HIGHLIGHTS FROM
STRAIGHT LINE MEDITATION
HOW TO RESTORE AWARENESS AND WHY YOU NEED TO
by Carol E. McMahon, Ph.D. with Master Deac Cataldo
Awareness is a spacious mansion filled with riches. It is yours from birth.
The thinking mind, more often than not, is a noisy trouble making tenant.
This tenant has taken posession of your mansion and shut you out.
Enter here and reclaim awareness - your birthright - your enlightenment.
Contents
Preface
Chapter 1: A Breakthrough; A New Tool; A Guarantee
Chapter 2: A Beginner Exercise
Chapter 3: “Original Perfection:” A Baby’s Awareness
Chapter 4: Confusion and Illusion: How Concepts Blind Us
Chapter 5: Self-Interest and the Illusion of Love
Chapter 6: Straight Line Meditation: The Feedback Method
Chapter 7: How to Use and Prevent Pain
Chapter 8: Trouble-Shooting
Chapter 9: How to Stay Motivated
Chapter 10: Advanced Practice
Chapter 11: Breakthrough!
Chapter 12: Facets of the Jewel
Chapter 13: How to See God
Chapter 14: Being Love
Bibliography
Appendix: Exercise
Index
From Chapter One : A Breakthrough; A New Tool; A Guarantee.
They say when you're ready the teacher will appear. Look in the mirror and behold your guide...
We thought no “recipe” or simple guide to enlightenment was possible. Thanks to feedback, this is no longer true. Here you'll find complete self-guidance. Feedback guides your practice. Self-tests [TEST YOUR ENLIGHTENMENT] guide your progress and tell you when to move on...
Use this book as you would a recipe. Take each step in sequence, adding what you need (motivation; inspiration; Self-tests, etc.) when you need it.
From Chapter Three: "Original Perfection:" A Baby's Awareness
You were born knowing how to be happy. You still have what it takes. All it takes is awareness.
My little one never needed to be entertained. She had what Thoreau found at Walden Pond. Awareness made his life his “amusement, and never ceased to be novel.” As he walked in the woods to see the birds and squirrels, he "walked in the village to see the men and boys. Instead of the wind among the pines I heard the carts rattle.”
Someone counted and found that four-year-olds smile four hundred times a day; adults fifteen times. Smiles diminish as thought claims its monopoly on consciousness. We start life aware. Too soon we trade “silence as deep as eternity for speech as shallow as time.” When concepts replace awareness we go from full to empty. We spend our lives trying to fill emptiness only awareness can fill...
Like a true master my little one inspired me to practice. At preschool gymnastics I sat on the sidelines, cross-legged against the wall focusing on the glossy floor. Several toddlers waited too. I sat apart from them hoping not to be disturbed, yet wherever I sat they gravitated to me. My silence and stillness did not make them uncomfortable. They seemed drawn to it. With no formalities, not even eye contact, they crowded in, leaned on me and nestled in my lap. They stayed until time came for them to go. Then they scrambled from my lap and ran off without a backward glance. They took strange liberty with me when I was in that state. I think they felt at home because I was home. Centered in a mansion of awareness, I could be sanctuary for them.
It is impossible to see joy in most adults, but that doesn't mean it is not there. Stars in the night sky seem to weaken and fade at dawn, but they haven't weakened or faded, only receded from view. The same is true of the brilliance of your nature [BabySages]. You can be as you were born. You can raise your eyes and look about and be radiant at what you see. Awareness is all you need.
From Chapter Four: Confusion and Illusion: How Concepts Blind Us
Early in life concepts take over. Instead of acting out of awareness we “run” concepts blindly the way computers run programs. That blindness causes of most of life’s pain.
I was first introduced to karate many years ago. I recall the surprising sight of my teacher with a bandaged head and his arm in a sling. When I asked how it happened he blushed. On spring break in Florida he'd walked past a bar just as a brawl spilled out. Suddenly engulfed in a street fight he completely forgot he knew karate! He used none of his skill. Instead he did just what the other brawlers were doing, and he took a beating.
