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Post by stardustpilgrim on Jun 15, 2015 6:04:09 GMT -5
This might be a traveling day for ZD, but I'd like a report on the TAT meeting. I noticed early that a couple of people had planned to go. Anybody care to share?
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Post by quinn on Jun 15, 2015 7:19:00 GMT -5
This might be a traveling day for ZD, but I'd like a report on the TAT meeting. I noticed early that a couple of people had planned to go. Anybody care to share? Hey SDP. I'm pretty sure it was just ZD and me there from the forum. Unless someone was really incognito . I just came in from a nicotine-meditation with a post in mind. Stand by...
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Post by zendancer on Jun 15, 2015 10:42:03 GMT -5
SDP: It was a fun weekend, and it was the second time I've been invited to a TAT Foundation meeting/retreat/workshop. I drove to Knoxville where I met a friend from Alabama and he drove us to the meeting which was located about 50 miles west of DC.
The TAT Foundation is similar to the SIG group in North Carolina (both of which were started by people who were strongly influenced by Richard Rose--a sort of self-taught non-ordained eclectic Zen Master-type fellow with a lot of charisma and a dynamic personality), but it attracts more people from the northeast area of the country than the southeast area. At this get-together we had people from Oregon, California, Florida, but many from Pennsylvania and the area within a few hundred miles of DC.
Like SIG, TAT mainly attracts people who are interested in nonduality, and it connects people who otherwise might feel totally alone on the spiritual search. Several of the members have known each other a long time, and have shared the journey together. Many of the people had lived on Rose's farm at one time and interacted with the guy directly (Rose is now deceased). His farm was sort of an informal retreat facility and many college students lived there and helped him erect various structures. After Rose's death, his heirs reclaimed the farm, and the TAT group is now searching for a place to build a replacement retreat facility. Temporarily they use the Claymont Mansion/400 acre estate that was built by one of George Washington's relatives and is now owned by a Gurdjieff group which rents it out to different spiritual groups for retreats.
I enjoyed the drive to TAT and back because I rode with a brilliant research scientist who is both a world-class thinker as well as a feeler, and he always gives me lot of insights into how feelers perceive and interact with the world. We talk non-stop for 8 hours each way because we share a lot of common interests. Afterwards, I always wish that I had tape-recorded our conversations because we cover so much territory, and I never remember all the interesting details.
AAR the folks who came to the meeting are a varied and interesting group, and I enjoyed talking with all of them (especially with Quinn, who I first met in person at a SIG meeting a few years ago). Going strictly from memory, which may not be totally accurate, my own presentation went something like this:
"I'm here today with some very good news. If you're here, it means that you're engaged in one of the greatest adventures in human life--searching for the truth. It's good news for two reasons; first, that you've been drawn to this path of Self-discovery, and second, because it's possible to find the truth. I'm here to assure you that:
it's possible for all seeking to come to an end it's possible to feel free and know that you're free it's possible for all fear and psychological suffering to end it's possible to find lasting peace and contentment it's possible to find the answers to any existential questions that are bothering you it's possible to discover who and what you really are it's possible to discover that although the body was born and will die, who you REALLY are was never born and will never die it's possible to discover that even if this entire universe disappeared, who you REALLY are would still be here because who you REALLY are is what all universes appear within and, finally, it's possible to live a life filled with the joy of being, and once again spend your days playing in the same way that you played as a little child, free from the dominance and encumbrances of mind.
My job is to tell you how this can happen, why it probably happens, and point you in the direction of that happening, itself. If you get free, you, too, will want to share this good news with others.
I then told a short version of this body/mind's search for the truth, and went on to discuss all of the things that are regularly discussed here on the ST website--
head-knowing versus body-knowing realizations versus experiences hard-core versus soft-core sense of selfhood ATA-T and ATA+T Samadhi, contemplation, self-inquiry, meditation practices, silence, etc.
I gave various bits of advice that I had found helpful (ie: asking "What must the body be doing this moment?" to break the habit of fantasizing about the future, etc.) Becoming a person of action rather than reflection, investigating how thoughts keep us separated from the truth of "what is,"....and so forth.
After this presentation, there was a question and answer period. Later during the retreat, many different seekers told their stories and explained where they felt they were on the path. After each presentation, there was a question and answer session during which the audience could question the seeker's understanding, and/or point out things that the seeker might be overlooking or misunderstanding. For example, one person stated that his egos were progressively falling away, and this caused many people to question his idea of multiple egos. As he responded to the questioning, it became obvious that what he was referring to was not egos, but particular patterns of habitual thought. Another person had pursued Niz's "I AM" contemplation, but described how he had got to a point where he could simply not penetrate the I AM. He said, "It felt like even a diamond-bit drill could not penetrate THAT." He then explained that everything reversed one day when he concluded that he didn't need to penetrate it; he could simply rest in it. His resting in the I AM subsequently led to a much deeper realization. I found all of the stories and discussions interesting.
Quinn has already described on another thread the "confrontation" and "hotseat" sessions. These sessions were a bit different because they encourage greater intensity in the questioning, and challenges the person on the "hotseat" more directly. It was Rose's idea that this kind of confrontation is helpful in dispelling erroneous ideas by making people more likely to question what they believe. It is the moderator's job to keep the confrontations as impersonal as possible.
