other than chanting you can try practicing vipassana:
Recently had a MSN discussion with two forummers about dharma
practice. Conversation took place on 31st March 2011 (Fri),
Here is an edited version of the conversation:
Participant 1: If there is no self, then who
and what is restraining the mind, following the virtues (i.e.
practicing the dharma)?
Me: That's like asking who or what is hearing,
who or what is seeing, who or what is acting. This is actually a
falsely put question as never was there a doer, perceiver, or agent
in the first place. Seeing, action, all arise according to
inter-dependent origination. No agent or source is necessary as
such.
Participant 1: Where does volition come
from?
Me: Volition does not come from anywhere, just
as burning fire does not come from north, south, east, or west.
Neither does fire go to north, south, east, west, up, down, or
anywhere in-between after blowing out. Rather, it is by the
requisite/supporting conditions that fire burns: in this case, by
virtue of candle and oil, fire manifests. By the cessation of those
conditions, the fire ceases as well. This is the principle of
dependent origination:
When there is this, that is.
With the arising of this, that arises.
When this is not, neither is that.
With the cessation of this, that ceases.
Everything functions in the way of dependent origination,
neither coming from somewhere nor going somewhere.
Participant 1: So, restraining the mind and
following the virtues come from the conditions of hearing the
dharma and self-discipline?
Me: You can say so.
Participant 1: What about those who hear the
dharma, have self-discipline, yet have conditions that prevent them
from following Buddhism such as karmic obstruction?
Me: Karma only becomes obstruction if you allow
karma to obstruct you. If you are obstructed by karma, it is termed
karmic obstruction.
Participant 1: What is the condition that
allows their karma to obstruct them from dharma?
Me: Difficult to say as situations differ so
you need to provide concrete cases. Just an example: If a person
doesn't live near a dharma center, then he reasons to himself that
he does not have a karmic affinity with dharma, then that becomes a
karmic obstruction. If nonetheless, regardless of distance, that
person is earnest, he will be willing to go an extra mile in search
of right guidance. This is just an example I made up.
Participant 1: So does it become
karmic obstruction or is it because of karmic obstruction
(that the person does not come to practice the dharma)?
Me: In this case, it becomes a karmic
obstruction, partly due to his personal attitude, intention,
decisions.
Participant 1: Ah okay. I found a good link for
what I need answered: http://www.buddhanet.net/budsas/ebud/mahasi-anat/anat03.htm
Me: Good link. Mahasi Sayadaw is likely a fully
liberated arahant. That said I don't practice his method of noting,
even though it is a very efficient practice (countless
practitioners have reported swift progress using that method). In
my own opinion, Thusness's method of Vipassana is a little more
direct and closer to the method laid out in Mahasatipatthana Sutta,
and I personally prefer that method. Noting is sort of noting and
labelling sensations quickly in order to perceive it's three
characteristics (impermanency, unsatisfactoriness, non-self),
however it is not the direct experience of luminous clarity like
what Thusness's method result in. At some point (when the noting
practitioner progresses to a more advanced phase of his practice),
the practitioner will have to drop it's noting and resort to a
direct method such as that elucidated by Thusness and
Mahasatipatthana Sutta.
Participant 1: What is Thusness's method?
Me: As elucidated in his conversation with
Ck/truthz: http://www.sgforums.com/forums/1728/topics/419870?page=1
Ck: john, how to practise vipassana in daily life?
Thusness: just observe every sensation.
Thusness: until one day u are able to experience "emptiness as
form".
Thusness: then it becomes effortless.
Thusness: Truthz u cannot imagine the bliss when one clearly
experiences that.
Thusness: but there is no point to over stress anything.
Thusness: 
Ck: Thusness just observe every sensation... give me an eg?
Thusness: when u breath, u don't have to care what is the right way
of breathing, whether u breath hard or soft, smooth or fine...just
experience as much clarity as u can...just that
experience...regardless of what it is like.
Thusness: same for all other experiences.
Ck: wot abt sound? hows it?
Thusness: when u hear, just the sound...the totality of the sound.
There is no how but just to do away with all abitrary thoughts.
Hear the sound as clear as u can be.
Ck: then wot abt thots?
Ck: thots r v sticky 
Thusness: thoughts seldom arise if the practice is correct.
If it arises, then not to chase after its meaning. Not to answer
urself what it means, not to dwell in 'what'...then u will resort
to just the moment of awareness.
Ck: when i try to be just openly aware, i notice that i jump from
sense to sense
Ck: like one moment hearing, then touch, etc
Thusness: that is okie.
