:
• Say a big bird on a branch wishes to fly. It will first leap or thrust itself into the air and flap its wings with great deal of effort then eventually just soar and glide almost with no effort at all. So in tranquility meditation (samatha), one first struggles or wrestles to bring attention back and back again to the object but eventually is fixed on it with no apparent effort.

• 

  Points of sail when tacking during sailing

  Instead of force or struggle, great interest (zeal, delight, piti) holds the mind/attention to the object, with stillness and calm. Any movement of mind or body is likely to disturb it. This might also be compared to paddling and sailing. When one can skillfully sail, one is not a victim to the direction of the wind because one can engage in tacking (steering into the wind), that is, choosing one's direction so as to not have to go in the direction the wind is blowing, countered by jibing.

Of the eight absorptions (the jhanas or profound meditative states), that in which the inner dialogue goes silent is the second absorption. More

Ecstatic absorption: Bliss of the Jhanas

(Buddha's Wisdom) The Four Jhanas (meditative absorptions): From rapture (piti) to perfect equanimity (upekkha)

• Jhana: meditative "absorption" ("meditation") chiefly refers to the first four meditative absorptions of form

I want to enter that bliss, but how?

Namely, these are the form absorptions of the fine-material sphere (rūpa-jjhāna or rūpāvacara-jjhāna, see avacara). These profound absorptions are reached through full (ecstatic) stillness, samādhi, concentration (appanā).

 
At this time there is a complete (albeit temporary) suspension of fivefold sense-activity and of the Five Hindrances (pancha-nīvarana). However, this state of consciousness is one of full alertness and lucidity and, it is said, singlepointedness (ekagata) of mind/attention.

Gandhara: meditating Buddha

This degree of concentration becomes a fully absorbed state. It is generally developed by the practice (cultivation) of one of the 40 subjects of tranquility meditation (samatha-kammatthāna, see bhāvanā).

There are four higher (more refined) states of absorption called the Four Formless Attainments of the immaterial Spheres (arūpāyatana). These are called the four absorptions of the immaterial sphere (arūpa-jjhāna or arūpāvacara-jjhāna).

The usual text, often met with in the Pali canon sutras, runs as follows:... More: jhāna

• Pīti: rapture, bliss, joy
• Upekṣā: equanimity
• Pancha Nivarana: The Five Hindrances

What if there were a way to enter jhana?

The Eight Levels of Absorption

Ask a Buddhist teacher. Most will say, "There's no way to do it, so just do it." And that's pretty good advice as far as it goes, but it will only get a few there, the "naturals."

For a long time in this round, most of us are not the naturals, not inclined to even try. But when we finally "try," that is not a good sign of getting there. A person letting go, not aspiring, not striving, not anticipating, or doing nothing more than beginner's mind will is more likely to experience "beginner's luck."

That seems to be the Taoist approach advocated by Zen. How many Zen practitioners, however, ever get into a Zen state, a jhana, dhyana, seon, or absorción?

Not many. No one speaks of it, perhaps because of the threat/injunction that, "Anyone who knows doesn't speak; anyone who speaks doesn't know."

That may be true insofar as successful practitioners are not inclined to be worried about what anyone else does or does not do. But as a thinker, I am keen to figure out a practical way of teaching those cannot to be able to. There are a few ways that make sense or have some sort of logic.

First, we know that someone in an absorption has characteristics and is missing others. Things are present, and things are absent. How now if one were to include (cultivate) what is present for them and exclude (abandon) what is absent?

What is present? The Five Factors of Absorption (jhana-anga). What is absent? The Five Hindrances. Does it therefore not stand to reason that by such cultivation, one may very well fall into it? Drop away the obstacles, erect the parallels (those things present along with the wished-for state of heart-mind), and viola there it is!

Second, it is certain that what the Buddha taught was a pyramidal path with virtue (sila) as the base, stillness (samadhi) as the midlevel, and a capstone of wisdom (panna, prajna). So anyone who reaches the second level of "concentration" or singlepointedness of mind, or quietude, stillness, absorption does so on a base or foundation of Precepts and wholesome karma of skillful thoughts, words, and deeds or calm, noble silence, and restraint.

