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Post by nobody on Dec 1, 2010 14:21:32 GMT -5
Okay, kind of embarrassing, but what the hell is meditation?
Is it silencing the mind?
Is it observing thought?
I study thought quite frequently, and no, it does not seem possible to completely silence the mind.
Is it observing the senses?
And lastly, is it useful in the context of waking up? Some say to meditate, some say meditation has no effect on waking up.
I could have looked online to figure it out, but the last thing I need is to get meditation tips from somebody who has not awakened.
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louij
Junior Member
Posts: 97
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Post by louij on Dec 1, 2010 19:16:29 GMT -5
Meditation is simple, it is a portal..... when we are so powered up in the world, by success and or failure, by any intellectual challenge, a broken marriage, a lost loved one, a being alone twenty four seven, meditation is a time we give to the self, stop the noise the outer input of thoughts, and allow the mind to become a friend. Your mind has a million distractions for you, your mask has just as many, the real quiet you, benefits from being still, quiet, listening, you will hear your own inner music, somewhat discordant at times, repeating a thought action like life isnt fair ...... just a simple example. Awakend that is a misnomer..... we are all awakened, some consciously some when we sleep some when we just let go of the control factors ... we have put in place. Our own disciplines keep us locked into the physical. Meditation is perhaps not the correct word, it is just a popular word at this time. Reflection is mayhap better for some of us, for you are doing meditation each twenty four seven, if not consciously in your dream time, map your dreams, you will be getting feedback from you to you. Go to the bookshop learn to trust yourself hold your hand palm towards the titles, you will start to feel an energetic pull to some books and others there will be no reaction.
Your intuitive inner you will pull what you need to read, hear, listen to exactly in concert with your soul.... so it is perhaps that you need to learn to listen to you, more than needing to have feedback from another teacher, we are all 7th man ouspensky at this time in incarnation, to what degree you have forgotten, is driven by your purpose this life span, for we each come with a purpose a gifting we all come here to love....... actually it is that simple the most powerful possible essence is to love........... Gently, be gentle with you, and others, create safe space.... move away from conflict and debate, make certain you are following your own inner dream.... head toward where you would .. absolutely revel in being, in full bliss.... that is meditation whilst totally awake and in action....... that is the true meditative state of being... in bliss. love evolve louij
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Post by zendancer on Dec 2, 2010 0:13:30 GMT -5
Okay, kind of embarrassing, but what the hell is meditation? Is it silencing the mind? Is it observing thought? I study thought quite frequently, and no, it does not seem possible to completely silence the mind. Is it observing the senses? And lastly, is it useful in the context of waking up? Some say to meditate, some say meditation has no effect on waking up. I could have looked online to figure it out, but the last thing I need is to get meditation tips from somebody who has not awakened. Nobody: Usually (there are exceptions) what we call "meditation" is some form of non-conceptual awareness. When we are watching the breath, following the breath, being the breath, watching thoughts appear and disappear, listening to sounds, looking at the world, feeling the body go through the motions of tai chi, twirling sufi-style, etc, we are being purely aware. In most of these practices, we ignore internal speech or thought so that we cease to "follow the mind." Someone has likened ordinary life to riding thought trains all day. A thought train appears, we jump on board, and ride for ten miles in a particular direction. Then, another thought train appears, and we hop on that one. Meditation is like staying in the train station and refusing to jump on a train. We simply watch them go by without being taken for a ride. There are other forms of meditation that involve visualization, repetition of mantras, etc. that occupy the mind in a particular way that de-rails the thought trains. I'm not too keen on these forms, but I have seen them work wonders with particular people, and many Tibetan Buddhists like to use these forms. My own attitude is, "Why give the mind anything else to do? It's already busier than it needs to be." LOL How silent can the mind become? For some people it can become extraordinarily silent, and thinking can occur rarely or only when necessary. Leonard Jacobsen, for example, has written, "People would be surprised at how little I think." Eckhart Tolle has written that after his big kensho experience, 80% of his thinking stopped. Before I started meditating I had read the Carlos Castenada books in which Castenada's Yaqui teacher told him to stop his internal dialogue. I remember wondering at that time if such a thing were even possible. Subsequently, I started meditating because I was under enormous stress caused by incessant "roof brain chatter." The mind had so totally run amok that it took a year or two of intense meditation before any empty spaces appeared in the dialogue. After five years, the spaces became significantly longer, and after ten years, thinking could stop at will. Today, I no longer try to control thinking in any way, but if I go for a hike in the woods, I might hike for an hour with virtually no thoughts appearing in the mind, or, the mind might spend half of that time thinking through technical abstract issues related to my work. Sometimes I may start on a hike looking forward to an hour of empty silence only to discover that God has other plans. LOL. AAR, the usual internal dialogue can be vastly reduced if that's what God wants to do. The whole thing is a big mystery, but I fully agree with Tolle's statement that, "If I were asked to name my biggest accomplishment, knowing that it isn't 'my' accomplishment at all, I would say it is the attainment of freedom from the compulsion of incessant thought." Jacobsen has said, "It's okay to go into the mind, but I wouldn't recommend