Shinzen Young, Meditation Teacher
Shinzen Young, a renowned meditation teacher and author of "The Science of Enlightenment," shares his unique journey from a Jewish teenager in L.A. to a monk deeply involved in scientific research on meditation. He discusses intense practices, the nature of enlightenment, and how meditation can transform one's relationship with suffering and self.
Deep Dive Analysis
14 Topic Outline
Shinzen Young's Early Life and Path to Meditation
Combining Eastern Meditation with Western Science
Purpose of Intense Ascetic Practices in Meditation
Defining the 'Source' in Meditation and Pre-Conscious Processing
Experiencing 'Makyo' (Hallucinations) During Deep Practice
Skepticism Regarding Supernatural Powers from Meditation
Understanding and Experiencing Enlightenment
Enlightenment's Compatibility with a Busy Modern Life
Addressing Ethical Lapses Among Spiritual Teachers
Meditation's Potential to Solve World Problems
The Future of Meditation: Science and Accelerated Growth
Shinzen Young's Ongoing Personal Struggles and Relationships
Reasons Why Enlightened People Avoid Discussing Their Experiences
Understanding the 'Flow of Impermanence' and Dissolution (Bhanga)
4 Key Concepts
Source
The 'Source' refers to the initial 10-100 milliseconds of pre-conscious processing that occurs before any sensory experience (inner or outer) becomes consciously aware. For highly experienced meditators, awareness of this primordial processing reveals a taste of effortless, dynamic, and fulfilling tranquility, which is the basis for happiness independent of conditions.
Makyo
A Japanese technical term for unusual phenomena, such as hallucinations, that some individuals encounter during deep meditation practice. These experiences occur in the intermediate realm between ordinary awareness and the 'Source,' and are considered a sign of progress towards formless awareness, not a mental illness.
Enlightenment (Shinzen's Definition)
Enlightenment is defined as a fundamental and permanent shift in paradigm about who you are, a deep self-understanding that changes one's relationship to the notion of self versus other. It can manifest as a sudden, dramatic experience or a gradual process that subtly acclimatizes a person to a new state of being.
Bhanga (Dissolution)
Bhanga is a technical term meaning 'dissolution,' describing an awkward intermediate stage in meditation where the solid stability of inner and outer senses begins to dissolve. This is experienced as a subtle vibratory or wavy quality in body sensations, visual perception, and even auditory space, signifying a purification process of consciousness.
7 Questions Answered
Intense ascetic practices push the envelope of experience, allowing practitioners to apply concentration, sensory clarity, and equanimity to challenging situations. This can lead to profound insight and transformation, acting as a 'vaccination' against future suffering by preparing one for life's inevitable hardships.
Shinzen Young is highly skeptical that objective, praeternatural powers measurable in a laboratory are possible through meditation. While individuals may have meaningful sensory experiences that feel supernatural, he believes they are unlikely to be confirmable by rigorous scientific standards.
Enlightenment is a fundamental and permanent shift in one's understanding of self, leading to a deep self-understanding that alters the relationship between self and other. It can occur suddenly, like a 'spiritual orgasm,' or gradually, sneaking up on a person over time.
Yes, Shinzen Young asserts that enlightenment is compatible with a busy life, citing examples of deeply liberated teachers like S.N. Goenka and U Ba Khin who maintained large businesses, families, and high-level government positions while practicing deeply.
While liberation often correlates with admirable behavior, it is not guaranteed. Ethical lapses can stem from overemphasizing the liberation aspect of practice, a lack of institutional or personal feedback channels, and not seriously adhering to behavioral guidelines, especially in power dynamics.
Enlightened individuals often perceive everyone as already possessing the 'primordial perfection' or 'Source,' making it seem less like a unique attainment. Discussing it can also create misconceptions, foster status hierarchies, or make one sound like they are bragging, which goes against the nature of the experience.
Meditation offers profound spiritual transformations without requiring irrational beliefs, providing an evidence- and logic-based path to the benefits traditionally sought in religion. Shinzen Young believes that if humanity survives for a few more centuries, the widespread diffusion of this 'better mousetrap' could become a new paradigm, potentially accelerated by scientific breakthroughs in neuromodulation.
21 Actionable Insights
1. Establish Daily Formal Practice
Dedicate a small amount of time each day, approximately 10 minutes, to formal meditation practice to build consistency and foundational skills.
2. Integrate Mindfulness Daily
Incorporate intentional meditation practice throughout your day by taking several ‘micro-hits’ as you go about ordinary activities, such as walking from place to place.
3. Engage in Retreats
Participate in meditation retreats, or if residential retreats are not feasible, utilize ‘home practice program’ micro-retreats, such as four-hour conference call sessions, for deeper immersion.
4. Seek Competent Coaching
Find and work with at least one competent personal coach who has a proven track record in guiding people towards deep meditative experiences and enlightenment.
