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In this lesson we will cover how to intentionally decondition vedana (pleasant and unpleasant feeling tone) from thoughts and memories to remove the foundation for attraction and aversion.
This skill can be used by advanced insight meditators who wish to accelerate the development of the conditions for Sakadāgāmi or Anāgāmi, and also for treating habitual defensive conditions patterns that lead to the experience of anxiety and trauma (under supervision and skilled guidance).
Meditation Type: Softening (relaxation, letting go, calm), Vipassana (insight)
These five Softening Doors make up the complete MIDL Softening Into skill used to decondition habitual defensive patterns from the mind.
Meditation
Caution: Meditation Skill 34 is a high level MIDL technique for stripping back vedana and emotions. Only approach this skill with proper training or guidance.
Daily Meditation
You continue to practice daily mindfulness of breathing and the first four jhana. Your insight emphasis is towards observing the anatta characteristic of Specific Conditionality (idappaccayatā) within the six sense fileds.
2nd Path Fruition
Conditions are now present for Sakadagami (Once Returner).
Meditation
Progressive menu
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Simple Instructions:
Mentally picture parts of your body lifting, feel the muscles respond and then soften the intention within your mind.
This guided meditation is also available on Insight Timer meditation app
This is the first of the Five Softening Doors that make up the complete MIDL Softening Into skill. This softening door trains the tendency within the mind towards letting go by creating the intention to move and teaching the mind to let go by softening the effort that underlies it.
The softening door of 'lifting, dropping' uses the engaging and softening of movement within the physical body to develop the skill of letting go of the mental intention 'to do' within the mind. While it can seem very complex in nature it is actually quite simple when understood.
Meaning of 'Lifting / Dropping'
'Lifting' stands for the desire to move and 'dropping' stands for the softening of that desire.
There are three stages to moving your arm:
Exercise 1
Try this now to experience these above three stages.
Exercise 2
Try this now learn to soften the intention before your arm lifts.
In the same way as above, you can move through your body 'lifting' and 'dropping' each part of your body by creating an intention to move it, feeling its contraction, then softening that intention.
Instructions:
Recommended Order:
INVESTIGATION
PROGRESSION
Once you understand the relationship between abandoning an intention, and the softening of your body and mind, you are ready to begin Meditation Skill 29. To truly understand this, I recommend being curious regarding creating and softening intentions in your daily mindfulness of breathing, and also learning to enter stillness by softening intentions in daily life.
Simple Instructions:
Place fingers below belly button, take 5 slow breaths by extending the lower abdominal muscles out and lowering them back again.
This guided meditation is also available on Insight Timer meditation app
During this meditation we intentionally trigger painful memories to develop understanding of the relationship between our body, breathing and mind. This technique can also be trained through intentionally stress breathing in order to learn how to turn off stress hyperventilation in daily life.
If you are currently experiencing anxiety only practice this technique under the guidance of a trained professional. I offer private sessions in meditation techniques to lower your experience of anxiety, and also guidance in applying these advances softening techniques. More Information Here
The MIDL method of Re-engaging the Diaphragm is a softening skill for interrupting the habitual stress response in order to decondition habitual defensive patterns from the mind. This is part of the MIDL skill of deconditioning.
Once this skill of 'abandoning' through the re-engaging of the diaphragm has been developed, it can be used in seated meditation for calming the meditative hindrances and in daily life as a way of deconditioning harmful habitual patterns of reaction.
The ability to re-engage the diaphragm when it disengages due to the stress response is a primary MIDL Softening skill and should be refined. This is also a main technique for removing anxiety created by habitual stress breathing.
Stress reactions can be interrupted by learning the skill of re-engaging the diaphragm with 5 slow diaphragm breaths. If you have not learnt this in earlier MIDL training, you need to learn it now in order to decondition all habitual defensive patterns from your mind.
Learning to reengage the diaphragm in respiration is essential as it will increase your sensitivity to the precursors of stress reactions and give you the ability to turn them off by manipulating the respiration aspect of the stress response.
By placing your fingertips just below your belly button and taking 5 slow diaphragmatic breaths in and out, the experience of anxiousness completely goes away due to the re-engagement of the diaphragm and rebalancing of CO2 levels.
In some cases, however, due to the severity of the stress reaction, the experience of adrenaline and cortisol may still be felt within your body. If this is the case, it is nothing to be concerned about and it generally takes 30–50 minutes for the adrenaline and cortisol to disperse.
Exercise such as fast walking if in intensive meditation or physical exercise if in daily life will speed up this process. Softening into the dukkha feeling is also beneficial to fulfill the goal of the meditator as this is not based on aversion towards dukkha feeling and instead uses it to develop nibidda (disenchantment) within the mind.