staying there for more than two hours at a time." I often think (ha ha) about that statement on days when God makes me spend an inordinate amount of time thinking. After several hours of thought, I begin to feel vaguely sick, internally, and begin to crave silence as a way to reverse the effect. I love the mind, but I love silence even more. As for meditation and its contribution to awakening, most spiritual teachers that I have met have spent a fair amount of time being non-conceptually aware. It is a primary practice in Zen and Tibetan Buddhism as well as in the contemplative traditions of Christianity, Hinduism, Judaism, and Sufism. Many Advaita teachers are contemptuous of meditation (for various reasons, both legitimate and illegitimate), but Nisargadatta and Ramana Maharshi spent lots of time in states of silent absorption, and Ramana eventually told students to meditate in a traditional way if they couldn't pursue his primary "Who am I?" koan, which is a different form of meditation. Hope that helped answer your questions. ZD
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Post by zendancer on Dec 2, 2010 12:11:38 GMT -5
Nobody: In Zen the primary form of meditation is called "shikan taza," and it is usually too difficult for beginners (beginners are given something simpler like breath counting). Shikan taza is pure awareness without any focus. Imagine that you are alone in a jungle, at night, surrounded by potentially dangerous animals. If you were in that situation, you would become perfectly still and highly alert. All of your senses would be cranked up to maximum receptivity and all thought would cease. Your breathing would slow down and become diaphragmatic because chest breathing is too noisy (your body would do this automatically because it is part of the fight or flight syndrome). You would almost be holding your breath. Notice that even imagining this situation has already changed your breathing! Imagining this gives you a brief sense of what shikan taza is like. Zen folks often sit in this alert empty state for hours.
After thoughts have totally ceased for a certain period of time, samadhi often sets in. It is usually preceded by what is called "the off sensation"--a skin surface numbness that spreads from the hands, up the arms, over the shoulders, up the neck, and eventually to the entire head. It feels as if the body has frozen into a solid block of ice, and a sensation of coolness is associated with it. As one descends into samadhi, selfhood disappears, and unity consciousness occurs. There is no observer in this state, but there is crystal clear awareness without content. This form of samadhi is called "absolute samadhi" and it is also called "the dropping off of body and mind." The body/mind, though highly alert, is incredibly relaxed, and many kinks in the subconscious may unravel as a result. This is why several writers have noted that sustained periods of silent presence often lead to the release of childhood traumas stored in the mind. Samadhi is not something that one can "cause" to happen in any usual sense; it is something that happens of its own and seems to come out of nowhere. It begins mysteriously, lasts for an unknown length of time, and then dissipates mysteriously. Long-time meditators often stay in this state for hours at a time.
Zen has a koan about meditation and samadhi as it relates to enlightenment. It goes like this:
A certain meditator sat in deep samadhi for a trillion years, but did not become a Buddha (did not wake up). Why? (like all koans, this one has a simple answer, but it cannot be attained through the mind)
This koan points to the mysteriousness of reality and the fact that there is no individual self that is able to exert control over anything. Self-control is simply part of the overall illusion of selfhood.
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Post by m on Dec 2, 2010 13:53:31 GMT -5
Even not being even a begining meditator, I let a lot of blood on the path and I happened to go through lot of fancy "experiences", somes of them letting go" through the mirror"... and, unfortunaly, back in my ego-games. Even if i cannot but keep on trying to find a way, I doubt there is any. It looks to me as if it does'nt lead anywhere, but we still have to go for it, whatever the method or meditation... No belief anymore, no hope any more... just the longing and the getting back to work.. m
Sorry Nobody that is the tip of not-awakened guy... but good enough to be God :-)
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Post by enigma on Dec 2, 2010 16:04:38 GMT -5
Even not being even a begining meditator, I let a lot of blood on the path and I happened to go through lot of fancy "experiences", somes of them letting go" through the mirror"... and, unfortunaly, back in my ego-games. Even if i cannot but keep on trying to find a way, I doubt there is any. It looks to me as if it does'nt lead anywhere, but we still have to go for it, whatever the method or meditation... No belief anymore, no hope any more... just the longing and the getting back to work.. m Sorry Nobody that is the tip of not-awakened guy... but good enough to be God :-) Yes, the longing and the sense of futility is good. The determination to get somewhere, accomplish something, not so good, and that has to burn itself out. One drops to a more subtle level where all this activity of trying to progress horizontally slows or stops, and there is perhaps a vertical movement, a subtle deepening that takes place exactly where you are standing. This comes out of the realization that the path can't lead anywhere and that you're not actually trying to get somewhere, just to notice what is already the case; where you already are. This slowing of the movement looks to mind like stagnation, since mind measures it's progress by detecting change, and yet change doesn't bring about Truth. All change is already happening IN Truth. The accomplishment of some 'no-mind' meditative practice, or the attainment of a mind state, is what mind is looking for as an indicator that it is getting closer to Truth, and yet there has been no movement at all that brings mind closer to Truth, or can take it farther away, and so nobody is more advanced on their spiritual path than another. That's not to say everybody is at the same 'level' of ignorance, it just means that mind isn't getting somewhere like Dorothy on the yellow brick road, it's dissolving in place like the wicked Witch of the West. Hehe.