I had read about this aspect of Rose's teachings, but didn't know what I thought about it. I went to a session, but found that none of the questions that were asked had any applicability to me. It was a bit like being color-blind and having someone ask, "Which is your favorite color?"
When I was asked, "What do you consider is the most important spiritual practice on your spiritual path?" I could only reply, "I'm not on a spiritual path and I have no spiritual practice." When asked which were the most important and least important spiritual things I did each day, I could only say, "There's no sense of such differentiation here. Buying a cup of coffee at McD's is just as important or unimportant, spiritual or non-spiritual, as anything else I do. It's all just an impersonal flow of being."
As Quinn noted, however, other people seemed to find the questioning, the responses, and the resulting challenges helpful, and I concluded that whatever seems helpful and valuable is worth experimenting with. Quinn and I were in separate groups, and the questions asked in her group may have been different from those asked in my group. From what I heard later, her group seemed to have had more dynamic interactions than the group I was in, so my experience may not have been typical.
All in all, it is always fun to share time with people who are seriously interested in finding the truth. With groups like this I always feel like a bee being drawn to honey! ha ha
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Post by Deleted on Jun 15, 2015 11:23:14 GMT -5
Thanks for that report back ZD. Wish I could have been there too (a little too far outta my range.)
I'm curious, did the subject of this forum come up in any conversations? It's peculiarity, quirks, uses or lack thereof?
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Post by zendancer on Jun 15, 2015 14:52:58 GMT -5
Thanks for that report back ZD. Wish I could have been there too (a little too far outta my range.) I'm curious, did the subject of this forum come up in any conversations? It's peculiarity, quirks, uses or lack thereof? Well, the forum was mentioned several times, but discussions about the specific nature of the interactions here probably only occurred in small groups. I think I may have mentioned the "snapping turtles" phenomena in one of the open discussions. Later, in some private discussions I compared some of the challenges that appear on the website to the confrontation sessions that Quinn has already written about. Several people told me privately that they enjoy being challenged about their understandings, beliefs, and insights because it makes them question unconscious assumptions, and sometimes leads to deeper insights.
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Post by quinn on Jun 15, 2015 15:26:12 GMT -5
All in all, it is always fun to share time with people who are seriously interested in finding the truth. With groups like this I always feel like a bee being drawn to honey! ha ha Nice write-up ZD! I feel the same way about the honey.
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Post by quinn on Jun 15, 2015 15:28:50 GMT -5
Thanks for that report back ZD. Wish I could have been there too (a little too far outta my range.) I'm curious, did the subject of this forum come up in any conversations? It's peculiarity, quirks, uses or lack thereof? Hey Max - it was 1/2 hour LESS for me than the drive to Penn Scenic. Whoda thought.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 15, 2015 17:10:09 GMT -5
what a bunch of losers...
;-)
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Post by zendancer on Jun 15, 2015 17:16:35 GMT -5
what a bunch of losers... ;-) For sure!
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Post by zendancer on Jun 15, 2015 17:36:46 GMT -5
One other thing we did that was fun was walk in relative silence from the mansion down the road about a half mile to a pond where some turtles were sunning themselves on a log (but which jumped into the water when they sensed our approach). I explained the ATA-T thing at the outset, and had everyone experiment with variations of that activity while we strolled along. Quinn had told me about doing a walking meditation in the past with Thich Nhat Hanh and 300 other people through downtown New York (which must have been quite a sight for New Yorkers and quite an experience for the participants). Because I was familiar with that Hinayanna Zen tradition activity, I explained a bit about the difference between the Mahayana tradition and TNH's Vietnamese tradition. I told one of the guys walking with me that I was way too ADD to handle TNH's approach. I usually walk at a very high speed, and carefully placing each foot-toe-to heel with focused attention, and creeping along at a snail's pace, would probably send me to an institution! AAR, several folks reported that they had some interesting experiences as a result of our little walk.
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Post by quinn on Jun 15, 2015 18:09:36 GMT -5
One other thing we did that was fun was walk in relative silence from the mansion down the road about a half mile to a pond where some turtles were sunning themselves on a log (but which jumped into the water when they sensed our approach). I explained the ATA-T thing at the outset, and had everyone experiment with variations of that activity while we strolled along. Quinn had told me about doing a walking meditation in the past with Thich Nhat Hanh and 300 other people through downtown New York (which must have been quite a sight for New Yorkers and quite an experience for the participants). Because I was familiar with that Hinayanna Zen tradition activity, I explained a bit about the difference between the Mahayana tradition and TNH's Vietnamese tradition. I told one of the guys walking with me that I was way too ADD to handle TNH's approach. I usually walk at a very high speed, and carefully placing each foot-toe-to heel with focused attention, and creeping along at a snail's pace, would probably send me to an institution! AAR, several folks reported that they had some interesting experiences as a result of our little walk. And a fun little side note: As this was West Virginia and blisteringly hot, on our return one walker said, "I didn't realize I'd signed up for a Sweat Lodge!"
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