Thusness: our nature is so.
Ck: wots the rite way to do it
Thusness: don't think that u should concentrate.
Thusness: ur only duty is to sense with as much clarity as
possible.
Ck: and for all the sensations, i dun dwell in the 'what'?
Thusness: ur mind is looking for a way, a method
Thusness: but what that is needed is only the clarity.
Thusness: however because our mind is so molded and affect by our
habitual propensities, it becomes difficult what that is direct and
simple.
Thusness: just stop asking 'how', 'what', 'why'.
Thusness: and submerge into the moment.
Thusness: and experience.
Thusness: i prefer u to describe.
Thusness: not to ask how, what, why, when, where and who.
Thusness: only this is necessary.
Ck: ok
Thusness: if u practice immediately, u will understand.
Thusness: if u entertain who, what, where, when and how, u create
more propensities and dull ur own luminosity.
Ck: i shuffle btw self inquiry, observing sensations n thots, being
aware... its ok rite
Thusness: yes
Ck: means start work i'll hv even more propensities...
Thusness: that is when u do not understand what awareness, but it
is true to certain extend.
Partipant 1: If we don't note, does that mean
we just sit and let everything just be?
Me: And sense the luminous clarity in every
vivid arising. You have to be attentive and sort of zoom into the
minutest details of every single sensation. Visual sensation,
Auditory sensation, Nasal sensation, Taste sensation, Tactile
sensation, Mental sensation.
Participant 1: What is luminous clarity
exactly?
Me: Pause all thoughts and look at your palm.
Don't think of a background, an observer, a self. Just what you see
in direct experience. Isn't the shapes, colours, so vivid, so real,
so clear? That is luminous clarity.
Participant 1: Hmmm...
Me: Don't 'Hmmm', just the obvious sensate
reality shining fully in its immediacy!
Participant 1: I was looking. But it's nothing
special. You said it like I can evoke wonder and awe in me just by
looking. I was looking at it... then?
Me: It's not special when you look at the world
through the 'lens' of an 'I'. There is still this deep clinging to
an identity, a sense of self, that which separates 'I' from what I
see. That must be dropped. What happens is apperception: you no
longer feel like 'I' look at the world through my eyes, 'I' hear
the world through my ears. Instead, poetically speaking, it is just
sights seeing itself, sound hearing itself, there isn't an 'I' at
the center separate from the vivid arising and perceiving them.
When this 'I' is seen through and dropped, the vivid, luminous,
alive quality of the sensate universe is revealed... when 'I' go
into abeyance, it is as if everything 'stands out' bursting forth
in brilliant aliveness, total intimacy and absence of
separation.
Participant 1: But how do I practice this
"technique"? To be able to sense luminous clarity, you have to
remove the concept of a self through direct experience, but you
speak as if I could do it now.
Me: There are two ways you can give rise to the
insight of Anatta. One is like what Thusness said to Truthz: this
is one type of gradual path. In that practice you basically have to
pay attention to every felt sensation, feeling, perception, until
apperception arises (where it is no longer 'I' seeing, but
perception sees itself). A direct way of contemplating Anatta is
like Bahiya Sutta style contemplation (http://awakeningtoreality.blogspot.com/2010/10/my-commentary-on-bahiya-sutta.html).
Or contemplating on Ven Buddhaghosa verses on Anatta (http://awakeningtoreality.blogspot.com/2008/05/no-self-no-doer-conditionality.html),
or the two stanzas of Anatta by Thusness (http://awakeningtoreality.blogspot.com/2009/03/on-anatta-emptiness-and-spontaneous.html)
Participant 1: What is the difference between
Thusness's method of Vipassana and Mahasi Sayadaw's method of
Vipassana? Both involves noting and observing sensations.
Me: No. Thusness's method does not involve
noting. Noting is like labeling, noting things that arise. It is
like within a cycle, how many sensations you can note, within 1
second, you note 'thinking, sound, taste, bird chirping, anger,
gone, heart-beat, sound'... note every single arising as fast as
possible, but through the noting you missed the immediate
luminosity. Wheareas, Thusness's way is to deeply sense and
penetrate into the minutest details of every point of luminous
clarity.
Participant 1: So you stop labelling things and
just observe?
Me: In Thusness's Vipassana method, yes. Just
fully sense the minutest detail of this breath, the sensation of
your feet, the cool breeze carressing your skin, the colours and
shapes of your room. Everything sort of stands out in a pristine
clarity you never noticed before. You might also experience details
of the things you are seeing that you have missed out before. It
can become very blissful.