Our lives are something like this. We are born aware. Like my baby we know how to be happy. We've got what it takes, but then we get confused like my karate teacher. We do what everyone else is doing, and we take a beating. The trouble starts early in life when awareness fades...
From Chapter Five: Self-interest and the Illusion of Love
Our concept of self sends us the wrong way in pursuit of happiness. A self-interest agenda limits our capacity for love...
The thinking mind is not our ally in the search for happiness. Mind reasons: “Having it all" is the answer, but having it all doesn't even include having what it takes. It takes awareness.
Erich Fromm said: “To analyze the nature of love is to discover its general absence..." What are we missing? Compare the light and warmth of the sun with that of a star. We are suns by nature. We shine dimly however, like stars... Pure awareness is love itself.
From Chapter Six: The Feedback Method
Use feedback and hold on to attention the way you'd grab a rope for a tow... Straight line meditation takes you straight to your goal.
I once visited a maze in a local state park... an acre of eight-foot high hedges with corridors several feet wide. What struck me most about the maze however was the view from inside. Inside the maze, wherever I stood I saw two hedges, one on each side. That was all. Inside there was no sense of a maze, and with no sense of a maze, there was no indication of being lost.
The mind is like this. We're always inside a maze of thoughts. Our wants and worries are high walls we can't see beyond. That's why we don't realize we are lost.
This chapter holds the solution. Unlike other paths to liberation, this method does not wander corridors of mind looking for an exit. It lifts clean out.
Focus on the bull’s eye [FocusingDiscs]. Visual distortions will appear. When your mind wanders, your eyes wander and distortions will end. Distortions are feedback, proof of attention. Hold on to feedback... sustain attention... “see the light” both literally and figuratively!
From Chapter Seven: How to Use and Prevent Pain
Pain is a call to awareness. Answer the call and you find guidance...
Awareness Exercise One: Finding Meaning and Purpose in Pain This exercise broadens awareness. Take some time and put yourself into it.
Think of yourself as the only real person. Imagine you are real and everyone else is a phantom. All of these phantoms and all your life circumstances exist to guide you. Life’s drama plays for your benefit alone.
Now bring to mind key people in your life. Helpful and problem people are equally your guides. Problems with a boss, spouse or child position you to learn and grow. What we call “bad fortune” may offer more guidance than good. Your painful circumstance is just what you need at the time it occurs. Awareness reveals why.
Ask: “If this problem is designed for my benefit, what can I gain?” Awareness holds the answer. It reveals pain’s meaning and purpose. If you see clear to the bottom, you may find it a route to love.
When in pain remember you have a choice. Pain can be useful or it can be meaningless suffering. For pain to be useful, awareness is all you need.
From Chapter Eight: Trouble-shooting
Make sure your practice is, and stays effective with help from this chapter.
Problem 11: No Feedback.
If you are getting no feedback it means only one thing: you are not paying attention.
With traditional meditation it's easy to kid ourselves saying we “put the time in.” Amount of attention, however, not amount of practice time is what counts. Ten minutes of practice with feedback has obvious benefits. Without feedback, sitting for hours may bring no benefit at all. Indeed you may be missing the mark by a wide margin and never even know it.
Remember: attention is a learned skill. Feedback is necessary for skill learning. Feedback assures you the best meditation... the fastest practice skill development... the certainty of time well spent.
Problem 16: Having Doubts?
Everyone has doubt, and doubt can be useful. Doubt is a path to certainty if it moves you to understand how and why this works. Know why this method is the best way to meditate. Experience its power. Your doubts will resolve by not giving in to them.
Chapter Nine: How to Stay Motivated
This chapter helps you stay motivated, and makes good motivation even better.