5. Experience Discomfort Without Suffering
Cultivate the ability to experience physical, emotional, or mental discomfort in a fluid way, allowing it to fulfill its natural role without causing suffering or distorting behavior.
6. Reduce Personal Suffering
Pursue enlightenment—a fundamental, permanent shift in self-understanding—to experience physical and emotional discomfort with significantly less suffering by not taking it personally.
7. Optimize Positive Behavior
Engage in practices leading to enlightenment to improve your habits, let go of negative behaviors, and cultivate positive ones, thereby optimizing your actions in the world.
8. Foster Compassion & Service
Understand that a strong tendency of enlightenment is to become a more compassionate, caring person, which naturally facilitates a life of service to others.
9. Combine Practice with Behavioral Support
Supplement meditation practice with behaviorally-oriented accountability and support structures, such as therapy or 12-step programs, to address persistent negative habits like procrastination.
10. Keep Feedback Channels Open
Actively seek and accept feedback from everyone around you about your behavior and how you carry yourself in the world, to ensure continuous personal growth and prevent potential abuses of power.
11. Establish Behavioral Guidelines
Seriously consider and adopt general guidelines or precepts for behavior to translate paradigm shifts into admirable actions, as enlightenment alone does not guarantee perfect conduct.
12. Observe Pre-Conscious Processing
Through meditation, lower your threshold of awareness to detect the initial 10-100 milliseconds of sensory processing that precedes conscious experience, which can reveal a ’taste of effortless, dynamic, fulfilling tranquility’.
13. Deconstruct Unusual Sensory Phenomena
When encountering unusual or bizarre sensory phenomena during meditation, apply your technique by deconstructing it sensorially into its visual, mental talk, and body sensation components, rather than developing cravings or aversions.
14. Focus on Subtle Vibrations
During meditation, pay attention to subtle hints of waviness or vibration in body sensations, visual experience, and auditory experience, as focusing on these can make them more prominent and lead to deeper experiences of dissolution.
15. Work Smart in Meditation
Utilize clever techniques and manageable doses of practice to achieve deep meditative results, rather than relying solely on brute-force, intense traditional training.
16. Practice During Life’s Challenges
When facing intense challenges in life, remember to apply meditation practice or seek support to do so, as this can yield comparable results to intense ascetic practices.
17. Cultivate Self for Service
Engage in deep personal growth and transformative practices to become an ’extraordinary person’ who can then be optimally available and of service to the community.
18. Embrace Diverse Learning
Actively seek out and engage with cultures or subjects that fascinate you, even if they are outside the mainstream, by attending parallel educational institutions.
19. Intense Practice for Resilience
Consider engaging in challenging practices, like those found in traditional monasteries, to push your limits and build resilience, preparing you for life’s inevitable hardships.
20. Embrace Meditation for Societal Change
Recognize meditation as a powerful force for positive change, capable of delivering profound spiritual transformations without requiring irrational beliefs, making it a ‘better mousetrap’ for humanity’s future.
21. Explore Techno-Boosts for Meditation
Be open to future scientific breakthroughs and non-invasive neuromodulation technologies that could dramatically accelerate meditation growth, potentially reducing the time needed for profound transformation.
5 Key Quotes
Sooner or later, the monastery is going to come to everyone listening to this podcast. The monastery is going to come to you.
Shinzen Young
When you can't, to the extent that you can abide with that, to that extent, even uncomfortable experiences, they still hurt, but they don't cause suffering.
Shinzen Young
The activity of self is freed up when the somethingness of self goes away would be one way that you might try to put it.
Shinzen Young
Meditation delivers what religion purports to deliver. It delivers it more intensely without the need for irrational beliefs, so that you can have an evidence and logic-based life, like a hard-nosed scientist, and get profound spiritual transformations without having to sacrifice an evidence and logic-based view of the world.
Shinzen Young
Our only health is the disease. If we obey the dying nurse, whose constant care is not to please, but to remind of our and Adam's curse, and that to be restored, our sickness must grow worse.
T.S. Eliot (quoted by Shinzen Young)
2 Protocols
Path to Enlightenment for an Ordinary Person
Shinzen Young- Engage in a little formal practice each day (e.g., 10 minutes).
- Perform intentional practice during the day (e.g., a half-dozen micro-hits while moving around).
- Participate in retreats, which can be residential or four-hour micro-retreats via conference call.
- Find at least one competent personal coach with a proven track record in guiding people to this experience.
Preventing Ethical Lapses in Spiritual Teachers
Shinzen Young- Have clear guidelines for behavior that are taken seriously.
- Keep feedback channels open to everyone, not just some people, to get a consensus on one's conduct in the world.
- Utilize behaviorally-oriented accountability and support structures, such as a 12-step program, therapist, or counselor.