Right Concentration: A Practical
Guide to the Jhanas (Brasington)

Third, there is the powerful suggestion of Leigh Brasington that these absorbed states of ecstatic composure, concentration, focus, or coherent mindful awareness can be brought about by a method. The method is simple to understand, a little less simple to implement. Attend a retreat, smile, stay calm, slow down, be comfortable, send metta to all in all directions until the heart/mind is restful and at ease then begin to meditate. When meditating, it will be the case that some part of the body is or begins to feel blissful (piti, one of the Factors of Absorption), pleasant, pleasurable. When it does, turn attention to that and just that. Seemingly on the maxim that "where attention goes, energy flows," that bliss (joy, happiness, sukha) will expand and overtake the entire body, bringing one into absorption. Leigh Brasington teaches, or taught, on Cloud Mountain and should be consulted for the details of this method. My coauthor, Virginia Tech Prof. Lori Marsh, attended a Brasington retreat and attained it.

Now this opens up a question that is difficult if not impossible to settle. What is "jhana"? What qualifies as "absorption"? If Prof. Marsh says she attained such a state, can anyone say any different? Because it is a direct and personal experience, can she even know? Does Brasington certify that retreatants are reaching it?

Fortunately, this question can be answered to some extent, but not completely because so much will depend on self-report. The most important thing is that a meditator not be self-deluded. One can know for oneself, and one's teacher can know, but as to whether or not anyone can say, who can say? One might have to possess psychic (abhinna, siddhi) powers to know what another is thinking or experiencing. Fortunately again, we are not concerned with what others are or are not attaining, only with what we are reaching.

How can I know if I was in an absorption during my meditation? And if I can know, how can I know which absorption (Jhana 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, or 8) I was in? There is an answer. In the teaching method of the renowned Buddhist Meditation Master Pa Auk Sayadaw, one will not know it when one is in it, but one can be sure which jhana one was just in. How? By reflecting and counting the Jhana Factors, that is, the Factors of Absorption present during the meditation, one can know which it was. As one moves up towards higher and more refined absorbed states, factors fall away.

The Five Factors are actually six when ekagata (one-pointedness) is counted. See teachers Sayalay Susila, Beth Upton, Sayalay Dipankara, Ven. Dhammadipa (now lay teacher Thomas), Shaila Catherine, Ven. Revata, and others for detailed confirmation of personal experience. The lay Buddhist teachers Tina Rasmussen and Stephen Snyder or check out their handy guide to the jhanas first published as Jhanas Advice. The later name became From First Sit to First Jhana:

☸ From First Sit to First Jhana | Tina Rasmussen and Stephen Snyder ☸

The Buddha on meditative absorption

Ego (buddhism podcast) The Buddha attained [temporary mental purification and permanent] enlightenment (bodhi) from developing the meditative absorptions (jhana), not in them

• Enlightenment in Buddhism
• Jhana (Sanskrit dhyana) in Buddhism

Peace Class: Self-Love is World Service

LIVE for the first time a month ago. Mandy Kahn (mandykahn.com) Earth Day, April 22

 

Peace Class, Wednesdays, 6:00 pm on Zoom

Friends, Peace Class meets Wednesday nights. Join in via Zoom at 6:00 pm (Pacific). 

• Feel free to share link with friends
• ALL are welcome
• Zoom: us02web.zoom.us/j/82150472713
• ID: 821 5047 2713

This is the text of the talk delivered at last week's class:

 

Self-love is world service

By Mandy Kahn at PRS, Earth Day 2026, edited by Dhr. Seven, Wisdom Quarterly

Holy Doors: Poems of Mandy Kahn

When we are kind to ourselves, when we have compassion for ourselves, when we love ourselves without reserve, we create the conditions in which to most easily evolve.

All of this evolution is towards a more peaceful and loving version of the [conventional] self.

 

Self-love creates a state in which one can hear the voice of our higher self and also feel that voice in the heart.

 

That higher voice points to the path ahead. The path ahead is always evolving [becoming] towards a more loving version of self. Self-love creates a kind of quiet in the mind/heart.

