One topic of great interest to me is flow. Flow is that state where a person is totally involved in doing something, so much so that no ego, thought or anything extraneous to the ‘doing’ exists for that person. Runners experience it. Graphic artists experience it. Engineers and artists experience it. Anyone that is doing anything can experience it if the conditions are right. Recently I wrote an article about “Owning the Creative Flow State.”

Flow occurs by definition as we’re ‘doing’ something. Flow operates by pulling huge chunks of data from memory and meshing it together in a stream of action and creativity that is seamless to ourselves and others as we operate in a peak state of doing. The mind is operating in a super-state at it’s optimum efficiency.

As cool as it is… Is flow the purest experience available to us as human beings?

No! There is something much more rare, exciting, and purely awesome to experience.

First, I know you’re wondering what do I mean by the purest experience?

I mean one that is as natural as possible. A pure experience exists when you aren’t doing anything. You are only experiencing. A pure experience is one that hasn’t been tainted by ego, memory, tradition, culture, societal expectation, morals, religious beliefs, or superstitions. The purest experience we can know isn’t tainted by the past or the future. Time is irrelevant. Unfelt. The purest experience is realized in real-time as one is fully immersed in the mindful pureness of the present moment.

Is such a thing even possible? If you think about it for a little while you might recognize that a very small baby might have this state of mind for a short time after it’s born and to a degree over the first couple years of life.

All of our first experiences as infants were of this same, pure quality. We weren’t perceiving anything through the filters of memory or the intricate cognitive schema already in place in an older child or adult. Infants have direct, unadulterated, absolutely pure experience of everything in the world around them. It’s a blissful state of interacting with their environment from the standpoint of having no idea whether they are connected to, or separate from the environment surrounding them.

The good news is I’m not going to ask you to throw on some diapers and revert to childhood to experience what the infant can do by default. To reach this state as an adult will take some effort, but if you choose to pursue it you’ll find peace of mind, balance, and learn a little bit about the depth of your mind and what it’s capable of. Even better, if you dedicate yourself to it you may go on to explore many levels of experience that occur beyond this first level of pure and simple experience. There are many awesome states of mind that can be reached with practice.

I’m speaking about the states of mind Theravada Buddhists recognize as the “Jhanas”.

Jhanas are levels that occur during the simple meditation process of focusing on the breath as you breath in and out. If you can breath, you can meditate on the breath. It’s almost that simple – to begin anyway. There are 4 material Jhanas and 4 immaterial Jhanas. Each of them is the most amazing state you will ever experience, your life will take on new meaning as you enter, one by one these immensely blissful, life-changing states. These are also referred to as states of absorption. Jhanas are bizarre states in that your mind doesn’t function as it has up to this point in your life. These are pure states that are born of concentration on an object or subject, in this case the breath. They are absolutely the purest experience available to us during our lives.

Experiencing the first Jhana occurs as the result of focusing on the breath over a number of sessions. A session might last 15 minutes or 30 minutes. Up to you really. Some meditators like to make a show of how long they can sit in one place meditating for 3 hours, 5 or 10 hours. One need not meditate for more than 20-30 minutes or up to an hour if you’re comfortable enough.

The Jhana states can be elusive for a while. It may take you 5 sessions or 500 sessions, and realistically there are people that have meditated for 20 years and that have not entered Jhana. For myself, flying blind without a teacher or books I experienced the first Jhana in a couple months. It is not that difficult, and I’ll share some secrets about avoiding behaviors that push them away and show you how to attain Jhana quickly in future blog posts I have planned.

I’ll share with you my personal experience of entering the first Jhana below… which, coincidentally (or not) closely parallels a Christian’s ‘ecstatic’ experience. My mother explained to me what she felt the night she became a born-again Christian kneeling on the floor of our living room in front of the TV watching an evangelical pastor and you know what? What she described was VERY similar to what I’ve experienced in the first Jhana while meditating. Really, I believe only the path is different. That night changed her life. She attributed the state of mind she reached as being touched by the hand of God. You too may attribute it to god or something else – and that’s again up to you. It’s a physical, emotional and spiritual feeling that is overwhelming and short-circuits your rationality. It’s not logical or objective… it just is. The most amazing experience of your life, guaranteed.

