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Post by ???????? ???????????? on Jul 11, 2013 16:38:16 GMT -5
Troll, stop trolling or please leave this forum. Thank you.
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Post by topology on Jul 12, 2013 23:48:34 GMT -5
Troll, stop trolling or please leave this forum. Thank you. Goodnight Troll-Sayer. Just use your imagination about what picture I've posted. And remember, Jesus died for your sins and loves you no matter what you do.
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Post by ???????? ???????????? on Jul 13, 2013 4:55:42 GMT -5
Troll, stop trolling or please leave this forum. Thank you.
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Post by topology on Jul 13, 2013 23:02:07 GMT -5
Troll, stop trolling or please leave this forum. Thank you. Snoochie Boochies, Troll-sayer. Act intelligently and ignore me like you said you would and this hook can leave your mouth. It looks like we'll be here for a while. Might as well get to know each other. Have any kids? Significant other, besides Palmela?
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Post by laughter on Jul 13, 2013 23:10:17 GMT -5
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Post by ???????? ???????????? on Jul 14, 2013 4:24:40 GMT -5
Troll, stop trolling or please leave this forum. Thank you.
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Post by enigma on Jul 14, 2013 10:40:34 GMT -5
I'm not sure how to word this, but I'll do my best. For me, ATA wasn't about focusing on myself, or on a sense of self, or really anything in particular (over anything else--referring to what's important to attend). To me, ATA was simply a matter of focusing on anything as hard as humanly possible until nothing else existed or mattered. That wasn't what I intended, but that's what happened. The fan behind me is gone. Unimportant. All there is right now is the sweetness of soda, the acidic bubbling of carbonation. Who is experiencing this doesn't matter. Where it's happening doesn't matter. What happens next doesn't matter. There is just the taste and feel of the soda. When I first came around this board and ZD suggested ATA, I did it all the time. ALL. THE. TIME. Any chance I got I was slapping myself to attention. A level of focus such that I can remain intent on anything I want at any time I want--to the exclusion of all else--for extended periods of time became possible. Now I don't do it. I'm fairly lost in everyday life anymore. Sometimes it happens by itself and I enjoy the calmness, but sooner or later that passes and I move on. You mentioned that a sense of self can be felt only when we are attentive. I disagree. The sense of self is felt when you TRY to be attentive, not when you ARE attentive. I know this sounds silly, but effort requires a doer, and so forcing attention (i.e. - trying) generates that sensation. If, however, you were to practice that and ignore that feeling until the attention became easier to come by and happened on its own, a shift in attention would be noticed, and the subject would be subsequently dropped. I see holes in this, but I'm not interested in writing any more of a book at the moment. If something seems off, let me know and I'll see if I can clarify. This is interesting. So far in this thread I've seen three interpretations of ATA. One seems to involve a 'traffic director', maybe with a big club or maybe a whistle, that's mind forcefully telling mind what to attend to, which of course would involve effort and be very unnatural. It seems to include the 'director' in the mix. Your's, Mamza, seems to be more about focus than attention. I can see how that would be restful, in the sense that it's a break from constant thinking - a vacation of sorts. But I think it would be impossible to maintain. The third is using ATA as a reminder to place attention on what's here and now. No director other than the 'here and now' focus moving into the forefront of attention. If you consider that our lives are made up of now moments, it becomes more of a return to naturalness than anything forced. There is an element of effort in the 'returning', but, as Max said, it can be gentle. And there needn't be any additional mind element monitoring the whole thing. I find ATA to be much more effortless (and require less energy) than mind activity. Yes, mind can be seen as a process, or a doing, if you like. As such it cannot carry out the command to not do. There cannot be a process of 'not doing', and yet the whole point is to not do, or what we call non-abidance in mind. The only reason it may seem odd that mind cannot carry out a command to 'not do' is that mind isn't generally viewed as a movement only. It's usually also identified as 'me', and so there's a sense that 'me' should be able to 'not do'. What is believed to be a 'me' is a doing only, and so in the 'not doing' there simply is no 'me' to do or not do, and not the slightest bit of interest in any of that. And so mind is given a doing job to shift attention from thinking. We can talk about attending sense perception as though it is not mind doing but rather body sensing, but of course it's all mind. This same trick is used to stop resisting. Mind cannot do 'not resisting' since it is not a doing, so we frame it in terms of an active doing. We say invite the fear or the pain, and if one can 'do' this, it is seen that this is precisely an undoing of resistance.
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Post by enigma on Jul 14, 2013 10:49:48 GMT -5
My point is limited and precise. A sense of self/existence/knowing is available only when attention is active. That doesn't mean that when attentive we necessarily have a dominant sense of self/existence/knowing. However, absent attention there never is a sense of self/existence/knowing comparable to one in the attentive state. And this profound absence of all knowing and sense of self/existence is NOT something to be achieved by lots of practise and effort, but rather exactly the opposite, it is the natural state of all people. In this point of mine I'm not complaining about anything and I don't care what can be achieved with enough effort. I'm just pointing out how things are. When is attention not active? Good question. I've been biting my typing fingers on that one. Attending is the light of consciousness. As long as consciousness is present, there is attention on something. To be conscious is to attend. Even if it were possible for there to not be attention, how would anybody ever know?