Lower mind

 

Not sex but symbolism of union

The lower mind is the place of judgment. That which is not love, that which is harsh, is loud in the lower mind. Self-love is the antidote to this loud voice. It balances and heals the harshness, restoring a kind of homeostasis, a calm, equitable ground [dzogchen]. Self-love creates neutrality in the self. It creates openness, and openness is peace. Into the true openness of peace, the presence of universal love, universal kindness, universal knowing arrives.

Tibetan Dharmacakra - Ground (Dzogchen)

All those who walk with universal love walk in service to all beings.

So self-love creates the conditions for one to more easily become peace, and into that peace of the self, the great wisdom of universal loving-kindness arrives. And the individual into which it arrives now carries it as a remarkable offering for all.

Higher mind

It is as if self-love builds the room. The empty room is peace. And universal love always arrives to fill it. Put simply:

• Unconditional self-love creates neutrality.
• And into [out of] this neutrality, peace is born.
• And this neutrality is peace.
• And into this peace, love-without-end [absorption or samādhi through metta] is born.

This peace flows from the individual consciousness into the collective consciousness, where it heals that which has not been loved which has remained there as residue.

• ["One-pointedness of mind/heart (cittass'ekaggatā), Ven. Visakha, is called concentration (samādhi, stillness, coherence)" (MN 44).]

Flower power made in the USA

When peace has flowed into the collective consciousness and has healed that which is not-love that is there, new possibilities emerge for humankind.

• Old wounds are healed.
• Old grievances are healed.
• And more people, no longer held in bondage by old grievances, are able to hear their higher selves' voice, which is a loving voice.
• And more people, hearing their highest voice, choose to act in love.
• And things begin to change.
• Old patterns suddenly end.
• There is more harmony between people.
• There is more peace.
• And that peace, felt by any one person, enters the collective consciousness and heals another layer of what is there
• calling to be loved,
• calling to be witnessed,
• calling to be healed,
• calling to be honored for all that it is, exactly as it is.
• Peace does that.
• [EDITORIAL NOTE: When Goenka talks about observing sensations (feelings) in the body, he says to observe each one “AS IT IS.” The Pali phrase he uses is “yathā-bhūta.” Buddhist Sanskrit (tathātā) akin to the Chinese term rú zhēn (如眞) “suchness.”]

It's as if our hearts were burning as one at BM.

So all is honored, all is healed, and another wave of people feel called to lean into that voice at the center of their chests, their own heart's voice, the voice of a higher self, a voice that speaks of their purpose. That voice is loving, the font of love at the center of each being, what we can call the heart's voice. So it is better perceived, easier to hear and learn from.

An act of service to the world

Earth and every living being on it is so much more beautiful and unbelievable close up.

 
Our self-love is an ACT [karma] of service (sevā) to the world. Is builds our peace first, and our peace builds all peace.

Yes, it builds our neutrality (equanimity, unbiased looking on, upekṣā), which allows us to hear our higher voice. The peace it builds in our own heart/mind travels into the collective consciousness, where it heals and creates new opportunities for future peace, our own and the peace of others.

The "peacening" process

Buddhist Goddess Prajnaparamita (personification of Perfection of Wisdom), Java

.

Goddess Sophia (Wisdom)

Our self-love powers this whole peacening [pacifying, cooling, slaking, quenching towards the highest peace of all, which is Nirvana or the "nirvanering"] process.

• Our self-love is local -- planetary service to others.
• Our self-love is holy.
• Our self-love is a holy offering that changes things.
• It changes us and everything else at once.
• It loves us and everything into wholeness.
• It loves you, it loves me, it loves everyone and everything at once (immediately, instantly, timelessly, akāliko). [The Gnostics knew it.]
• Boho chic; Girl in Yellow; text by Mandy Kahn, edited by Dhr. Seven, Wisdom Quarterly, Earth Day 2026

Eckhart Tolle: Remove 95% unhappiness now

(Eckhart Tolle) February 4, 2026: Remove 95% unhappiness

Samadhi with Ajahn Chah

How to develop Four Elements Meditation

How to develop Four-Elements Meditation

Full of practical info, not theory

In the Pali language texts, there are two ways for developing the Four Elements Meditation, in brief and in detail.

