Subscribe: RSS | More

Last week we talked about tranquility practice, sometimes called samatha, in relation to the nervous system process of deactivation out of habitual sympathetic arousal states. I emphasized how important it is to find deactivation, and therefore how valuable it can be to turn the attention away from activating content and toward that which settles the system. That’s samatha in a nutshell, basically.

But of course that’s only (at most) half the process. The traditional one two punch of practice is the combination of samatha and vipassanā, where tranquility and ease support investigation leading to insight. In vipassanā, you get close to difficult phenomena in order to see clearly the grasping, painful conditions, and fixated identities that are making the thing so painful. One kind of nervous system language for this is that we’re trying to “hit threshold,” which is the amount of activation necessary to mobilize self protective reflexes in a way that releases stuck sympathetic activation and leads from there to deactivation.

If we can find deactivation through completion of motor reflexes, or through completion of unfinished emotional processes (which are aspects of the same thing), that’s tremendously valuable. This is why vipassanā is traditionally understood as leading to insight in a way that samatha isn’t. But it’s also usually the case that without pretty strong samatha, insightful vipassanā just isn’t possible. The mind can’t maintain contact with pain clearly enough to stay unconfused about it.

So we have the twin snakes winding around Hermes’ caduceus. Both powers are needed to heal the heart from trauma and ignorance. Tonight we’ll look at the process where intimate contact with the painful leads not necessarily to insight, but to hitting threshold and then to deactivation. This can be insightful in itself, but is also a core part of resolving old trauma symptoms and supporting deepening in samatha. And the twin snakes wind back and forth around the central column.

SEAN OAKES
Sean Feit Oakes, PhD (he/they, queer, Puerto Rican & English, living on Pomo ancestral land in Northern California), teaches Buddhism and somatic practice focusing on the integration of meditation, trauma resolution, and social justice. He received Insight Meditation teaching authorization from Jack Kornfield, and wrote his dissertation on extraordinary states in Buddhist meditation and experimental dance. Sean holds certifications in Somatic Experiencing (SEP, assistant), and Yoga (E-RYT 500, YACEP), and teaches at Spirit Rock Meditation Center, East Bay Meditation Center, Insight Timer, and elsewhere.

LINKS
Website: seanfeitoakes.com
Community Page: In It To End It
YouTube channel: In It To End It
Spirit Rock: spiritrock.org/teachers/sean-oakes
Insight Timer: insighttimer.com/seanoakes

GIVING
All of Dr. Oakes’ independent teaching is offered on the model of Gift Economy, in the Buddhist tradition of dāna, inspired giving. Support of our teaching and community is gratefully received. Thank you for your generosity.

Donate:
seanfeitoakes.com/gift-economy

Blessings on your path.