Mental quietness and sleep

The concept of “returning to the breath” or “returning to a mentally neutral place”, is something that we can practice while we are awake, but it does not help us much when we are sleeping.

I am not an expert in neuroscience, but I am sure there are studies that show what happens when we are in sleep mode vs. our awake alert mode.

On the other hand, I personally have developed methods that work for me, and, being a true follower of William James, methods that work for us, is number 1 on my list of priorities when considering how my daily practice is functioning.

We need to see clearly what those processes are, so that we can find ways to “turn their control over us, to the off position”.

Here are the lines of thought that influence my reasoning about the processes that are in play when a person is sleeping.

Body/Mind
When I discovered the concept of body/mind, with them being two parts of one “entity”, it changed my worldview substantially.
My zazen practice had, i sense, revealed to me that our whole world of experience is a mixture of the world of the 5 senses and those control systems, and an inner world where time and space doesn’t matter.

Xin Xin Ming (Sheen Sheen Ming)
The 6th century Chan/Dao master Seng Can, has this chant attributed to him. This chant, contains many of the clues to how the mind works, and how we can use it to see reality clearly. This has impacted me regarding understanding the REAL ways that I visualize, and interact with the world around me.

Gary Weber
Gary Weber’s views on how the mind works, and his deep dive into neuroscience, helped me to put together many of the various streams of thought regarding mental fixations and how to unwind them. These mental fixations are the things that are brought up by our just-waking mind, to explain why our body feels the way it does.

Deep Nature vs “Spirit”
My practice has also brought me to a place where the concepts of “mind, body, and spirit”, joined as one natural process, in the total experiencing of this physical / deep nature world we live in, was a major breakthrough for me. Unfortunately, this is an area where many folks of different belief systems find it difficult to accept things that don’t readily fit into their belief system, but I have found that this does not present an issue for me. I find it to be a matter of interpretation based on a persons worldview, rather than a blockade to practising something that works.

So …. those things being said, here is what I use to quietly fall back asleep, while others get tangled up in anxiety and other things like night dread.

For myself, I have found that the “armed soldier at the gate” or the “I”, falls asleep with us when we fall asleep (it actually makes me wonder if this “I”, is simply a construct that we humans develop to deal with the physical world).
When the “I” falls asleep, the automatic functions of the brain continue.

“The “automatic parts of the mind”, refer to mental processes that occur without conscious awareness or effort, often related to basic bodily functions like breathing, heart rate, digestion, and ingrained habits, essentially functioning on autopilot and controlled by the subconscious and autonomic nervous system; examples include reflexes, initial reactions to stimuli, and well-learned skills performed without thinking.”

My experience is, that these processes, especially those of the gut, control the feelings of our body.
When these functions wake us up due to a sense of discomfort or anxiety, the mind immediately begins to come up with reasons for why we are feeling the way we do. This misunderstanding of what is happening, then begins to spin our mind. (See Default Mode Network). and we begin to worry about those life circumstance things: money issues, work troubles, disagreements with spouses, family troubles, etc.

Knowing that in fact, those life circumstances are not responsible for what are essentially gut issues, is the first step in having those worries fall off and then falling back into a quiet sleep.

The second part of my developed process is a little “mantra”, or saying, that I repeat to myself when those gut processes wake me up.
This little mantra is again related, to my worldview that the body/mind is exactly as it was meant to be. Thus, everything is just as it should be.

“Everything is perfect, just relax”.
“Everything is perfect, just relax”
“Everything is perfect, just relax”
I am relaxed and back to sleep almost every time.

(This is not the only little saying, that I have used successfully in my life)

When we know that everything is perfect in the physical universe, just as the Creator made it, and that the only problem we experience is due to the human mind misunderstanding things, the body/mind can relax and go back to sleep mode.

There may be things that are disturbing us deeply, and resurfacing as disturbances, and I have dealt with those things very successfully using Self-Inquiry practices.