The brief method explained here is meant for those of quick understanding. The detailed method is meant for those who have difficulty with the brief method.

The Buddha taught the brief method in the Maha Satipatthana Sutta (the “Greater Discourse on Setting Up the Four Foundations of Mindfulness”): A meditator reviews this very body however it is positioned or placed as consisting of just elements: “There are in this body just the earth-element, the water-element, the fire-element, and the air-element” (The Path of Purification, Visuddhimagga, Ch.XI, para. 41–43) explains further:

First, one of quick understanding who wishes to develop this meditation should go to a solitary place. Then one should advert [turn attention towards] one's entire material body and discern the elements in brief in this way:

Western (British) Sayalay now Beth Upton

“In this body

1. what is hard or rough is [to be regarded as] 'earth element,'
2. what is flowing or cohesive is 'water-element,'
3. what is maturing (ripening) or heat [temperature] is 'fire-element,'
4. what is pushing or supporting is 'air-element.'”

One should advert and give attention to it and review it again and again as [simply] “earth-element, water-element, fire-element, air-element,” that is to say, as mere elements [components, qualities, characteristics], not as a being but as selfless.

 

As one applies attention in this way, in no long time, concentration [stillness] arises, which is reinforced by understanding that illuminates the classification [labelling] of the elements.

 

This is only access-concentration* and does not reach absorption [a fully absorbed or concentrated condition] because it has states with individual essences as its object.

• [*“Neighborhood or access-concentration” (upacāra-samādhi) is the degree of concentration (stillness, centeredness, mental-settling, focus) just before entering the absorptions or jhānas.]

Alternatively, there are these four [bodily] parts mentioned by Ven. Sariputta for the purpose of showing the absence of any self in the Four (great primary) Elements:

“When a space is enclosed with bones, sinews, flesh, and skin, there comes to be the term 'material form' (rupa)” (M. I. p. 190). And one should resolve each of these, separating them out by the hand of knowledge, then discern in the way already stated (above): “In these what is hardness…as its objects.”

 

This is the method taught at Burma's Pa-Auk Meditation Centre. Discern in the body:

• 1. Earth-element: hardness, roughness, heaviness, softness, smoothness, lightness.
• 2. Water-element: flowing, cohesion.
• 3. Fire-element: heat, coldness.
• 4. Air-element: supporting, pushing [for a total of 12 characteristics lumped into four categories called the Four Elements, the dhatu or maha-bhuta].

To learn this meditation, one must begin by learning how to discern each of the 12 qualities or characteristics of the Four Elements one at a time.

Usually, the beginner must first be taught the characteristics that are easier [more obvious] to discern then the more difficult [subtle] ones later. The “Four” Elements are therefore usually taught in this order:

1. pushing,
2. hardness,
3. roughness,
4. heaviness,
5. supporting,
6. softness,
7. smoothness,
8. lightness,
9. heat,
10. coldness,
11. flowing,
12. cohesion.

Each characteristic must be discerned first in one place in the body then one must try discerning that same characteristic throughout the body.

1. To discern “pushing”...  More

I don't get it. Help!

Author Shaila Catherine

Fortunately for us in the United States, Americans have gone to Burma, practiced under Pa Auk Sayadaw, succeeded in attaining the absorptions and insight and on occasion written books about it. They are in America. They teach. We can recommend these seven:

1. Beth Upton (British)
2. Shaila Catherine
3. Stephen Snyder
4. Dr. Tina Rasmussen
5. Dr. Nikki Mirghafori
6. Katie Kalyani (Midwest Samsara)
7. Thomas Dhammadipa (Czech polyglot).

There are also successful monastic disciples of the Great Pa Auk Sayadaw:

1. Ven. Sayadaw U Aggañña (now permanently stationed in Los Angeles)
2. Sayalay Susila (abbess of Appamada Vihari Meditation Center, Penang, Malaysia)
3. Sayalay Dipankara (Burmese traveling nun)
4. Ven. Revata (Pa Auk Forest Monastery, Burma)
5. Ven. Mahinda (Pa Auk Forest Monastery, Burma).