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Post by enigma on Jul 14, 2013 10:58:13 GMT -5
You know, I wonder why they even use this adjective anymore. It's psychology 101 that it has the opposite effect. When we were kids and when I still was stronger I used to tease my younger brother by telling him for no reason to relax and not get agitated or angry, and this was precisely what made him furious. Yea, 'Just act natural.' Pretty funny. The 'gently' instruction was something I glossed over at first. It took a long time before I was aware of how harsh the thoughts were when noticing my attention had been locked on future or past or whatever thoughts. So then, in addition to noticing not being present, I started to notice the reaction. Actually, I don't think the gentle return requires effort. It just requires not being invested in the reaction. I've been playing around with 'effortless meditation' for the past few months. It's in the same ballpark. The idea is to just make time to sit with no goal or intention whatsoever (I know, contradiction). It highlights the reaction dynamic even more. It's just noticing and nothing more, right? The shifting of attention happens by itself in response to that noticing.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 14, 2013 11:06:09 GMT -5
Yea, 'Just act natural.' Pretty funny. The 'gently' instruction was something I glossed over at first. It took a long time before I was aware of how harsh the thoughts were when noticing my attention had been locked on future or past or whatever thoughts. So then, in addition to noticing not being present, I started to notice the reaction. Actually, I don't think the gentle return requires effort. It just requires not being invested in the reaction. I've been playing around with 'effortless meditation' for the past few months. It's in the same ballpark. The idea is to just make time to sit with no goal or intention whatsoever (I know, contradiction). It highlights the reaction dynamic even more. It's just noticing and nothing more, right? The shifting of attention happens by itself in response to that noticing. Yes, it's automatic. The mystery is the spark to notice (again). Methinks the sparks exist within the story and the game of seeking is hopefully increasing the volume and variety of those sparks. Conditioning to sabotage investment in conditioning.
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Post by enigma on Jul 14, 2013 11:08:59 GMT -5
Okay, well forget the other junk. The bold is your point in its simplest form, yes? I'll agree that we're not aware of the sense of self when before attention in the same way we are during attention, but it still exists. I constantly worry about how this or that is going to affect me (I'm a fairly anxious person). When there is attention, and depending on what my focus is, most of that melts away. These are two different things. One is the sense of self available only during the attentive state. The other is some kind of ego story made of thoughts and worries and anxiety etc. A story about a self, which actually requires a sense of self before it can be written.
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Post by enigma on Jul 14, 2013 11:19:04 GMT -5
Now you're just defending your idea on philosophical grounds. I don't care about that. I'm concerned about how the different modes look like in experience, and not how they relate to each other in your philosophical model. That's not my intention, so I'll try to rephrase. The actual experience is that I feel like me at all times. How could I not? I am me. What it feels like to be me changes, but it's all still me. Yes. Experience, as it is formed in memory for recall, is tethered to that 'me'. An experience that has nothing to do with 'me' is not actually your experience and has no relevance at all. It will not be filed away in memory as 'my experience'. This is why the intensity of an experience is directly proportional to how significant it is to 'me'. It's also why the infant stores no personal memories that you can recall now. It's unlikely you'll be able to recall anything before the age of 2-3, as there literally was no 'me' concept around which to structure those experiences. The infant is toadally present to the 'actual'.
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Post by enigma on Jul 14, 2013 11:31:10 GMT -5
I'm certain you're making up a story now. You don't feel like a "me that changes over time" all the time. You don't all the time feel like a Mamza who has such and such parents, went to such and such schools, had such and such girlfriends etc. In fact, there is no Mamza anywhere until you imagine one. And even if you see that, then there may still remain the feeling of "I am" that is sometimes there or not, but this feeling has nothing to do with Mamza, because it is independent of the Mamza story. The two are different things. I wasn't referring to me as being Mamza, I was referring to me as an unchangeable...'thing' (not sure what to call it since the only observable fact about it is that it seems to be there every time I check for it). Maybe that's what you're calling the I am, and I would agree that it has nothing to do with Mamza. But a sense of self is what I consider to be the feeling of existing, and that 'I am' (assuming we're agreed on what that is) seems to have that quality--and I'm gonna stop right there. So I was just thinking this through and when I thought about it what went through my head was that the I am is always present--I just sometimes don't pay attention to it/notice it. Rearrange that equation and you get "with attention the sense of self is present." So I suppose I can't refute your original point anymore. I always felt of it as a 'just because I don't see it doesn't mean it's not there' deal. But that assumes it's always there and that I'm just a dolt (which I am). But I suppose I really haven't ever noticed a sense of self unless I looked for it. There's nothing other than the present moment that I can attend, whether that includes thoughts about the past/future/self/whatever makes no difference, it's still a thought (or whatever else) in the present. And in the present, sometimes I notice it and sometimes I don't. So I guess that's that. My b. If something is always there whenever you pay attention to it, what does it mean to say it might not be there when you are not paying attention? How does that impact your experience?
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Post by topology on Jul 14, 2013 11:39:19 GMT -5
When is attention not active? Good question. I've been biting my typing fingers on that one. Attending is the light of consciousness. As long as consciousness is present, there is attention on something. To be conscious is to attend. Even if it were possible for there to not be attention, how would anybody ever know? I noticed he did not engage the question when I asked it. It would take the wind out of the sails of the argument he was making.
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Post by enigma on Jul 14, 2013 11:40:29 GMT -5
It's just noticing and nothing more, right? The shifting of attention happens by itself in response to that noticing. Yes, it's automatic. The mystery is the spark to notice (again). Methinks the sparks exist within the story and the game of seeking is hopefully increasing the volume and variety of those sparks. Conditioning to sabotage investment in conditioning. Yeah, it's the trickiest thing in all this speerichool stuff. It's about not falling into river, which is about being in observer mode, which is about being conscious, which is about noticing.
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