Over the years I’ve entered the Jhanas many times and it’s no less awesome each time it occurs. I’ll try to relay the essence of it below…

Sitting on the floor of my bedroom, in a half-lotus position on the carpet I was watching the breath go in and out, trying to keep my mind (monkey-mind, beginners sometimes call it) focused on the very small point at the tip of my nose where I felt my breath enter and exit with each inhalation and exhalation. The body was calm, absolutely relaxed and without pain, itch or other discomfort. Being seated in this way felt solid and very relaxing. The mind was slowing down it’s barrage of thought and after 20 minutes thought ceased altogether and I was able to focus clearly on the barely perceptible feeling at the nose’s tip.

After being focused completely on the breath at the nose for eight in and out-breath cycles I noticed that my hands and feet felt light and tingly. Soon my chest felt it too. Then, after a couple more breaths I noticed that my breaths were not deep any more. They were shallow. Smooth. Not forced. They were becoming even lighter. My chest was moving only the slightest bit as my diaphragm appeared to either stop working or to have slowed down to about 5% of normal movement. My entire body tingled and a pin point of bright white light appeared in my mind. My eyes were closed and the room was dark, and yet this tiny light started to grow in radiance with each breath. I was very calm, very relaxed. The mind was free of thought. Not one thought existed in my mind. Soon the dot had grown to be a brilliant circle of the brightest light. I began to feel happy. This general sense of joy crept up and grew slowly in intensity. With it I felt a sense of release… This feeling of release also grew and was amazing in the power it had to free up every fragment of tension in my body and mind. I had no idea my mind was tense, until this release made it grow less and less tense. It was so amazing. Tension in my muscles and mind was ebbing away. As it did the bliss increased. The circle in my mind became larger and more bright during this process. It was as if the brilliant light in my mind was pure bliss… pure love… it was as if it was engulfing me. It seemed that it wouldn’t stop growing and increasing in power.

Just when I thought I couldn’t stand it to increase more – it increased more and took me to a new level of bliss, happiness… pure joy that I’ve never experienced ever in my life before. Though I don’t believe that god is available to me here on earth the experience was truly as if god was there wrapping me in bliss. To say anything less doesn’t make sense. Even so, it was a greater feeling than even that. It was so surreal that I began to wonder if my mind and body could stand it anymore. The first few times entering the first Jhana I was a bit tentative about it. But I kept letting go little by little of any concern and the feeling would increase. HOW could it increase more? I wondered. I’d do a mini-experiment and hold back from letting go and then let go just a little more. More bliss! It was phenomenal beyond words.

It was an amazing experience that I could never come close to explaining with just words. I hope my description convinces you to try it for yourself at some point though, as that’s the only way to understand what I mean when I say it’s the purest experience available to us here on earth. You’re pre-wired for them just like me and everyone else.

Oh, I need to clarify. This feeling of amazing bliss is what you experience just before you enter the amazing state of the first Jhana! You’re not even there yet at this point. This first experience is like the doorway to Jhana. It is the first pure experience that you’ll have on the path.

Oh, and this isn’t all there is… there are 8 levels of Jhana and a whole lot more absorption experiences that are different and not of the same type of bliss and ecstasy but that are equally or more phenomenal in their own way. Meditation provides a path into the mind where these states exist already for you and you and you. Everyone can find these states with the right practice. Physical practice, not religious.

Some of you might have preconceived negative ideas about doing a Buddhist meditation if you are Christian or of some other religious background. I mention it as Buddhist meditation because I read about it in a Buddhist book and heard about it from a Buddhist man.

Do you need to be Buddhist to practice this meditation – no, absolutely not. Can you still go forward through the levels of Jhana and not give one thought to becoming Buddhist? Yes, absolutely. Don’t get caught up in the idea that meditation need be a religious act. Watching the breath go in and out doesn’t need to be anything but a physical act.

In 1997 I started to meditate as a result of a couple things. My wife was Buddhist and her father took the time to explain meditation to me in the Theravada tradition. He was a general surgeon at a small hospital in the mid-West. He said he found meditation relaxing, and experienced an equanimity or a balance that helped him during surgery and in dealing with emotional patients and other stresses of the job. He gave me a book by William Hart called, The Art of Living. Vipassana Meditation as Taught by S.N. Goenka which layed out the process in far more detail than I needed. I read the book and pulled the bare essence from it. In other words, I pulled out the physical act of meditation from among the Buddhist vocabulary, beliefs, rules and laws.

