Quick Start Guide

What would I say if I had just five minutes to give comprehensive instructions for awakening?

You are unenlightened to the extent that you are embedded in your experience. You think that your experience is you. You must dis-embed. Do this by taking each aspect of experience as object (looking at it and recognizing it) in a systematic way. Then, surrender entirely.

Do these practices, exactly as written:

First Gear:

1) Objectify body sensations. If you can name them, you aren’t embedded there. Notice sensations and note to yourself: “Pressure, tightness, tension, release, coolness, warmth, softness, hardness, tingling, itching, burning, stinging, pulsing, throbbing, seeing, tasting, smelling, hearing.” If I am looking at something it is not “I”.

2) Objectify feeling-tone. Are sensations pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral? Every time you note pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral, you are dis-embedding from experience.

3) Objectify mind states. Call them out as they occur. “Investigation, curiosity, happiness, anxiety, amusement, sadness, joy, anger, frustration, annoyance, irritation, aversion, desire, disgust, fear, worry, calm, embarrassment, shame, self-pity, compassion, love, contentment, dullness, sleepiness, bliss, exhilaration, triumph, self-loathing.” Name them and be free. These mind states are not “you;” if there is a “you” it must the one who is looking, rather than what is being looked at. Below, we will challenge the notion that there is any “you” at all.

4) Objectify thoughts. Categorize them: planning thought, anticipating thought, worrying thought, imaging thought, remembering thought, rehearsing thought, scenario spinning thought, fantasy thought, self-recrimination thought. Come up with your own vocabulary and see your thoughts as though they belonged to someone else. The content of your thoughts is not relevant except to the extent that it helps you to label and therefore objectify them.

Second Gear:

5) Objectify the apparent subject. Who am “I”? Turn the light of attention back on itself. Who knows about this experience? To whom is this happening? Spoiler: you will not find a self to whom this is happening. Keep looking until this becomes second nature.

Third Gear:

6) Surrender entirely. Let it be. Good. Now go beyond even surrender, to the simple acknowledgement that this moment is as it is, with or without your approval. This does not mean that you must be passive. Surrender also to activity. You are not in charge. You are the little kid in the back seat with the plastic steering wheel. Relax and enjoy the ride.