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Post by tzujanli on Dec 6, 2014 12:46:01 GMT -5
Practice is the awareness of a desired goal and the doing that achieves it...
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Post by stardustpilgrim on Mar 2, 2015 14:25:44 GMT -5
............bumped for satchitananda................. "One day a man of the people said to Zen Master Ikkyu: 'Master, will you please write for me some maxims of the highest wisdom?' Ikkyu immediately took his brush and wrote the word 'Attention'. 'Is that all?' asked the man. 'Will you not add something more?' Ikkyu then wrote twice running: 'Attention, Attention'. 'Well', remarked the man rather irritably, 'I really don't see much depth or subtlety in what you have just written.' Then Ikkyu wrote the same word three times running, 'Attention, Attention, Attention.' Half angered, the man demanded: 'What does the word 'Attention' mean anyway?' And Ikkyu answered gently: 'Attention means Attention.' from The Three Pillars of Zen by Philip Kapleau What is this all about? All this is not about conceptual understanding. For most of us our sense of self is what we think, feel and do. There are two ways to live. One way is the way of ordinary life, living through ego, which means living through abstract thought reinforced by emotions and actions. This thread is about pointing to another way of being. Some of you have posted about the tyranny of thinking that will just not stop. You have to be persistent, in the right way. B Alan Wallace has written an excellent book, The Attention Revolution (2006). He tells you directly that it is about meditation in Tibetan Buddhism, but he makes it very accessible. It's mostly about shamatha, but he says that shamatha is common to many types of meditation, not just Tibetan. "We may believe in free will, but we can hardly be called "free" if we can't direct our own attention. .... In the context of shamatha, mindfulness refers to attending continuously to a familiar object, without forgetfulness or distraction. ...The first stage is called directed attention. The sign of having reached this stage is simply being able to place your mind on your chosen object of meditation for even a second or two. ....Only when we try to direct the attention to a single object for minutes on end does it really become apparent how turbulent and fragmented our attention is". (pages 13,14) One object of attention is the breath. The key to the description above is " without forgetfulness or distraction". Try it (now or when you finish the OP). How long did it take for a thought to intrude? Don't worry, it happens to everyone. Think of a thought as a horse that wanders by. The key is not to get on the horse and ride off. When you notice a thought has arisen, go back to attention on the breath. That's it. ........On page 15 Wallace notes that in a few weeks of intense practice he could sustain attention for half an hour. Later he notes he could sustain attention for four hours. But now one might ask, why? Why practice this sustaining of attention? You can tie this to living consciously or unconsciously. We take the practice into life. You have to try this for a while before you come to recognize the value of practice. By a while, I don't mean a few days, probably months. What's simple, is not easy. You have to get a taste of the state this kind of practice will eventually bring versus our ordinary state of mind which is thoughts continually running amuck, dragging you this way and that. If you keep practicing, you will eventually come to value one state over the other. You can come to recognize and know when you are more conscious. When you are functioning on autopilot, you are more unconscious. And you will not know this, that you have been relatively unconscious, until.......well......you'll have to come to understand, the difference. In Everyday Zen Charlotte Joko Beck says: "All practice aims to increase our ability to be attentive, not just in zazen but in every moment of our life. As we sit we grasp that our conceptual thought process is fantasy; and the more we grasp this the more our ability to pay attention to reality increases". (page 32) ...................... This is what is meant by interior spiritual practice. It has been called not-doing, because it doesn't involve what we normally think of as doing. It is not thinking, not feeling, not acting. "Attention means attention". You may be familiar with the meaning herein, what the words point to, or not. But the question is, how much time is spent in one state or the other? How much time living consciously versus how much time on autopilot. How much time awake versus how much time asleep. sdp
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Post by tzujanli on Mar 2, 2015 21:06:30 GMT -5
............bumped for satchitananda................. "One day a man of the people said to Zen Master Ikkyu: 'Master, will you please write for me some maxims of the highest wisdom?' Ikkyu immediately took his brush and wrote the word 'Attention'. 'Is that all?' asked the man. 'Will you not add something more?' Ikkyu then wrote twice running: 'Attention, Attention'. 