If you are sensitive, you may feel:
During this training you will be intentionally triggering a stress reaction by bringing an unpleasant memory to mind. Be curious in regard to the relationship between mental resistance and the stress response.
Take interest in regard to any physical or mental changes that you experience when you are stress breathing such as:
INSTRUCTIONS
**Best way to learn is using the recording.
If you are sensitive, you may feel:
Stage 1: A feeling of mental clarity, spaciousness, mental fogginess fades.
Stage 2: Next notice how your body relaxes, a feeling of contentment arises.
Stage 3: Then notice mental calmness, how thinking has settled down.
Stage 4: Your diaphragm has re-engages in lower belly, and how each breath calms you.
Repeat to refine your skill, also learn to reengage your diaphragm in daily life.
Simple Instructions:
Picture your breath starting below your belly button, bring it up into your chest, extend each out-breath through your nose relax.
This guided meditation is also available on Insight Timer meditation app
During this meditation we intentionally trigger painful memories to develop understanding of the relationship between our body, breathing and mind. If you are currently experiencing anxiety only practice this technique under the guidance of a trained professional. I offer private sessions in meditation techniques to lower your experience of anxiety, and also guidance in applying these advances softening techniques. More Information Here
The MIDL Method of Lengthening the Out-Breath is the training of calming the intellectual functions of the mind by relaxing the effort that underlies them.
You cultivate this skill by slowly releasing an out-breath through your nose and abandoning mental effort with that out-breath.
The experience of this could be summarised as using the relaxation of your out-breath to relax the frontal lobes of your brain.
Once understood, this method is used during seated meditation to calm the meditative hindrances and to abandon and decondition unskillful thought process in daily life such as defensive or obsessive thinking.
Start to apply this method in your seated meditation. Whenever your attention wanders off to thinking, acknowledge it, ground awareness within your body and then take one slow breath out through your nose to bring about mindful non-participation.
When beginning mindfulness of breathing slowly breathe out through your nose, then relax and wait for the breath to come in by itself, autonomously.
In daily life observe habitual thinking patterns and let a slow breath out through your nose to mentally relax and withdraw your participation in them.
Simple Instructions:
Allow your eyelids lids to droop close, partially open them and allow them to droop close again. Repeat until they won't open.
This guided meditation is also available on Insight Timer meditation app
During this meditation we intentionally trigger painful memories to develop understanding of the relationship between our body, breathing and mind. If you are currently experiencing anxiety only practice this technique under the guidance of a trained professional. I offer private sessions in meditation techniques to lower your experience of anxiety, and also guidance in applying these advances softening techniques. More Information Here
The MIDL Method of Relaxing the Eyelids is the subtle skill of relaxing your eyelids and eyes to directly bring about deep relaxation within your mind. There is a direct correlation between the alertness of the eyes & eyelids and hyper-vigilance of the fight / flight response.
When in a hyper alert state due anxiety or trauma the eyes open wider searching for danger. Relaxing the eyelids and intensity of 'looking' has the effect of temporarily turning off this fight / flight response and allowing the mind to find safety within the experience of Stillness.
During this process deep healing can occur. Observe effect on your mind with the gradual relaxing of your eyelids. Take interest in how your body conditions your mind and how your mind conditions your body. Observe how this softening door affects the intellectual functioning of the mind.
Simple Instructions:
Slowly extend the breath out through the nose while gently focusing on the frontal lobes and feel them relax.
This guided meditation is also available on Insight Timer meditation app
During this meditation we intentionally trigger painful memories to develop understanding of the relationship between our body, breathing and mind. If you are currently experiencing anxiety only practice this technique under the guidance of a trained professional.
I offer private sessions in meditation techniques to lower your experience of anxiety, and also guidance in applying these advances softening techniques. More Information Here
The MIDL Method of Relaxing the Frontal Lobes is the skill of abandon all mental participation through relaxing the effort that underlies mental stances.
There is a direct correlation between mental activity, such as thinking, as well as held mental postures, and the experience of tension in the area of the frontal lobes. It is the effort held in this area that you relax.
When relaxing the frontal lobes, it is helpful to borrow the method of Lengthening the Out-Breath through the nose by picturing the in-breath filling your frontal lobes, and the out-breath deflating them like a balloon.
Once you can feel the deflation/relaxing of the frontal lobes you can abandon all imagery. With practice you will be able to abandon all effort in the frontal lobes without the aid of breathing.
Simple Instructions:
Bring a memory to mind and notice the feeling of pleasantness or unpleasantness that arises, soften into your relationship.
This guided meditation is also available on Insight Timer meditation app
This is a high skill, MIDL technique, and during this training mindfulness meditation becomes very real. We intentionally trigger painful memories to develop understanding of the heart / mind and to decondition Vedana (feeling tone) from these memories.