I started sitting and focusing on the breath, not believing anything about Buddhism or any other ism. I didn’t purify myself first or in any way seek to abide by some Buddhist criteria for right thoughts, right speech, right action and right occupation. I just wasn’t concerned with any of that since what I knew about the Buddha was that he sat down and entered the Jhanas, and was enlightened. After enlightenment he told the people that they should not believe anything he said as the truth, but try it for themselves. One of the primary beliefs in Buddhism is to test things for yourself and, if true – adopt it. If not, throw it away as worthless for you.

I took that approach.

I hope I’ve piqued your interest about the Jhanas and other states of absorption and you choose to investigate further. If you want to begin meditation you can download a free meditation course I created in e-book format in PDF (Adobe Acrobat) format.

22-Day Meditation Course Info Page >

If you’re interested in learning more about my experience with meditation I have a page of audio and video downloads where I detail many of the experiences here at my Bio II page >

Best of Life!

Vern
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Flow is something that’s talked about by aspiring zenists, Feng Shui practicioners, archers, golfers, chess players and those addicted to computer games. In the flow state time passes without being noticed. Activity is effortless. You may not remember all the details of the state. There’s nothing interfering with your brain and the activity. Quite the opposite, you’re perfectly meshed with the activity. You ARE the activity.

Creative flow is when you’re developing something or creating something and it’s a time of very high productivity. You’re in an optimal state where you are accomplishing much more than you usually do per minute, and there’s no boredom or sense of “work” being done. It may be fun, or there may be no sense of fun at all – you’re just so focused that you ARE whatever you’re doing.

This state of optimum creative flow happens often for me as I’m writing, and I’m glad it does. Over the past year I’ve written over a million words at my blogs and web sites, not to mention comments and questions at other blogs and through email. I’ve learned about the creative flow state just by needing to enter it on a daily basis. I’ll do my best to pull everything together that I’ve learned and share it with you here.

Last year I decided to blog full time. Before that I’d always just been happy to have the flow state visit me when it came. I thought I was just a lucky recipient of it. I didn’t think that I could initiate or control it. I played soccer for many years and on occasion I’d have flow occur during a game. It was as if I was two levels beyond everyone else. My passes were crisp and my timing impossibly perfect. This state usually visited me once per game for a few seconds, a minute… or, if I was extremely fortunate it would last most of the game.

I thought the creative flow state was just like that – when it came, it came. Now I know differently. Now I know how to OWN the creative flow state. It’s available when I want it to be. Or, more appropriately, when I need it to be. Gaining entry into the state when you need it is an almost god-like power. Imagine being able to choose when you enter the state and for how long.

Owning the creative flow state is not as hard as you might think. Like anything, there are antecedents that, once in place help foster the development and then prolong this awesome experience.

How to OWN the creative flow state?

1. Go to your Cave. You, like everyone else that needs to create have a preferred place to work where you can control the environmental conditions like air, noise, chair, table height, space around you, and the rest of it. Only you know what you need in your cave to make you happy and productive. If you’ll be there for hours you will want to arrange sustenance to keep the energy flowing. For me, pretzel rods, the Bull, cashews or pistachios (no red dye) canned coffee and a big water bottle does it. My cave has a toilet, air conditioning, fan, stereo and a place on the floor with a thin mattress and pillows in case I need to get cozy with my notebook on the floor for a change of position and perspective.

Ensure you have your creative instruments in supply and close at hand, exactly where they should be. If I’ve got a project that doesn’t require the notebook (rare) I need those thin lined markers (blue, black and red) and a ream of blank white paper so I can draw sketches, write symbols, text or whatever else – color coded in a way that only I could figure out.

Ambiance. Depending on what you’re doing you’ll want to choose the right music. Eighty percent of the time I’m in the cave creating I like to have something on. Other times I want absolute silence as I’m working on a very detailed idea which demands silence.

Ensure everything is exactly as you like it. The purpose of this is reducing the extraneous fook that can pull you out of the state and into mediocrity. All it takes is one stray thought to germinate in your mind about not having the ruler where you thought it was and all hell could break loose as you systematically fly through every drawer, closet, pocket and puppet to find it. Nothing destroys creative flow faster than thoughts about why something isn’t the way it should be.

