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Post by mamza on Apr 12, 2011 23:02:26 GMT -5
This is advice for me. Me-me and you-me.
A little earlier the inclination to stare at the wall arose, and so it was done. The whole world started undulating and breathing, and that was super cool, right? Then suddenly I think, 'pffffff, I'm going to do something else now, this is just silly eye-candy.' (not literally, but I might as well have)
Then video games to nerd the evening up. And suddenly that spark of interest pops up again--let's go make the walls breathe! This now seems to be a game of 'search for the truth.' The game initiates, funky things happen, and we (I) call it a day. Do something else. Play again! Do something else. Play again-again!
Suddenly I get what ZM Seung Sahn means when he says 'only go straight.' If you even take the slightest detour, the games start right back up. So, again, my advice to myself: stop stopping.
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Post by enigma on Apr 13, 2011 1:47:25 GMT -5
So is the wall undulating practice straight ahead or is that one of the detours?
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Post by charliegee on Apr 13, 2011 2:12:30 GMT -5
oh stop ...
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Post by mamza on Apr 13, 2011 10:43:15 GMT -5
It's only a detour when it becomes the main focus. I think, anyway.. seems like a side-effect to me. I just stare and listen and after a while come distracting colors and such.
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Post by dreamerrach on Apr 13, 2011 12:27:34 GMT -5
Detours.. Such funny things. What makes you think that is not precisely where you should have gone in the first place?
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Post by mamza on Apr 13, 2011 12:46:06 GMT -5
I'm not saying it's someplace I shouldn't go, but it's a place that's very easy to try to get to. I like weird, flashy things, and there's nothing better than a mind-state I can get to to have some fun with. The issue is that I'm not looking for mind-states.
It was necessary for that to happen to notice that it's just another mind game. If that wasn't noticed, there's a chance I could think, "Well, hey, that was wild and crazy, that must be it!" At this point it can either be breezed past or enjoyed for what it is.
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Post by zendancer on Apr 13, 2011 13:22:02 GMT -5
This is advice for me. Me-me and you-me. A little earlier the inclination to stare at the wall arose, and so it was done. The whole world started undulating and breathing, and that was super cool, right? Then suddenly I think, 'pffffff, I'm going to do something else now, this is just silly eye-candy.' (not literally, but I might as well have) Then video games to nerd the evening up. And suddenly that spark of interest pops up again--let's go make the walls breathe! This now seems to be a game of 'search for the truth.' The game initiates, funky things happen, and we (I) call it a day. Do something else. Play again! Do something else. Play again-again! Suddenly I get what ZM Seung Sahn means when he says 'only go straight.' If you even take the slightest detour, the games start right back up. So, again, my advice to myself: stop stopping. Mamza: Two stories come to mind after reading your post. First, ZM Seung Sahn did a 100 day solo retreat at the age of about 18 because he was totally confused (politics, meaning of life, direction he should take, etc). At one point he packed up his stuff and intended to leave the mountain, but then unpacked again. This happened several times. Although he had a big breakthrough on the 100th day of his retreat, consider the fact that he changed his mind several times along the way. Second story: After my first big breakthrough experience, I went around telling everyone to meditate--that meditation was the gateway to truth. Ironically, while I was telling everyone how important meditation is, I was unable to meditate at all. I would sit down to meditate and find myself getting up two minutes later and doing something else. After this had gone on for several weeks, it struck me as exceedingly odd that I couldn't do what I was telling other people to do. Four or five months later I found myself able to meditate again, and began going on silent weekend retreats with groups of Zen fanatics. LOL. During this period of time I would have experiences and insights and feel like I was making progress, and then everything would go flat. After some long dry periods wherein nothing seemed to be happening, it again struck me as odd. At some point, after several periods of intense interest in attending the actual alternating with periods of very little interest, it became obvious that I had nothing to do with what was going on. My alternating periods of interest/no interest was exactly like ZM Seung Sahn packing and unpacking his bags. How things play out in a particular life is a complete mystery. This is why I often tell people to relax and enjoy the ride. Finding the truth was incredibly important to me, and one of the only fears I ever had was the fear that it might not be in the script for me to attend the actual long enough to wake up. Ha ha. The truth was so important to me that I was willing to give up everything for it. Ironically, as it turns out, that's exactly what happened. LOL
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Post by mamza on Apr 13, 2011 13:41:58 GMT -5
This is pretty much exactly how I feel. It just comes and goes without me wanting or not wanting to, and I've got no clue what to do about it. Just like you said, there are various insights that may happen in the periods of interest, followed by the flats. My main fear right now is that one of these days the flat period is just going to settle forever and I'll completely forget what and why I'm doing any of this.
It seems like there's absolutely nothing I can do about virtually anything, so whenever I sit down to meditate (or do anything, really) I get irritated and give up. That 'world on my shoulders' feeling won't go away, though why I feel that way when it seems like I have nothing to do with anything is questionable. Most of the time I can just relax, but those occasional spikes have been popping up more frequently. Just gotta breathe..
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Post by dreamerrach on Apr 13, 2011 14:06:57 GMT -5
We are not helpless just because we are not to blame for the state of things.
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Post by mamza on Apr 13, 2011 14:42:57 GMT -5
If we're not to blame for the state of things, how could we be the cause of the state of things? And just because we can't cause things doesn't mean that I don't try to... I stare at the walls and listen to birds as often as I can be bothered to, but I often notice that those things are happening on their own too.
There isn't a specific thing you can do to awaken. Some activities have strong correlations with waking up (such as attending the actual), but what decides to attend the actual? What decides to get irritated and stop until later?
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Post by zendancer on Apr 13, 2011 15:20:56 GMT -5
We are not helpless just because we are not to blame for the state of things. I'm not saying that anyone is helpless or otherwise; I'm saying that what's going on has nothing to do with a separate (imagined) entity. "What is" is a unified process doing what it does regardless of what anyone thinks about it. The living truth can either be accepted or resisted, but resisting it usually leads to a lot of suffering.
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Post by mamza on Apr 13, 2011 16:04:35 GMT -5
It must be time to see through the illusion of pointlessness. I guess I'm really attached to it. Time to stare!
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Post by dreamerrach on Apr 13, 2011 16:41:41 GMT -5
I know you weren't-but it seemed that Mamza was.
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Post by karen on Apr 13, 2011 17:50:15 GMT -5
Yeah when things gets groovy and good, double-down on whatever non-conceptual awareness practice get's stuff stirred up. At least that's what I tell myself.
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Post by michaelsees on Apr 13, 2011 18:19:42 GMT -5
Yeah when things gets groovy and good, double-down on whatever non-conceptual awareness practice get's stuff stirred up. At least that's what I tell myself. non-conceptual awareness? Awareness itself is a concept there is no such thing as non-conceptual awareness. IOW it's the same as saying non-conceptual concepts it does not compute. Michael
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