If you want to try this MIDL deconditioning technique, do so at your own discretion. If you have not done the earlier training and developed your mindfulness, concentration and softening skills then you are likely to become lost within the emotional charge and resist the unpleasantness.
In this case you either need to commit to the MIDL systematic training or have someone skilled in this technique to guide you to develop this skill.
The MIDL method of Deconditioning develops the higher skill of deconditioning emotional charge and feeling tone (vedana), attached to thoughts and memories.
The mind has a simple survival sorting mechanism in which it uses feeling tone to sort memories as dangerous or safe. It attaches pleasant feeling to signify safe memories or unpleasant feeling if the memory is perceived as being dangerous and attaches no feeling tone to trigger indifference: this does not concern me.
The mind uses these presorted memories as a data base to which if refers to sort sensoury input (six senses). This data base is used to give rise to perception: I know what this is. and this includes information in regard to attraction, aversion and indifference.
Stripping back the feeling tone within this data base, alters the way the mind perceives present experience and leaves it open to interpretation in regard to appropriate relationship.
The appropriate relationship is then conditioned by sila (harmonising) which is supported by panna (verified wisdom), which become the data base for the mind. Hence the importance of Right View.
**Note: During this training we take a soft approach and also access pleasant memories, in actual application this is not the case.
**Note: During this guided meditation we take a soft approach and also access pleasant memories, in actual application this is not the case.
Follow this cycle six times, at the end of each softening checking your progress with three simple questions:
“Is the emotional charge in my body stronger, the same or weaker now that I have softened than it was when I first brought the memory to mind?”
Monitoring Progress
If the emotional charge is stronger then you need to refine your mindfulness and softening skills, do not practice this meditation further. If the emotional charge is the same you need to develop your softening skill, there is still some resistance present.
If the emotional charge is weaker now then your softening and mindfulness are strong enough. Apply five more cycles of deconditioning to this memory.
Be curious about the relationship between memories and the feeling tone present. observe that when a memory is brought to mind a corresponding feeling is released within your body.
Observe the undeniable urge to escape from unpleasant feeling, to search for pleasant feeling and to stop paying attention when neutral feeling is present.
Observe that when you soften / relax all resistance or attraction against that feeling that the feeling and emotional charge attached to the memory start to fade.
Simple Instructions:
Bring a memory to mind and notice the feeling of pleasantness or unpleasantness that arises, soften into your relationship.
This guided meditation is also available on Insight Timer meditation app
This is a high skill, MIDL technique, and during this training mindfulness meditation becomes very real. We intentionally trigger painful memories to develop understanding of the heart / mind and to decondition Vedana (feeling tone) from these memories.
If you want to try this MIDL deconditioning technique, do so at your own discretion. If you have not done the earlier training and developed your mindfulness, concentration and softening skills then you are likely to become lost within the emotional charge and resist the unpleasantness.
In this case you either need to commit to the MIDL systematic training or have someone skilled in this technique to guide you to develop this skill.
The MIDL method of Deconditioning develops the higher skill of deconditioning emotional charge and feeling tone (vedana), attached to thoughts and memories.
The mind has a simple survival sorting mechanism in which it uses feeling tone to sort memories as dangerous or safe. It attaches pleasant feeling to signify safe memories or unpleasant feeling if the memory is perceived as being dangerous and attaches no feeling tone to trigger indifference: this does not concern me.
The mind uses these presorted memories as a data base to which if refers to sort sensoury input (six senses). This data base is used to give rise to perception: I know what this is. and this includes information in regard to attraction, aversion and indifference.
Stripping back the feeling tone within this data base, alters the way the mind perceives present experience and leaves it open to interpretation in regard to appropriate relationship.
The appropriate relationship is then conditioned by sila (harmonising) which is supported by panna (verified wisdom), which become the data base for the mind. Hence the importance of Right View.
Before doing this meditation, select the memory that you are going to work with during the session.
Memories are linked, so your mind may swap from one to another while using this deconditioning technique. Whenever you notice that the memory has swapped, gently bring your attention back to the one you are working with.
Always stay with the emotional charge within your body rather than the story contained within the memory. You could even write it down before starting to direct your attention.
Begin by sitting comfortably and bringing your awareness to the experience of just sitting in a chair or on the floor, this will be your grounding point to reality. Once settled, bring one difficult memory to mind and gently hold it within your awareness. Learn this skill by starting with a memory in which the emotional charge is not too strong.
As you bring this memory to mind, notice the experience of emotion as it arises within your body, particularly around the centre of your chest. Know that this is just a reflection of the past, it is not the reality of what is happening ‘now’, and cannot hurt you.
Break up the experience of the emotion within your body into sensations: such as 'hard', 'tight', 'heavy', 'warm' etc. Notice the underlying feeling of unpleasantness that fills the experience of the emotion like a flavour / taste (the vedana). and soften / relax deeply into your relationship towards the unpleasant feeling (attraction/aversion) using the softening into skill.