Use the restroom before you begin. Take a mental inventory. Anything else that isn’t quite right? Fix it before you sit down. Usually this is when I crank up some Prodigy, English Beat, Beastie Boys, Pixies or Chili Peppers to rev me up. I need to be in a special state of mind to get the creative juices flowing. Nothing less than euphoria works best for me. Upbeat songs rattling the walls works best, but I can be considerate and use headphones when it’s in the interest of social harmony.

2. Inform others that for x hours you won’t be available. That means people in other rooms of the cave. That means turning your phone ringer off. SMS beeps off. Flash phone messages off. Browser messages off. Instant messengers off. Email notifications off. Close your blinds if you’re in an office. Kick the dog out.

3. Label a motive for starting this creative project. It might be very clear, like – if you don’t finish this 50 page paper by the morning you’ll fail Psychoanalytic Theory 6020 and need to repeat the class. Notice how you spontaneously enter the flow when you absolutely MUST get something done and you’re completely out of time and excuses?

A strong motivation is the number one factor for inviting a creative flow session. In college that student mentioned above was me. I left projects to the last minute and then completed them with amazing efficiency and quality. I did my best work that way, so why change the equation? Now it’s a little different as every night is a mental deadline for some blog article to be written. I enter the creative flow state daily for hours, banging out articles out like popcorn thrown in a cub scout fire.

If your motivation isn’t so clear, make it crystal clear so you know exactly why you need to create a masterpiece over the next few hours. I keep defining the why until I feel very confident about the need for the project. I like to picture little things that will come later as I blog toward greatness: Dinner with Lance Armstrong or maybe a playful wrestling match with my favorite Charlie’s Angel.

4. Brainstorming. I brainstorm first – scribbling fragments of ideas all over some blank A4 sheets, I’m chicken-scratching what appears to be gibberish to the rest of mankind, and honestly I can barely read it myself – but, it’s part of the process. If I slow down to write it nicely then I lose the speed at which things pour out of my head. Sometimes i use the computer to write as I can type faster than I can write with a pen – but sometimes the strict format of text on a screen is too limiting and I need to see it on paper, diagonally, curving around the edges, in different sizes, shapes and colors.

5. Planning. Plan the chapters of your project or the general outline of what you want to create by choosing from the bits and pieces you just brainstormed. It is a masterpiece and you’ll know after looking through what you’ve written if it’s comparable to Ludwig Van’s glorious 9th or not. You may need to brainstorm some more. Brainstorming might take 10-30 minutes. Planning might take another 10 minutes. Usually I’m so excited by the time I have half an outline together that I need to either force myself to slow down and finish the complete plan – or, run with it immediately and finish the plan as I go. Sometimes I’m so tweaked about getting started and seeing it come to life that I don’t finish the planning. But, that’s just me.

Usually I don’t catch myself realizing that I’m in the creative flow state for hours after it begins. At some point inevitably I’ll need to use the restroom or drink a coffee and I’ll notice that a chunk of time passed. When I wrote my first book I wrote over 10,000 words at one sitting. Time just flies when you’re focused!

For me, the first session is basically a huge right-hemisphere memory dump from my brain in “Vern-logic” digital format. I spill everything at once almost like a brainstorm but I’m fleshing out details in the general ideas, usually corresponding to paragraphs that will form in the project later. I type like a fiend until my wrists, fingers, elbows and neck hurt.

The first spill is never a completed masterpiece. The left hemisphere needs to make Vern-logic mesh logically with a critical mass of readers that will be reading it. Word substitution, spell checks, graphics and page formatting takes place next.

I’m never in a creative flow during any editing process. It’s something that doesn’t come natural to me. Dumping it all is easy, it’s just like breathing. Editing it is seriously difficult work that I wish I could call on a flow process to help with. Anyone have a remedy? Outsourcing, yeah, I know… I know…

Owning and extending the optimal creative flow state is an amazing skill to put in your bag of productivity tricks. It’s simple really, requiring nothing more than an optimal environment, confidence in your skills, and a really strong and lucid purpose and motivation for tackling the project.

When you own the flow, you’ve got it all and a bag of chips.

Best of Life!

Vern
If you’re living in Hawaii the flow state seems to come just a little bit easier… ;)

Flow while exercising:

Flow, pseudo-flow, and mind-tweaking during exercise >