My Dear Daughter,
Today, I want to jot down a few reflections on my practice over the past few months. As always, the focus remains on the matter of entering samādhi and the method of practice itself.
First, I’d like to further clarify what this method of practice is—so as to avoid the common misunderstanding: “Doing mental arithmetic is too hard!” In my earlier article, Scientific Meditation dated 03/08/2019, I explained in detail the goal of this method, which is to reach samādhi by eliminating the monkey mind from the conscious surface of Freud’s iceberg model of the mind. To achieve that, we apply psychological knowledge on Cognitive Load Theory and Attention to overload the Working Memory (WM) until it becomes stuck, freezes, and collapses. And that is when samādhi occurs. That’s all there is to it.
Whether you do math (addition, subtraction, multiplication, division) or not (for example, simply arranging letters and numbers together) is not the key issue in determining whether it’s hard or easy. What truly matters is how skillfully you apply the elements needed to overload the WM in order to reach samādhi.
Based on the insights I’ve drawn over the past three months of practice, I’ve come to further appreciate the simplicity of the approach. I find that applying just the following principles is enough to push WM to the threshold of overload:
(1) The number of calculation steps and the interdependency between them (this falls under Intrinsic Load);
(2) The mixture of different types of characters and numbers (this relates to Extraneous Load); and
(3) The use of colors applied to letters and numbers (this contributes to Germane Load).
Points (1) and (2) place heavy demand on WM, while point (3) creates additional cognitive confusion for WM.
1. Practice Example 1
In the illustration beside this text, I drew a mix of letters, Roman numerals, and Latin digits, using various fonts and colors. At first glance, it might seem intimidating—but in reality, I’ve used this same chart for over a month (perhaps even longer) without ever feeling bored. In other words, I haven’t run into the psychological Law of Adaptation (Learned Effect) that usually leads to monotony. Each practice session, I only need to use a few elements from the chart.
For instance, I might pick the yellow letter Z in the top-left corner, the multi-colored Roman numeral VIII in the third row from the top, the purple number 9 at the start of the sixth row, and the letter Y in the third row from the bottom. With just these four symbols, I can begin my session with my eyes closed.
+ First, I try to visualize the yellow letter Z clearly in my mind—making sure to get its shape right (the top is short, the bottom is broad). Once the image is clear in front of me, I mentally transform it into the number 26 (since Z is the 26th letter of the alphabet). I then visualize a yellow 2, followed by a yellow 6.
+ Next, I visualize the Roman numeral VIII: V in reddish-purple, the first I in red, the second I in orange, and the third I in bright yellow. I can convert VIII into the number 8, and assign it a single color—say, the reddish-purple from V.
+ Then I begin to play using just these two symbols: 26 + 8 = 34. I place 34 above VIII. I color the 3 yellow (taken from 26) and the 4 red (from one of the colors in VIII).
+ Continuing: 2 (from 26) × 8 = 16, with the 1 in green and the 6 in blue. I stack this 16 on top of the Z. Then, 6 × 8 = 48, assign colors to those digits, and stack it above 34. At this point, I visualize all the numbers on both sides of the equals sign, arranged as follows:
48
16 34
Z VIII
+ By now, I’m mentally exhausted. Just trying to take one more step—like summing up the digits in each column—becomes impossible. The mind freezes, unable to recall the individual digits and their assigned colors. And that’s the moment when the silence of samādhi arises.
In the above example, I haven’t even used the number 9 or the letter Y yet. And of course, just with the pair Z and VIII, I could engage in countless variations beyond what’s shown here. For instance: V + 26 = 31, III + 26 = 31, V x 2 = 10, III x 6 = 18, and so on. Not to mention freely changing the color assignments for each digit, or converting between Latin and Roman numerals and vice versa. So, with just a single mixed-symbol chart like this, I can continue to practice endlessly—without ever feeling bored.
(End of Part 1/11)
