Looking at these different methods, there is a commonality between them that we can extract to construct a ‘pure’ Nembutsu based version. One thing is that they all involve an awareness of the problem, obviously. You need to know, by observation, the unhealed parts of the mind, what keeps rising into consciousness. To put it in New Age parlance, what knots are stored in your light? CLEAR YOUR LIGHT. As a minimum, there is a period of mindfulness and making a ‘mental tally’ of the repeating themes, or this can be more formal, as constructing a written log, which can later lead into a journal practice. I think this latter thing is a much better way to do it because of the objectivity of writing things down, giving a ‘concreteness’ to the ghostly imaginings of the mind can mean the light of reason shining away a few cobwebs. Also, over time it makes incremental progress more obvious, which is motivating.
However you do it, the essence of the question is, ‘What do I need to keep feeling?’. Yes, the mind is constantly creating (unreigned) all these thoughts, mental pictures, memories, speculation, but they are coming from a state and that will indicate the theme. To give myself as an example, when I realised the need to make this a formal practice, my thought log had an overarching theme of bitterness and resentment. This was about my schooldays and youth and various abuses, which is really something, because I’m pretty old now and this was still occupying my consciousness too much, even as my first thought on waking. I had good control and discipline in my mind and could always flip my mood. On waking, I could straight away observe some resentful state and bad memory and flip it pretty quickly, even to joy, but the problem is that it is there, underlying, especially as a first thought on regaining consciousness from sleep — which is often a more underlying state that you are bringing into this realm from another.
Then, the emotion and the ‘mental objects’ are delinked. What I mean is, when these mental pictures or phenomena occurs, it occurs from a state, a certain feeling, what you need to feel, what keeps rising. So in my case it was resentment and bitterness, and a swath of repeating memories would then be a kind of fuel that kept that emotional fire burning.
Now it’s necessary to be mindful that the state is ‘free’, it causes the mental pictures, perhaps the memories and experiences have somehow energetically ‘binded’ into our own energy somehow, I don’t know. The thing is, that same basic state is almost like a consciousness that does what it can to exist. So it doesn’t just bring up these past memories which keep its fire alive, but it controls focus and attention for the same purpose.
The state is linked to an ego, a sense of identity, These things didn’t’ happen to someone else, they happened to me, and are a part of who I am (or so it seems in my consciousness), and so I have this story about why the state is there. I feel like this because of that. So in this story, part of the resentment is towards the government/state. I don’t want to get deeply into my personal story because this isn’t what this is about, and you never want to get into your own personal story either. The fact is that it’s all illusion and when you spend a long time looking at mental events to ‘understand yourself’ rather than ‘extinguish and liberate your ‘self’, then you are strengthening identity and so suffering (and IDENTITY IS THE ENEMY, although you’ll hopefully see that over time).
So the state of resentment keeps existing, and there’s a story that links it to my birth countries’ government (and culture). I live abroad now but with minimal contact, but sometimes something in social media or in the news or someone I meet ‘triggers’ ‘me’ (this state gets to live in consciousness again). In this sense, the state can be triggered by things in the world and things in the mind, inner and outer senses. Now think, if this is the case, then the answer cannot be to stop ‘contact’ i.e. to not see things that cause the state, perhaps I could try it in the mind, I simply refuse to allow any triggering thought to enter or be entertained in my mind, but for this avoiding policy to work, I need to avoid all triggers in the world also. So deleting social media would cut 90%, but remember, each time a state is triggered, it can be firing in consciousness for days, so the only way for this to be truly effective would be to withdraw from the world and live in a monastery. Even if that did work, you’d need to stay there for the whole of your life.
Clearly, the only solution is for the triggers, within and without, to be delinked from the state. All the methods of healing involve deliberately creating the triggers and holding them, but with a different emotion. For example, with therapy, you recall the memories or triggers, and talk about them with the therapist, and if the therapist is any good, they will make you think about them in a different way, or to put it more accurately, to FEEL ABOUT THEM IN A DIFFERENT WAY. Usually, they keep on coming into consciousness spontaneously, from a negative state/emotion which they then perpetuate, by moving and flickering in and out of consciousness and changing and morphing and moving — but with a therapist, they are slowing down and being held in consciousness longer and considered in the light of different feelings and emotions.
