Becoming awake awareness (2/2)

A recipe

The meditation practice that I’ve found most beneficial and impactful after 5+ years of exploration is “Shi-Ne”. It is a Tibetan practice for opening awareness. In smaller doses, it has made my perception more vivid and my actions more effortless, decreased the time I’m lost in thought, and improved overall quality of life. During a 2-week solo retreat I recently did, Shi-Ne opened up for me into an experience of (and even “experiencing as”) awake awareness, which takes it to a whole new level. I wrote a report on it here. 

Time will tell, but I’d suspect it will remain one of the most transformative experiences of my life. You can read more about the phenomenology of it here. 

During the retreat, I found a reliable sequence of “mental moves” that deepens Shi-Ne and opens up into awake awareness that I’d like to share here. It combines and remixes instructions and metaphors from my teacher Michael Taft  in a way that works well for me. 

Introduction to the practice of Shi-Ne

The traditional instruction for Shi-Ne is “remain uninvolved.” It is generally practised with eyes open or half-open. Michael Taft describes it as “dropping the ball”: just how dogs are sometimes furiously enamoured with a ball they won’t let go of, so are humans with perceptions. Shi-Ne is dropping the ball of perception across all sense channels, over and over. Another way Michael describes it is “relaxing the core of the mind”, emphasising the relaxation of contraction in the head area. It’s also a good description of what it feels like. These core instructions may work for many already. In my case, experimenting with more specific and idiosyncratic metaphors was a game-changer, so I thought I’d share them. 

Attention vs. awareness

Before we move into the recipe, it might be useful to clarify the difference between attention and awareness. These are 2 modalities of perception that work in tandem, but we tend to be used to operating with attention primarily. The following table contrasts them: 

The goal of Shi-Ne as I understand it is to open up awareness and to operate from there, as opposed to attention. Attention is relaxed until it recedes back into awareness, the field of everything that could be focused on. Although they seem like two different modalities, attention is ultimately made of awareness. 

Step 1: Melting the mind like butter

“Relaxing the core of the mind” is usually where I start. If the body sensations associated with “grabbing” onto sensations/percepts are decreased, so is the mental clinging itself. I found it helpful to (lightly) hold that image of melting butter while focusing on any sensations of tension or density in the head area and repeating the intention of relaxing them. The feeling of relaxing the mind feels similar to relaxing the body. In my experience, there tend to be several layers of tension in the head area. From relaxing the face and throat, I move to the area behind the forehead, and then progressively in and down inside the head. 

Some variations that help at this step: 

• Making sure that I hold the right view and mood (more on this at the end) as I’m starting off. 

• Starting with progressive relaxation of all of the body, before moving to the mind. 

• Relaxing the areas around the throat and the eyes decrease the frequency and stickiness of thoughts (which correlate with micro-sensations in these areas). 

• Being mindful of any effort and releasing that. I sometimes repeat the sentences “Relaxing is easy. If you’re struggling, you’re not relaxing.” (in Michael’s voice) 

Step 2: Opening a thousand hands

The next step is working directly with whatever sensations, thoughts, sights, sounds, emotions, smells, etc. come up. And drop them as soon as possible. For most people most of the time, attention will “grab onto” precepts across different sense gates, and jump from one thing to another (“monkey-mind”). The goal here is to release attention over and over again and stop the chain reaction of the monkey mind in its tracks. This produces concentration, but in a very broad and open way. That’s why Shi-Ne is also called “Samatha without an object”. The focus is on nothing in particular and everything all at once.   

Some variations that help at this step: 

• Keeping the visual field broad, with a soft gaze, and make sure I’m aware of the periphery (“lion’s gaze”). Sometimes it also helps to see the visual field as 2D.  

• Being mindful of the shape of attention. As soon as it starts narrowing, I’m probably grabbing on to something. 

• Adding a lowkey visualisation of the opening/relaxing movement as an overlay to wherever a sensation/percept comes up. 

• Again, reminding myself that “relaxing is easy and effortless”. If I’m straining, I’m not relaxing/opening. 

I often found myself oscillating back and forth between step 1 and 2 until I noticed the signs of the Shi-Ne bearing fruit (more on what that felt like for me in the report).  

Step 3: Dissolving precepts into expanding space

After a while, I’m noticing that percepts are not as sticky anymore and that awareness stays wide open, only rarely collapsing back into attention. There is also a sense of the Shi-Ne getting a life of its own after a certain momentum has been built. This is the time when I switch to the next step in this little recipe: Dissolving precepts into expanding space. I’m becoming more aware of the space quality of awareness, especially through sound: The furthest away sound that I hear is still within the scope of awareness. And there isn't really a boundary there either, it’s as if awareness expands whenever I look for its limits. As I’m letting go of any percepts, I notice attention releasing back into awareness. Sometimes this feels like a subtle visualisation where the percept dissolves into space. I follow attention from the object back into awareness. This is a way of looking that helps me start to recognize awake awareness. 