Participant 1: What about the more direct ways
like contemplation of Bahiya Sutta? In a way, I already know the
intellectual "answer". What is there to ponder? Isn't following a
train of thought in meditation discouraged?
Me: This is not just about an intellectual
agreement. The contemplation is about finding out what 'in seeing
just the seen', 'no hearer only hearing', etc actually mean or how
it applies to direct experience. You have to experientially
deconstruct the perception of an agent, perceiver, by contemplating
those verses, then you realize that perception/sensation/sight
itself is the seeing - there is no other seer. The seeing/seen
happens of itself, all are self-luminous activities happening on
their own accord. And there is, in seeing, only the seen, the
self-luminous activity. I do not want to overcomplicate this and it
appears I have been repeating myself... but you will come to see
what this all is in direct experience.
Participant 2 joins in the
conversation.
Participant 2: I had an experience once years
ago. I didn't do any thing special that day or imbibe any drink
that would make me different. I was sitting by the river, and I
sensed everything sort of like acutely, and I can identify with the
blissful bit. It happened just that once, but I could never get
back that same bliss, even at the same spot by the river.
Me: Good. Is there a sense that you are no
longer an 'I' here looking out through the eyes at the world out
there, but now the scenery sees itself without any distance?
Participant 2: It seems like the sense of self
is still there.
Me: What you experienced is the intensity of
luminosity, but it has not gotten to the point where the construct
and sense of self go into abeyance and apperception takes place -
apperception meaning that sensate consciousness becomes aware of
itself without being sullied by a sense of an external perceiver.
But keep practicing and you will experience NDNCDIMOP (non-dual,
non-conceptual, direct, immediate mode of perception) or PCE (pure
consciousness experience).
Participant 1: I thought you said that
(NDNCDIMOP/PCE) wasn't possible without having realized no-self
directly?
Me: Not true. You can have temporary PCEs or
NDNCDIMOP through mindfulness practice, or through a spontaneous
event (the Actualism 'founder' Richard in fact goes to say that
everybody has had such events occur to them in their lives, mostly
in childhood, though not all can remember them). However, having a
temporary NDNCDIMOP/PCE does not imply arising the insight into
Anatta.
For example: You may have an experience of the sense of 'I'
going temporarily into abeyance and apperception takes place, which
is that mind consciousness, or sensate consciousness becomes aware
of itself, and occurs by itself, without a thinker or
perceiver.
However the insight of Anatta is different: it is the
realization that 'in seeing always just the seen', 'in hearing
always just the heard' - always already so! By nature so! Seeing IS
the seen. There can be no doubt about this. This is the realization
that results in a permanent shift of perception and isn't merely a
temporary experience of apperception/NDNCDIMOP/PCE.
Now it should be noted that there are two paths that lead to
realization of Anatta. The gradual path may develop and lengthen
the NDNCDIMOP/PCE until a point of utter stability, then the
realization follows/occurs. Whereas the direct path investigates
and arises the insight much earlier, while stability only comes
some time after the realization.
As an analogy, the gradual path is like polishing the mirror to
reveal the luminosity. While the direct path aims for direct
realization straight away.
Participant 2: At which stage will you know
that you are freed from samsara?
Me: When you clear all ten fetters (which
occurs progressively via the four stages to Arhantship), all
clinging ceases. In the Hinayana path, this is their ultimate aim.
Whereas for Mahayana practitioners, they aim further than that -
nothing short of the omniscience of Buddhahood.
Participant 2: If you have not cleared the 10
fetters, what happens?
Me: If you attain Sotapanna (stream entry)
enlightenment, your liberation from birth and death is assured to
occur at most in 7 lifetimes. If you attain Sakadagami (once
returner) enlightenment, your liberation from birth and death is
assured in at most 1 more life. If you attain Anagami (non
returner) enlightenment, your liberation is assured at most in 1
more life (if you do become reborn, you will attain birth in the
celestial plane of the 4th Jhana pure abode, and attain liberation
there - you will no longer return to the human realm). If you
attain Arhantship, your birth and death is ended.
In short, as long as you have even the initial realization of
Anatta and clears the first 3 fetters, you have attained Stream
Entry (Sotapanna), and your Nirvana is assured as you have already
entered into the irreversible conveyer belt (precisely the meaning
of 'stream entry') into the freedom from the cycle of samsara.
Participant 1: The assurance of a
pre-determined Nirvana is so attractive.
Me: It sure is, and I can assure you your
effort will be worth every bit.