• Pa Auk Sayadaw, Four Elements (Pt. 2, p. 19) re-edited by Dhr. Seven, Wisdom Quarterly

Uposatha Jhana (Moon Zen) Ajahn Brahm

What is the blissful and inviting rapture of the light of absorption (jhana)? Is it santosha?

Can a Westerner achieve rapture and insight?

Full moon Sunday is the Uposatha (the fasting day of the lunar observance) when some choose to keep the Eight Precepts for one day and night. LA's Mindfulness Meditation Center in Covina (suburban San Gabriel Valley) is conducting its monthly Poya Day celebration in honor of it. This is an excellent time to relax, listen, and practice the path of absorption with the great Ajahn Brahm -- or to read Who Ordered This Truckload of Dung?: Inspiring Stories for Welcoming Life's Difficulties.

The Jhanas (Absorptions) – Seven Steps to Heaven (and One Beyond) by Ajahn Brahm

Nimitta (sign) emerges from obscuring clouds

(The Buddhist Society) Jhāna (meditative absorption, zen) is a bliss better than sex? Mantra: "Relax to the max!" There are two kinds of Buddhist meditation (no, not samatha and vipassana, which are a single system bifurcated by people who misunderstand what's needed for insight. The two types are Second Noble Truth (craving) meditation and Third Noble Truth (letting go) meditation, as explained by accomplished Western meditator Ajahn Brahm.

British Buddhist monk Ajahn Brahmavamso Mahathera (known to the world as Ajahn Brahm) was born Peter Betts in London, England (United Kingdom) on August 7, 1951.

Mindfulness, Bliss, Beyond: Meditator's Handbook

He came from a working-class background then won a scholarship to study theoretical physics at Cambridge University in the late 1960s. After graduating from Cambridge, he taught high school for a year before traveling to Northeast Thailand (Isan) to become a Theravada Buddhist monk.

He decided to train in the Thai Forest Tradition with the famous meditation master Ajahn Chah Bodhinyana Mahathera, who established Wat Pah Pong and Wat Pah Nanachat.

After his attainments in the forest -- and the "scandal" (along with Ajahn Sujato) of ordaining women in the Theravada tradition (Bhikkhuni Sangha), he moved to Serpentine, Perth, Western Australia (BSWA.org), to serve as abbot and advisor to a monastery (Bodhinyana Vihara) and nunnery with Western sensibilities open to students of meditation or monasticism or both.

• Ajahn's birthday: Bear Awareness: Taming Wild Mind

Ajahn Brahm Indonesia 2024 | Buddhist Society of Western Australia
Kindfulness: a new kind of meditation by Ajahn Brahm

• Ajahn Brahm at The Buddhist Society, Dec. 16, 2018; Dhr. Seven and Amber Larson (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Magic Mural Meditation (Ekaterina Sky)

We're filming a video in front of the mural, Sunday, 5:30-8:00 pm. Wear white shirt to participate in the filming of a music video for local artist Honore's song "Haven"

This is the actual Altadena Mural we created, but it's horizontal on site.

Impact Artist Ekaterina Sky

Up the mountain that is Lake Avenue in Pasadena into Altadena (north of Colorado Blvd. and over the 134/210 Freeway junction) is a magical mural. We painted it under the visionary direction of Impact Artist Ekaterina Sky (Instagram).

It has a secret purpose. It is a giant golden disc (kasina) surrounded by shooting beams of red, white, and maroon lines that produce a pulsating, stroboscopic effect. One takes a meditative seat in front of it on a yoga mat or towel, under the shade tree of what remains of Oh Happy Days Vegan Cafe and the city's main post office parking lot.

• DIRECTIONS: Travel north on Lake Ave. just past the Grocery Outlet. Turn left on Mendocino St. Turn left down first driveway after Jack in the Box. The mural is on the right behind the former site of the post office.

Don't "try" to try; just do it. It's as easy as that.

Using the brilliant gold disc as a Buddhist kasina (disc) or Vedic Hindu mandala (or yantra-chakra), the lines producing a sensation of entering the disc, blurring then erasing the line between subject and object. It is a kind of nondual (advaita) experience of "oneness" in the sense of a Beholder blending with the Beheld.