Some variations that help at this step: 

• Noticing the vastness of awareness through sound works well for me. It seems important to not “move after” the sound with attention. 

• Noticing the subtle movement associated with the release of attention. E.g. in the visual field, an object moves out of focus and recedes into the background. 

• There is a sense in which following attention into awareness feels like turning the arrow of attention around: Instead of pointing from the field to an object, it points from the object back into the field. 

• Noticing that awareness is unharmed/unchanged by any thoughts or sensations. Contrasting the stillness of awareness with the movement of sensations. 

Step 4: Opening the doors

At this point, I usually have repeated glimpses of awake awareness and notice certain qualities, especially the spaciousness and stillness. Each quality of awake awareness feels like a doorway into a deeper recognition. The more “doors” are opened, the better. I’m trying to notice the different qualities of awake awareness continuously and bring online the ones I’m not noticing yet. Here are some of the major qualities or doorways: 

• Spaciousness

• Stillness

• Silence

• Awakeness 

• Timelessness

Usually, I enter through the door of spaciousness or stillness and then progressively notice the other qualities. After they’ve all come online, it starts feeling like awareness is noticing itself. 

Some variations that help at this step: 

• Experimenting with what qualities of awake awareness are more accessible and starting wherever feels easier.

• Trying out different sequences of recognizing qualities.

• If sensations or thoughts come up, viewing theses as “made of” awareness helps. Awareness is a boundless ocean, and sensations are just ripples on its surface.

Step 5: Trust-fall into awareness (and resting there)

As I’m having a more and more stable recognition of the qualities of awake awareness, there is just one step left: Shifting from a recognition of awake awareness to being awake awareness. The shift is primarily about perspective and the locus of identity, where it is I’m coming from. What works best for me is the metaphor of a trust fall - a full release of any sense of location in the body. Sometimes, I imagine myself falling out of my head backwards into awareness. 

Some variations that help at this step: 

• Whereas in the beginning, the speed of the letting go motion of Shi-Ne seems important, at this stage, the fullness of letting go matters. Letting go all the way. 

• There are often subtle self-images that need to be let go of, for example, identifications with sensations in the head or with the map of the body. 

• Leaning into the sensations of falling or vertigo and opening to them. 

Now, I’m resting as awareness noticing itself. It’s a great place to just hang out. There are also fun things to do: doing Vipashyana or Samatha from this place is extremely powerful. Concentration and mindfulness are effortless and feel automatic. There is a sense of non-doing and equanimity even during practices that previously required “doing”. Michael calls this technique “reversing the stack”, moving from level 4 upward in the table below. 

Musings on view & integration

There is something even more important than the specifics of meditation technique: the view from which meditation is engaged with in the first place. View includes both the conception of what it is I’m doing when I meditate, as well as the mood with which I approach it. In the Vajrayana (and specifically for Shi-Ne), we take on the view that awake awareness is always already present, it’s just cluttered over with mental and emotional tension (discursive thoughts and conflicting emotions). Other expressions for awake awareness are “Buddha nature”, “the ground of being”, or “natural mind” - all of these emphasize that there is nothing to strive for, to build up to, to transform. We’re all already fully enlightened Buddhas, the practice is about recognizing and embodying that.
In terms of the mood, it helps to cultivate a sense of open relaxation and surrender. I want to let go of the urge to hustle and achieve that seems so ingrained. Awareness is already fully awake, I can’t “make it” more awake. There is nothing to do, nothing to change. This isn’t a licence to slouch on the cushion and start monkey-minding around. A certain sense of determination and firmness is also needed (but without introducing contraction). It also helps me to cultivate a sense of enjoyment, an Eros for emptiness. As you may be able to tell, getting the mood right is a delicate balancing act. Like tuning a guitar string - not too tight, not too loose. However, holding the appropriate view and cultivating a conducive view has an outsized impact on the effectiveness of the practice, so I try to deliberately include this at the beginning of every meditation.

Formal (i.e. sitting meditation) practice is the main driver to uncover a deep recognition of awake awareness. And yet, I’m not aiming to be sitting on my butt all day. Ultimately, formal meditation needs to bear fruits in everyday experience. I want spacious, spontaneous, and skillful engagement with the world. So the practice needs to be taken off the cushion eventually. In addition to the formal meditation, “micro-dosing” throughout the day seems like a critical enhancement to stabilize the recognition. Loch Kelly’s glimpsing practice is an excellent fit for that. 

I hope you’ve found something interesting in this piece. I would be delighted if it piqued your interest enough to try out Shi-Ne, or if some of the “ingredients” of my recipe would turn out to be helpful to your practice. The spirit of experimentation, making small tweaks, and adapting practices to work for your mind might be even more helpful than the specific framings that worked for me. If you’re curious about the phenomenology this practice leads to, I wrote a report here. 

May you be free.