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Post by m on Dec 2, 2010 17:05:13 GMT -5
Enigma: your post is obvious to me. Nevertheless I appreciate. May be my english was incorrect. I never meant I wanted to get somewhere nor accomplish anything. The determination is a gift. And the move is a kind of horizontal & vertical danse. Communication on a forum is really a challenge. Specially on theses matters. Maybe instead of keeping low profile, I should, could, try to take the assertive-teaching posture. May be it could facilitate. m Even not being even a begining meditator, I let a lot of blood on the path and I happened to go through lot of fancy "experiences", somes of them letting go" through the mirror"... and, unfortunaly, back in my ego-games. Even if i cannot but keep on trying to find a way, I doubt there is any. It looks to me as if it does'nt lead anywhere, but we still have to go for it, whatever the method or meditation... No belief anymore, no hope any more... just the longing and the getting back to work.. m Sorry Nobody that is the tip of not-awakened guy... but good enough to be God :-) Yes, the longing and the sense of futility is good. The determination to get somewhere, accomplish something, not so good, and that has to burn itself out. One drops to a more subtle level where all this activity of trying to progress horizontally slows or stops, and there is perhaps a vertical movement, a subtle deepening that takes place exactly where you are standing. This comes out of the realization that the path can't lead anywhere and that you're not actually trying to get somewhere, just to notice what is already the case; where you already are. This slowing of the movement looks to mind like stagnation, since mind measures it's progress by detecting change, and yet change doesn't bring about Truth. All change is already happening IN Truth. The accomplishment of some 'no-mind' meditative practice, or the attainment of a mind state, is what mind is looking for as an indicator that it is getting closer to Truth, and yet there has been no movement at all that brings mind closer to Truth, or can take it farther away, and so nobody is more advanced on their spiritual path than another. That's not to say everybody is at the same 'level' of ignorance, it just means that mind isn't getting somewhere like Dorothy on the yellow brick road, it's dissolving in place like the wicked Witch of the West. Hehe.
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Post by enigma on Dec 2, 2010 21:07:54 GMT -5
Enigma: your post is obvious to me. Nevertheless I appreciate. May be my english was incorrect. I never meant I wanted to get somewhere nor accomplish anything. The determination is a gift. And the move is a kind of horizontal & vertical danse. Communication on a forum is really a challenge. Specially on theses matters. Maybe instead of keeping low profile, I should, could, try to take the assertive-teaching posture. May be it could facilitate. m I wasn't referring to or talking about you. You said sumthin and then i said sumthin. Blah, blah, yada, yada, pass the nachos. Don't make me into a teacher cause then you'll hafta kill me. Hehe.
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Post by zendancer on Dec 2, 2010 21:40:00 GMT -5
E. You wrote, ""Yes, the longing and the sense of futility is good. The determination to get somewhere, accomplish something, not so good, and that has to burn itself out. One drops to a more subtle level where all this activity of trying to progress horizontally slows or stops, and there is perhaps a vertical movement, a subtle deepening that takes place exactly where you are standing. This comes out of the realization that the path can't lead anywhere and that you're not actually trying to get somewhere, just to notice what is already the case; where you already are.
This slowing of the movement looks to mind like stagnation, since mind measures it's progress by detecting change, and yet change doesn't bring about Truth. All change is already happening IN Truth. The accomplishment of some 'no-mind' meditative practice, or the attainment of a mind state, is what mind is looking for as an indicator that it is getting closer to Truth, and yet there has been no movement at all that brings mind closer to Truth, or can take it farther away, and so nobody is more advanced on their spiritual path than another. That's not to say everybody is at the same 'level' of ignorance, it just means that mind isn't getting somewhere like Dorothy on the yellow brick road, it's dissolving in place like the wicked Witch of the West. Hehe."