One fine summer day my little girl surprised me by taking a schoolbook outside to read. Minutes later she came back in. “I can't read,” she said. “The butterflies are bothering me.” There's a lesson here. Her problem was not really "butterflies." It was low motivation to read. Most problems that interfere with practice are like those butterflies. “Too little time” and “too much to do” don't stop you. Low motivation does. With enough motivation, nothing can stop you!
Remember that Pork Chop. A woman I taught suffered from social anxiety and a fear of choking. She was limited to soft food. After a few months of practice she found herself sitting in a crowded restaurant enjoying a pork chop. Afterward the memory of that brought her back to practice again and again.
What have you experienced that proves the power of your practice? Remember it. Like the memory of that pork chop, it will bring you back again and again.
Do it Until you Want To.
A man’s practice freed him from painful ulcer symptoms, but the prospect of continuing to practice upset him. “Do I have to do this for the rest of my life,” he asked?
I answered: “No. You have to do it only for a while. After that, you’ll want to.” When pain ends, another form of motivation to practice emerges.
Beginners aim is to escape anxiety, avoid stress, decrease tension, etc., running away from trouble. As practice advances however, we find ourselves moving toward goals. Awareness fills our emptiness, and the gratification entices us on. Desperation gives way to inspiration. Do it until you want to.
Chapter Ten: Advanced Practice
If you've passed Chapter Six Self-tests, you're ready to board the rapid rail...
A Zen Master said: “With teeth clenched and tongue pressed against the gums... by means of sheer mental effort hold back, crush and burn out the thought.” Advanced practice feels like this, energetic and vigorous, the most active functioning of your day. You might even perspire as if exercising, but perspiration is not necessary, and neither are clenched teeth, just single-minded purpose.
...and what is your purpose? What is your aim? It is sustained attention, that is: continuous feedback.
Practice Tip: Sit Better.
Beginners sit like puddles. Advanced students sit like sculptures of pure energy. Practice improves when posture improves. Here are some ways to sit better.
Put a barricade (a box or book) between you and your focusing disc. Position it so the disc can not be seen until you straighten up. When better posture becomes a habit, reposition the barricade for still more erect posture.
Your posture should be strong, but poised like a tai chi Master in a pose. "Poise" is suspension of activity in a condition of balance, as the earth is poised in space. Do not become a settled mass. Be poised like an object in space. Hold your body the way you want to hold your mind.
Practice Tip: Don't be lured.
When you practice, are you lured toward the goal? A “yes” answer means inspiration has replaced desperation.
When you sit down to practice however, don't be lured by a vision of enlightenment. Be propelled by the force of attention, propelled so strongly that nothing could possibly keep you from your goal.
Chapter Eleven: Breakthrough!
This chapter helps you penetrate the last of the barrier, to “pass through the silver mountain and the iron wall.” Before starting... let me share my breakthrough experience with you.
... a vibrant halo of light appeared. First a narrow band it widened and spread very slowly the way the moon crosses the night sky. In forty-five minutes the room was filled with shimmering light.
In Chapter Two I said inner gravity settles thoughts. Here intense concentration created the gravitational force of a black hole. The whole pyramidal structure of mind, from the little chatterbox on top to the broad unconscious base was sucked in, receding so far that no thought could possibly escape. I came to full power and hovered there, poised on the threshold of infinity, about to erase eons of errors of mind.
To break through to enlightenment, feedback is all you need. It is your pruning shears: the only tool you need to downsize. Limit your experience to feedback. Keep cutting back. Cutting back. Cutting back. Achieve a blank slate and then no slate at all. Wash away all that is not gold.
Chapter Twelve: Facets of the Jewel
Awareness and Guidance:
I was not alone in the pool. A small frog was at the far end frantically trying to escape me. I remembered a Zen story: Why does the rabbit run from you, asks the Master?
Because he is afraid, says the student.
Because you have a killer instinct, says the Master.
Feeling ashamed of my killer instinct I watched the creature exhausting itself. Then suddenly, unexpectedly, all thoughts were gone. I entered the frog’s domain: awareness. We were eye to eye and we shared an understanding clearer than any communication I've ever had in words. We were of one mind. I stretched out my arms at the water’s surface and the frog swam with strong sure strokes straight across the pool and into my open hands. I lifted it out and after a minute it hopped away.