'Well', remarked the man rather irritably, 'I really don't see much depth or subtlety in what you have just written.' Then Ikkyu wrote the same word three times running, 'Attention, Attention, Attention.' Half angered, the man demanded: 'What does the word 'Attention' mean anyway?' And Ikkyu answered gently: 'Attention means Attention.' from The Three Pillars of Zen by Philip Kapleau What is this all about? All this is not about conceptual understanding. For most of us our sense of self is what we think, feel and do. There are two ways to live. One way is the way of ordinary life, living through ego, which means living through abstract thought reinforced by emotions and actions. This thread is about pointing to another way of being. Some of you have posted about the tyranny of thinking that will just not stop. You have to be persistent, in the right way. B Alan Wallace has written an excellent book, The Attention Revolution (2006). He tells you directly that it is about meditation in Tibetan Buddhism, but he makes it very accessible. It's mostly about shamatha, but he says that shamatha is common to many types of meditation, not just Tibetan. "We may believe in free will, but we can hardly be called "free" if we can't direct our own attention. .... In the context of shamatha, mindfulness refers to attending continuously to a familiar object, without forgetfulness or distraction. ...The first stage is called directed attention. The sign of having reached this stage is simply being able to place your mind on your chosen object of meditation for even a second or two. ....Only when we try to direct the attention to a single object for minutes on end does it really become apparent how turbulent and fragmented our attention is". (pages 13,14) One object of attention is the breath. The key to the description above is " without forgetfulness or distraction". Try it (now or when you finish the OP). How long did it take for a thought to intrude? Don't worry, it happens to everyone. Think of a thought as a horse that wanders by. The key is not to get on the horse and ride off. When you notice a thought has arisen, go back to attention on the breath. That's it. ........On page 15 Wallace notes that in a few weeks of intense practice he could sustain attention for half an hour. Later he notes he could sustain attention for four hours. But now one might ask, why? Why practice this sustaining of attention? You can tie this to living consciously or unconsciously. We take the practice into life. You have to try this for a while before you come to recognize the value of practice. By a while, I don't mean a few days, probably months. What's simple, is not easy. You have to get a taste of the state this kind of practice will eventually bring versus our ordinary state of mind which is thoughts continually running amuck, dragging you this way and that. If you keep practicing, you will eventually come to value one state over the other. You can come to recognize and know when you are more conscious. When you are functioning on autopilot, you are more unconscious. And you will not know this, that you have been relatively unconscious, until.......well......you'll have to come to understand, the difference. In Everyday Zen Charlotte Joko Beck says: "All practice aims to increase our ability to be attentive, not just in zazen but in every moment of our life. As we sit we grasp that our conceptual thought process is fantasy; and the more we grasp this the more our ability to pay attention to reality increases". (page 32) ...................... This is what is meant by interior spiritual practice. It has been called not-doing, because it doesn't involve what we normally think of as doing. It is not thinking, not feeling, not acting. "Attention means attention". You may be familiar with the meaning herein, what the words point to, or not. But the question is, how much time is spent in one state or the other? How much time living consciously versus how much time on autopilot. How much time awake versus how much time asleep. sdp One of my teachers said that: 'practice is the pursuit of excellence in the art of living'.. from which it is experiencable that meditation, the pursuit of clarity, is essential in the pursuit of excellence.. a garden is never finished..
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Post by earnest on Mar 3, 2015 4:52:36 GMT -5
............bumped for satchitananda................. One of my teachers said that: 'practice is the pursuit of excellence in the art of living'.. from which it is experiencable that meditation, the pursuit of clarity, is essential in the pursuit of excellence.. a garden is never finished.. How does someone *know* what finished or excellence is? In the context of spiritchoolness, I can't make sense of those things anymore.
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Post by tzujanli on Mar 3, 2015 6:19:52 GMT -5
One of my teachers said that: 'practice is the pursuit of excellence in the art of living'.. from which it is experiencable that meditation, the pursuit of clarity, is essential in the pursuit of excellence.. a garden is never finished.. How does someone *know* what finished or excellence is? In the context of spiritchoolness, I can't make sense of those things anymore. You have my sympathy, sincerely..
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Post by earnest on Mar 3, 2015 13:31:52 GMT -5
How does someone *know* what finished or excellence is? In the context of spiritchoolness, I can't make sense of those things anymore. You have my sympathy, sincerely.. You responded to the statement but ignored the question... I'll reframe a bit, how do you *know* what finished or excellence is?
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Post by Deleted on Mar 3, 2015 13:55:01 GMT -5
You have my sympathy, sincerely.. You responded to the statement but ignored the question... I'll reframe a bit, how do you *know* what finished or excellence is? Hi earnest, just my 2 cents. I would say that if someone thinks they need perpetual finishing and excellence, they are really saying that what they are is un-finished and not excellent. Those are just thoughts that never arise in Self-Realization, Being, Knowing, Awareness, etc, etc,
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Post by laughter on Mar 3, 2015 14:16:46 GMT -5
You have my sympathy, sincerely.. You responded to the statement but ignored the question... I'll reframe a bit, how do you *know* what finished or excellence is? The Christians got an answer for that one!