Can't "concentrate" (unify the mind, gather the faculties to stay on one thing)? Use binaural beats with headphones while softly viewing the disc and doing nothing else.

I hear Chicago's "Colour My World" when I start to sit

Does the world suck, Winston?

In the West we say, "Beauty is in the eye of the Beholder." And so it is. Or at least it can be. Surely, when we feel happy, the whole world seems sunny and sweet. When we're afraid, it may seem cold and grey, dingy like the world did to Winston Smith in George Orwell's dystopian Nineteen Eighty-Four. Is the world this way or that?

Who knows! It might be a utopia. We never see it objectively; we are always looking at it subjectively. So removing the difference between the two and becoming ONE with it, even for a moment, is very instructive for how the world and our experience of it has really been working.

HEMI SYNC FLOW STATE THETA 4HZ BINAURAL BEATS

The secret to meditative absorption, what the Buddha called jhana (Sanskrit dhyana), which literally translates as "meditation," is happiness. There is no "way to happiness," some wit once said. Why? It is because happiness is the way! Happiness and singlepointed attention on certain objects leads to piti, a blissful welling up of joy from within. It isn't that the world has changed and given us permission to be happy. It is that our cultivated happiness has all of a sudden bloomed and blossomed, sprouted and shot up. It is a kind of rapture, or better to say an effortless effervescence.

If stared at long enough, with a soft focus not tightness, it moves on its own.

Artist a work play.

Recently someone on Wisdom Quarterly called it a very pleasant "body buzz" (Michael Taft). The whole body tingles and seems to levitate or at least become very light when we take ourselves lightly. It IS possible to feel that floaty feeling when we no longer take things so seriously and instead just let them be. That's what McCarthy said to do in that Beatles' song. "Mother Mary [Magdelene] comes to me, speaking words of wisdom: 'Let it be.'"

• I can't "do" it! No, you can't. But it (jhana) can happen when we set up the circumstances for it to arise by itself, like gardening. No one can garden, that is, no one can make a plant grow. But anyone can set up the circumstances for a seed to sprout and a plant to come into being. Bhavana, often translated as "meditation," means "cultivation" and literally "bringing into being." Leigh Brasington tells Dan Harris it's deceptively simple. Stop "doing." Just attend to the object.
• Samadhi is a super-conscious, coherent unification of mind accompanied by profound attention and stillness.

What is the Prayer for the Earth?

However things are, that's okay. Let 'em be. They have to be just as they are because we are allowing not opposing, accepting not fighting, seeing clearly rather than distorting or trying to make them some other way. The Buddha's Path to Freedom, the path to mental purification, starts with this level of absorption that is employed in "clear-seeing" (vipassana). There isn't one or the other; there's both. There is no pyramid peak without a solid foundation.

Oh, I see it now, at my third eye.

Absorption (blissful sustained attention) is that base. The peak is insight, clearly seeing. Vayānupassanā means "contemplation of vanishing" and is one of the 18 chief kinds of insight (vipassāna). So whatever we can do to still the mind and turn it into a laser beam of attention rather than the scattered, weak, diffused, dingy, and easily distracted fluorescence of our dull glow is a good thing to be doing -- Ashtanga (Eight Limbs of Yoga) and the Buddha's Noble Eightfold Path.

(Why do they call it "noble"? The word is Aryan, and it literally means "Enlightening," so we should call it the Ennobling Eightfold Path, the practice of which brings us to bodhi and nirvana, awakening and the ultimate truth).

Altered States (trailer)

(Sierra Fotuhi) Who would ever make a song about little ol' Altadena?

We are going to return soon to film a music video with the mural. Then we are going to move it. It's portable. So this free meditation is a limited-time offer. At the next stop it will have its QR code to listen to the prayers embedded behind the gold. Do you know what alta means in Spanish? "High." Not because it's above Pasadena, but because it's a place for a natural altered state.

• (Sleeping on Trees) We create our reality without knowing it
• Dhr. Seven and Ekaterina Sky, Ananda (Dharma Buddhist Meditation), Wisdom Quarterly; Sri Yantra (Pin de Jen Browne |  Arte de la geometría sagrada, Arte fractal)