My daughter saw this from a window and we shared a moment of silent awe. Then unexpectedly, a lesson came through: “All concepts are barriers to truth: even Zen Masters’ concepts.”
In that moment of communion with the frog I had full contact with reality; total freedom from concepts of frogs and instincts and of myself as separate. When I am this aware I find that guidance is woven into the fabric of my life.
When I am most aware, all woodland creatures are my teachers. Flowers, trees and brooks teach passively, simply by being what they are. Animals however, like the frog in my pool, seem to teach actively, interacting with me in mysterious, wonderous ways...
If I have the union awareness creates... deer show themselves, fauns approach me, and all of it has meaning and purpose. If I am not clear headed, however, deer hide. It seems they come out to teach only if they have a receptive student.
Awareness and Happiness:
Chapter Four showed how we “run concepts” the way computers run programs. When we do, concepts run us. When concepts, not awareness, decide thoughts and actions, unhappiness is guaranteed. When awareness governs actions, we do the right thing and happiness is unconditional...
Without awareness it is impossible to be happy. With it it is impossible not to be.
Awareness and the Power of Love: For most of my life I lived with a mystery. I knew I would teach a particular lesson. I knew it to be: love is power. I knew this with bottomed-out certainty, yet I had no knowledge of the subject and no interest in it either. I see now that I had to learn the lesson before I could teach it. One cold winter day not long ago, I did...
Chapter Thirteen: How to See God
Running a “religion program” can limit spiritual growth... Spiritual fulfillment awaits awareness.
After my father’s sudden death I looked to religion for answers. The kind nuns at my Catholic high school gave me a job cleaning the chapel to ease tuition. Undisturbed in that peaceful place I longed for something I could not define. Each day when my work was done I knelt and prayed. Now and then I seemed to touch something beyond myself, but even as this happened I knew it was a flight of imagination. God was not real for me.
I lacked faith then. Now I know why. It was because I could not see what was before my eyes. In prayer I was lost in the maze of ideas, wandering the corridors of mind. I was trapped in a “God” concept, running a “religion program.” My concept of God was all I could see...
On Faith as Awareness of Truth:
The battle raged. Master Choe and his disciple (Deac) were stuck between opposing forces under heavy artillery fire. Steel-jacketed bullets were flying; noise was deafening and death immanent. To his amazement, the young soldier saw the Master relaxing with closed eyes. “We could die any second!” he shouted over the din. Master Choe was thoughtful. Then he hollered back: “Do you believe in God?”
“Yes,” yelled the soldier, shocked by the question.
“Do you believe there is something better than this after you die?”
“Of course!” Deac yelled back.
“And your military training, has it prepared you for this battle?”
“My training is the best in the world,” the soldier hollered.
“Then which is it you lack faith in,” asked Master Choe, “your God or yourself?”
Nothing undermined the Master’s faith because it came from full awareness. Awareness of truth gave him the big picture... the perspective that sees that all is well; a 'God’s eye' view; a view so vast that light replaces darkness, hope despair.
Chapter Fourteen: Being Love
Happiness does not come from “having it all.” It comes from being what you are... from being love. All it takes is awareness.
I had given a lecture that morning, a critique of meditation, exposing flaws in meditation techniques. In my audience were a few hundred clinicians, some clergy, and unknown to me, a lion with a golden mane... Throughout this encounter (with a Zen priest) I remained entranced by the light from his eyes, and he remained intent, not loving, but being love. His love was a steady-state rapture with no atom of self-consciousness to block its free expression...
Now take the ultimate self-test:
A blade in a clump of grass is the perfect essence of grass. A tree with leaves rustling in the breeze is tree-hood in perfection. Right now be human. Be perfectly human right now...
If you hesitate, your meditation needs feedback.
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