Note:
The softening into skill is the accumulation of Meditation Skills 28-32: Relaxing intention. Re-engaging the diaphragm. Extending the out-breath through the nose. Relaxing the eyelids. Relaxing the frontal lobes.
When combined, these five softening skills turn off all aspects of the stress response except for the release of adrenaline/cortisol in the body. However, softening lowers the unpleasantness of this stress reaction, thus lowering the response through mindful non-participation.
When the original triggers are deconditioned from the mind, through softening, adrenaline/cortisol are no longer triggered to release in the presence of the experience/stressful situation.
Do not try to make any unpleasant feeling go away, but rather deeply relax into it, holding it gently in mind and accepting it. Abandon all participation with it, soften all effort. Do this for five softening breaths, allowing your breathing to return to normal after the fifth softening breath.
After opening your eyes, give your body a shake to release the residue of any physical tension held within your body. Then without bringing the memory to mind again, check the strength of the emotional charge within your body to gauge the deconditioning based on the below formula.
Follow this cycle six times, at the end of each softening checking your progress with three simple questions:
“Is the emotional charge in my body stronger, the same or weaker now that I have softened than it was when I first brought the memory to mind?”
Monitoring Progress
If the emotional charge is stronger then you need to refine your mindfulness and softening skills, do not practice this meditation further. If the emotional charge is the same you need to develop your softening skill, there is still some resistance present.
If the emotional charge is weaker now, then your softening and mindfulness are strong enough. Apply five more cycles of deconditioning to this memory.
Be curious about the relationship between memories and the feeling tone present. observe that when a memory is brought to mind a corresponding feeling is released within your body.
Observe the undeniable urge to escape from unpleasant feeling, to search for pleasant feeling and to stop paying attention when neutral feeling is present.
Observe that when you soften / relax all resistance or attraction against that feeling that the feeling and emotional charge attached to the memory start to fade.
Once you have lowered your experience of anxiety and there has been an increase in the period of time in which the diaphragm is engaged in autonomous breathing, it is time to decondition past triggers from the memory bank within your mind.
Sorting Mechanism:
The mind attaches a pleasant or unpleasant feeling (vedana) to each memory in order to sort them into dangerous or safe. When a memory is accessed, this feeling is released triggering a conditioned emotional response within our body.
A habitual pattern based on attraction or aversion then unfolds (the tendency towards indifference arises if no feeling tone is present). By understanding how this process works, you can remove the feeling tone from memories quickly, thereby removing the conditions necessary for motivating habitual defensive patterns, bringing the anxious cycle to an end.
Deconditioning Vedana from Memories
Deconditioning is dependent on your earlier training in the ability to manipulate the stress response through the use of slow diaphragmatic breaths.
During earlier MIDL training you also learnt how to ‘borrow’ the deflation of your body with each out-breath in order to abandon any mental engagement/resistance to the memory. First you create the conditions for meditation, relaxed, sitting on the chair/floor, present, safe in the room. you then bring to mind a memory that was preselected and hold it gently in mind.
To decondition the emotional charge and its attached vedana, it is not necessary to know what the memory is about or how it come to be; it is your relationship towards it that is important. You then observe the emotion that is released from the memory, it is helpful to remind yourself that you are safe by softening into your body.
Once awareness is grounded in your body, start to notice the unpleasantness of the emotion as it releases within your body, understanding that it is just a danger signal produced by your survival mind as a signal of danger; unpleasant feeling cannot hurt you in any way.
You are safe.
You then use slow, softening breaths, to soften/relax your relationship towards the unpleasant feeling, towards any resistance. Not trying to make it go away, accepting it, letting it be.
This is done using a cycle of five breaths and is focused on both physical and mental relaxation. If this is successful you will notice that when you open your eyes, it is difficult to do and happens slowly as it will take your mind a while to re-engage with the world.
If, however, your eyes want to open fast, then it is a sign that you did not reach deep mental relaxation and need to refine your ability to soften.
You then ask some simple questions on your current experience, be careful not to bring the unpleasant memory to mind at this stage so that you do not influence these results:
"Is the emotion in your body stronger after the five softening breaths, the same or weaker than it was before?”
STEP 1: COMPLETED: You have completed Softening.
STEP 2: COMPLETED: You have completed TIER 1.
STEP 3: COMPLETED: You have completed TIER 2.
STEP 4: COMPLETED: You have completed TIER 3.
STEP 5: COMPLETED: You have completed Jhana.
STEP 6: COMPLETED: You have completed Insight 1.
STEP 7: COMPLETED: You have completed Insight 2.
STEP 8: COMPLETED: You have completed Deconditioning.
YOUR NEXT STEP
STEP 9: Cultivating Wholesome Qualities.
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