That is an extraordinarily clear explanation that should be posted on the wall of all meditation halls and non-duality chatrooms! Yes, we work like dogs (meditating, fasting, trying to stay present, etc) to get where we think we want to go, but nothing works. Eventually, we come to a stop with a puzzled look on our face. Hmmmmmmmmm? No matter what I do, I never seem to get any closer to the goal. Why would that be? Hmmmmmmmm?
At some point, in the midst of our puzzlement, we stop and look around. Could it be this simple? Could what I'm looking for be here right now in this very spot, so close that I don't need to go anywhere or do anything? Hmmmmmmmmm. Could it even be simpler than that?
Anyone who gets to this spot is getting very close to the fire that will ultimately burn up the illusion of separateness.
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Post by klaus on Dec 2, 2010 21:51:04 GMT -5
zendancer,
So any movement is actually an illusion of movement since you're there before you start.
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Post by michaelsees on Dec 2, 2010 21:57:42 GMT -5
Klaus nothing real moves
Michael
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Post by zendancer on Dec 2, 2010 22:13:01 GMT -5
zendancer, So any movement is actually an illusion of movement since you're there before you start. Yes, but not "you." Ha ha. Only You.
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Post by enigma on Dec 2, 2010 22:39:24 GMT -5
E. You wrote, ""Yes, the longing and the sense of futility is good. The determination to get somewhere, accomplish something, not so good, and that has to burn itself out. One drops to a more subtle level where all this activity of trying to progress horizontally slows or stops, and there is perhaps a vertical movement, a subtle deepening that takes place exactly where you are standing. This comes out of the realization that the path can't lead anywhere and that you're not actually trying to get somewhere, just to notice what is already the case; where you already are. This slowing of the movement looks to mind like stagnation, since mind measures it's progress by detecting change, and yet change doesn't bring about Truth. All change is already happening IN Truth. The accomplishment of some 'no-mind' meditative practice, or the attainment of a mind state, is what mind is looking for as an indicator that it is getting closer to Truth, and yet there has been no movement at all that brings mind closer to Truth, or can take it farther away, and so nobody is more advanced on their spiritual path than another. That's not to say everybody is at the same 'level' of ignorance, it just means that mind isn't getting somewhere like Dorothy on the yellow brick road, it's dissolving in place like the wicked Witch of the West. Hehe." That is an extraordinarily clear explanation that should be posted on the wall of all meditation halls and non-duality chatrooms! Yes, we work like dogs (meditating, fasting, trying to stay present, etc) to get where we think we want to go, but nothing works. Eventually, we come to a stop with a puzzled look on our face. Hmmmmmmmmm? No matter what I do, I never seem to get any closer to the goal. Why would that be? Hmmmmmmmm? At some point, in the midst of our puzzlement, we stop and look around. Could it be this simple? Could what I'm looking for be here right now in this very spot, so close that I don't need to go anywhere or do anything? Hmmmmmmmmm. Could it even be simpler than that? Anyone who gets to this spot is getting very close to the fire that will ultimately burn up the illusion of separateness. Zakly, and I see that a certain amount of this moving along the path has to happen before it becomes clear that one isn't moving, but it also seems that this may never be realized because we set traps for ourselves along the way. The spiritual experiences feed the horizontal movement, which in turn feeds the spiritual ego, which then seeks more movement. I may have mentioned before, I had one guy tell me had been meditating for 25 years and can tell me without a doubt that it DOES work. I said, what it seems to have accomplished is keeping you meditating for 25 years instead of waking you up, which could have happened 25 years ago in a split second almost as easily as it could now if not for your attachment to the meditator. I also notice many Tolle followers who develop a habit of meditating to be present as a way of dealing with life's stresses, which doesn't threaten the ego and seems likely to delay a potential awakening by limiting the suffering.
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Post by klaus on Dec 2, 2010 23:01:49 GMT -5
michael,
That was my point.
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Post by zendancer on Dec 2, 2010 23:10:41 GMT -5
Yep. Hard-core meditators are a trip! I remember a guy, who had been meditating more than twenty years, telling some of us at a retreat center that he was going to spend a week in a cave above the retreat center and was going to fast the entire time. Why did he tell us this? Because it was a huge ego trip. He was saying, "Look at me. I am going to deny myself and do this difficult hardcore thing. Isn't that awesome?"
At another time I heard a guy give a thirty-minute dharma talk about the "correct" way to hold one's thumbs in the cosmic mudra position while meditating. The thumbtips should "barely touch," and it was most important that the fingers of both hands overlap under the thumbs rather than interlock. There was hushed reverence as he delivered this critically important information. I'm so glad I was there that day; otherwise I might have done something wrong and missed my chance to get into heaven.
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