With tapping therapy, there is the resolve/intention to heal the stated objective, then the ‘mental object’ which would usually be fleeting and changing and wispy, is held in consciousness for a longer period AS A STATIC IMAGE, like a freeze frame of something that would generally be moving. Then, after a tapping session, you CHECK THE INTENSITY OF THE FEELING to see if it’s gone or not, and if it hasn’t, if the emotion is still there, then you rinse and repeat, i.e. hold the static picture WITHOUT THE EMOTION for longer, while tapping. Now perhaps the tapping does work on an energetic level somewhat, or not, I don’t know. But the process of tapping does two things: one, it means you are holding the static image that needs healing, for an extended period of time (without emotion) and also stating the intent, for it to be healed.
If all healing methods are essentially the same process then a ‘pure’ form of healing could simply do this directly. The core process behind all healing methods seems to be:
1 – Identify painful images that keep spontaneously arising (i.e. mental pictures that arise with negative emotion).
2 – Deliberately recall and hold the images steady in the mind with a contrary emotion.
Now each individual ‘flavour’ of healing has a different bit of dross, therapy = talking, EFT = tapping etc. yet they clearly aren’t necessary of they would all be the same, talking wouldn’t work without tapping. The only thing that matters is the two steps above, and they can be practiced directly. The actual healing process is the same as physical healing, it is an unconscious part of your mind that does this. I remember once I sliced my finger open halving a lemon. It was an ultrasharp knife and there was blood everywhere. I went to the pharmacy leaving a trail of blood behind me as I went and when I went there they were horrified and refused to sell me a bandaged but bundled me into a taxi and sent me to the hospital.
Now I sit here and look at my thumb and I can’t even tell which side that was on; it’s completely invisible. The point is, I did the best I could to create the conditions for healing, kept the wound clean, used some cream and whatever, but it worked itself out with some process that doesn’t involve me directly thinking or doing anything.
The body can right itself when left alone in the correct conditions, and the mind also, whether we are talking about healing or awakening. It makes me consider the Buddhist path of meditation and awakening; there is the concept of ‘self power’ and ‘other power’. You hold the mind steady with the correct conditions and the intention to become ultimately awakened, so the mind is calm with no greed or grasping or whatever and you wait, essentially, just like with physical healing. It’s similar to trying to remember where you misplaced something. You think and think of places the missing items could be but ultimately you let the thinking go with the thought ‘it will come back to me’, and it does — it pops into your head later.
Nembutsu means to ‘recollect the Buddha’ i.e. to hold a mental picture of the Buddha steady over time with the understanding that it is a symbol of your own awakening. This practice is created by ‘self power’ and you then essentially wait for Nirvanah to unfold, the answer comes from ‘other power’. It’s like wrapping my thumb in a bandage and that’s all I gotta do!
So a pure method of healing essentially works the same way. Once you identify the images that keep rising with pain, rather than let these images come, moving like videoclips against a background of suffering, you freezeframe, turn up a different emotion, wait and let go. That is it – it’s all you gotta do.
To repeat myself a little…
To me, it is like tapping and similar methods, are using ‘other power’ to heal. What I mean is, with therapy, a therapist is teaching someone to link different emotions to repeating unhealed pictures. With tapping, you are kind of ‘handing it over’ to the energy. You are holding the static image with intent. Like trying to remember where you misplaced something, you can do go so far by recalling and intending to remember, but ultimately it is a process of letting go to a higher part of the mind, ‘other power’ a primordial (awakened) self. It is a type of Nembutsu (holding a single image of intention steadily in the mind).
Healing is ultimately three things, an intention, a commitment and a surrender (the wish and the answer). There is so much that self power can do and there is the rest for ‘other power’. I know, because I made a log of my mind as an old man and memories of my school days were predominant. This was after a lifetime dedicated to healing, meditation, healing and the whole shebang.
Nirvanah is the nectar that calms all thirsts. Ultimately, Nembutsu means to ask and surrender towards your whole awakening, and every obstacle will be cleared. But to include the specific needed healing can itself become a replacement thought and a part of the ongoing mindfulness practice, because the commitment part of healing means the undertaking to discipline the mind, and simply decide to never allow this unhealed thought to exist unchecked.