First taste of kasina

Editorial notes:
Shai starts his seventh blog, entitled “The Traveller is the Journey“.
This blog represents the entry point into the third major phase in Shai’s journey. Having previously dedicated substantial research effort to reviewing and documenting the great philosophical minds of the West, he now commences his exploration of the wisdom of East, in particular the mystical aspects of the Hindu and Buddhist philosophies.
While the first draft in this blog is written in January 2015, the bulk of the articles are only starting to be published in late 2015, with a total of nine articles in 2015 and further 46 in 2016 (total of 55 posts), of which 38 are dedicated to the topics of Eastern Philosophy and Self Reflections.
To better understand Shai’s plans for this blog see the posts “About The Traveller is the Journey” and “The Traveller is the Journey – Subjects“.
This post was found in ‘Draft’ mode and may be incomplete. It is published here in its original state. It was last updated on 26/01/2015.

Meditation reveals an inner landscape as rich and detailed as any tapestry illustrating a battlefield from afar, and beneath the microscope’s lens, a mesmerizing complexity of topologies and geometries. Familiarity enhances an appreciation for that which is distinct from that which is described, and the bridge segregating experience and reflection, that is the soul’s abode, becomes ever narrower and long.

The speciation of the mind’s components is complex and only hinted at by words, whose associations may enlighten an awareness already owned (by the reader), or indicate a path whose route lays between contour lines of practice and preconception, or else be abridged into a passing pleasantry as a sensorium of vocabulary. There is an “effort” that goes beyond the mere intention that may sufficiently direct a placid mind. There is a “concentration” that may encompass wide or narrow, and exclude, or attend by a mimicking of incidental noticing. There are “feelings” that reveal themselves in movements of awareness and distraction, but also as currents of force not identical to the observer who stays still. There is an “awareness” that seems to be forever capable of subsuming and expanding, and perceiving everything as participating in a something indivisible.

There are places between places, and travels that unfold by reflection of the traveler’s deportment, and subtleties of possibilities as confronting to describe as the spark unleashing an artist’s creation hitherto impossible.

Motivations of exploration

I am a student of the breath and the insights that surround the concentration and awareness which it instills. I continue to be amazed and humbled by the education available from such a partial and immediate source. Yet I continue to wonder at the uniqueness of this meditation, and the nature of variegation between meditation objects.

Studying Buddhism, I have seen descriptions of 40 traditional meditation objects, and the role of the kasina^[I] object in nurturing specifically concentration. Thus I begin this exploration with a brown kasina object, this being the most traditional and among those applicable to all character types.

I wish to know what the experience of kasina involves. I wish to know how this experience evolves with some practice. I wish to know how this practice diffuses into other practices and their experience.

Method of exploration

I meditate thrice daily, for 40 and 20 and 20 minutes. I dedicate the middle session, which is preceded by a session of study on the eightfold path^[II], to my kasina practice. Study or attendance to Buddhist lessons often soothes the mind from its innate turmoil and reactive instincts.

The kasina is brown cardboard paper, cut into a circle of 25 cm diameter, and stuck to a white background. When I sit to watch the kasina, my gaze is tilted slightly down. When I am sitting and watching the kasina I repeat, “This is brown” and attend to the colour. Then when I repeatedly know that this kasina is the colour brown, I repeat, “Brown”, and attend to the colour. If I am distracted then I ignore awareness of the nature of the distraction and return to repeat, “This is brown”. If the repetition feels to be distracting me from complete focus on the kasina, then I drop it until I sense that it would benefit me again. In this way I meditate on the kasina.

First memories of kasina meditation

I sat, and I watched the kasina. I repeated and attended in accordance with my intentions for the meditation.

In an early segment of the meditation, I was repeatedly distracted by sensations of anxiety and boredom. I considered that whereas the breath offered a rich tapestry for mindful curiosity, this was a thing that once seen was already known, and thus I would struggle.

As I continued I experienced a momentum of attention, and realized that the words were too much distraction, and marveled at the way in which the mind would follow the course I had forced onto it. Once focused, the mind could not help by attend to the color. At times the image would shift, as if being watched more by one eye and then more by the other, and I learned to watch, this is the brown, this is the brown, knowing the consistency that overwrote these superficial variations. There was some comfort and calming associated with the mind snagged onto this single purpose.

With focus came strange visual distortions. The boundaries became very bright or very dark. The colour of the kasina disappeared completely yet was still there. It appeared like a lunar eclipse, dark with rays shining from the circumference. It pulsed in strange patterns, and drew highlighted vines and flowers. These were of interest to the mind, and I tried to reign it in by remembering and attending, “This is brown, this is brown, brown”.

After the meditation, when I was preparing a meal. I noticed a number of times the inclination of the mind to focus on colour, “This is orange”, or even just on the object, “This is a carrot”, independently of the task I was committing.

But these are still just mere observations, and it is difficult to know what to exclude as obvious delusion, or else what reflects a manifestation of the mind’s intuitions honed. These are mere observations, and their purpose is to assist the reflection on the value and trajectory of this practice.