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Post by laughter on Mar 3, 2015 14:22:05 GMT -5
You responded to the statement but ignored the question... I'll reframe a bit, how do you *know* what finished or excellence is? Hi earnest, just my 2 cents. I would say that if someone thinks they need perpetual finishing and excellence, they are really saying that what they are is un-finished and not excellent. Those are just thoughts that never arise in Self-Realization, Being, Knowing, Awareness, etc, etc, What appears to us in form as our bodies and our body of knowledge and skills all the other details of our life situation is always changing until death. The culture that this happens within has been changing since it's inception and will likely continue to change barring extinction. While none of this is what we are, we're not separate from it either. Earnie's question was in the context of "in a spiritchool sense", and from the perspective of the individual who might still be seeking, excellence is meaningless, but if we widen the perspective of the question by asking where does spirituality end and everything else begin, then we might be able to salvage the word.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 3, 2015 14:42:54 GMT -5
Hi earnest, just my 2 cents. I would say that if someone thinks they need perpetual finishing and excellence, they are really saying that what they are is un-finished and not excellent. Those are just thoughts that never arise in Self-Realization, Being, Knowing, Awareness, etc, etc, What appears to us in form as our bodies and our body of knowledge and skills all the other details of our life situation is always changing until death. The culture that this happens within has been changing since it's inception and will likely continue to change barring extinction. While none of this is what we are, we're not separate from it either. Earnie's question was in the context of "in a spiritchool sense", and from the perspective of the individual who might still be seeking, excellence is meaningless, but if we widen the perspective of the question by asking where does spirituality end and everything else begin, then we might be able to salvage the word.laughter, yes, what we are is not separate from the world. It is that which never changes expressing itself as that which does. I'm just saying that it is so that when the awareness is on the changing world, there are perpetual quests, unfinished questions and an endless search for excellence. When awareness is on awareness it is not so. The contexts are different but they are the same thing. Some folks enjoy the hyper-minding quests, nothing wrong with that.
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Post by laughter on Mar 3, 2015 16:24:08 GMT -5
What appears to us in form as our bodies and our body of knowledge and skills all the other details of our life situation is always changing until death. The culture that this happens within has been changing since it's inception and will likely continue to change barring extinction. While none of this is what we are, we're not separate from it either. Earnie's question was in the context of "in a spiritchool sense", and from the perspective of the individual who might still be seeking, excellence is meaningless, but if we widen the perspective of the question by asking where does spirituality end and everything else begin, then we might be able to salvage the word.laughter, yes, what we are is not separate from the world. It is that which never changes expressing itself as that which does. I'm just saying that it is so that when the awareness is on the changing world, there are perpetual quests, unfinished questions and an endless search for excellence. When awareness is on awareness it is not so. The contexts are different but they are the same thing. Some folks enjoy the hyper-minding quests, nothing wrong with that. Subjectively speaking, all adventures could be said to be excellent! But in terms of appearances, subjectivity is only half the story. In terms of changlessness, obviously, neither of those ideas, either objective or subjective, are applicable.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 3, 2015 18:13:15 GMT -5
You have my sympathy, sincerely.. You responded to the statement but ignored the question... I'll reframe a bit, how do you *know* what finished or excellence is? When there is no where to go you are finished. When effortless bliss takes hold, this is excellence. You will know. Delve deeply into the thought-free state and you will find. It is inevitable.
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Post by earnest on Mar 3, 2015 19:04:38 GMT -5
You responded to the statement but ignored the question... I'll reframe a bit, how do you *know* what finished or excellence is? When there is no where to go you are finished. When effortless bliss takes hold, this is excellence. You will know. Delve deeply into the thought-free state and you will find. It is inevitable. welcome Roy The danger is my little mind goes "hmm.. how do i get to the place where there is no where to go" I find the delving is into everything, regardless of the level of thinking. I'm tired of trying to get something other than what I've got. If I go for delving into thought free, and I'm not thought free, then I'm at risk of setting myself up in opposition to what's currently happening. In this moment anyway busy or still is equally fine. I can't say I'm fully done with resistance, but I toh-dah-lee know how unsatisfying it is.
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Post by tzujanli on Mar 3, 2015 20:14:24 GMT -5
You have my sympathy, sincerely.. You responded to the statement but ignored the question... I'll reframe a bit, how do you *know* what finished or excellence is? I *know* that what is happening is not 'finished' happening, from which i *know*, based on simple observation, that improvement is possible, individually AND collectively.. my understanding is that *excellence* is improvement that benefits the individual(s) and the whole, not at the expense of either or at the exclusion of others for a greater benefit for a few.. Excellence is experienced as the potential for a greater version of Life to emerge through you, as you, and the will to expand into it..
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Post by earnest on Mar 3, 2015 20:43:59 GMT -5
You responded to the statement but ignored the question... I'll reframe a bit, how do you *know* what finished or excellence is? I *know* that what is happening is not 'finished' happening, from which i *know*, based on simple observation, that improvement is possible, individually AND collectively.. my understanding is that *excellence* is improvement that benefits the individual(s) and the whole, not at the expense of either or at the exclusion of others for a greater benefit for a few.. Excellence is experienced as the potential for a greater version of Life to emerge through you, as you, and the will to expand into it.. ok thanks. Personally I have no interest in any of that. It all seems tiring and overly complicated (which may not be your intention) I can't do anything more than what's in front of me, and I don't know what that is until it happens. That might be something unfolding in front of me, or a clear urge to do something. An example was this morning I was driving to work (still dark) and the trailer lights of the guy in front of me were not working properly. His mobile number was clearly visible so I sent him a text message this morning and told him his lights were stuffed. He said thanks. I said no worries. What was to be done was clear and obvious, and I just followed directions.
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