Reflection Support: Unobstructed

In the Asheyana path, reflection practice is located after practicing Calm Abiding and experiencing the Insubstantial Basis of Being for oneself. Reflection itself can take place at any time. 

Here is a support for working with reflections that arise spontaneously from the Insubstantial Basis of Concepts.

1. Take a stable seat or stance.

2. Connect with the body and feel the breath.

3. Gaze with eyes diffused at or a little above the horizon.

4. Abide as if gazing into the night sky while floating on one's back atop a shallow pool of clear water.

5. Whatever concepts have spontaneously arisen, know that these arose from the Insubstantial Basis, the imagined, shallow pool of clear water at one's back.

• These concepts temporarily obstruct one's view, like clouds obscuring the night sky.

6. Let these concepts dissolve in front, back into the periphery, back into the Insubstantial Basis.

7. While abiding in this way, one's visual and other senses remain present--the place of one's presence is still seen, heard, and felt in all directions.

• However, the conceptual overlay is now empty, the view is unobstructed. It is like gazing into the clear night sky while floating in a pool of clear water.

8.  One's body and mind are relieved of the weight of concept. Visceral tensions correlating to released conceptual holdings begin to relax. A satisfied joy of returns to one's experience.

9. When heavy or overbearing concepts arise in daily life, one should look unobstructedly, releasing one's grip of these concepts, allowing them to dissolve back into the Insubstantial Basis.

• Looking unobstructedly is not a happy memory, an emotional forcing, or a mental overlay. Looking unobstructedly is a capability to connect with the Insubstantial Basis of Concepts, available in each and every moment.

10. Concepts permeated or perfumed of allegiance to identity, of jealous comparison, of hierarchical struggle, of heated, interpersonal tumult, of existential doubt, of indebtedness or obligation to others, of fear of annihilation, of hope for recognition, of approval-seeking from authority, of strategizing to fulfill one's ambitions, all these and any others, without exception, are dissolved back into the Insubstantial Basis of Concepts.

• Once dissolved, any imagined, consequent arguments need never be had.

• Once dissolved, any imagined, consequent assertions need never be made.

• Once dissolved, any imagined attachments need never be validated.

• Once dissolved, any imagined aversions need never be gratified.

11. Unobstructed means simply that--there is nothing truly blocking you. All moments are the path home--one needs simply be present and look unobstructedly for the way to arise.

12. Having experienced unobstructed for oneself, one dissolves back into the insubstantial basis of being--no success, no failure, no accomplishment at which to point, nothing left to do.

May these words encourage the Asheyana practitioner to develop steady abiding in unobstructed view--the reflection channel to Insubstantial Basis of Concept. May it be of benefit.