Mental Silence

[zendancer]

Someone recently PM'd me about the internal dialogue and about "mushin" (a state of internal silence), and I decided to write a quick post about this. Tolle and many other ND sages focus on the effect of the internal dialogue because they see it as a habit of mind that psychologically reinforces the consensus paradigm, and creates most of the psychological problems that people deal with. Byron Katie, as another example, uses four questions ("The Work") to help people see how their mind talk creates anger, resentment, feelings of low self worth, and many other "negative" mind states. Tolle, of course, suggests shifting attention away from mental talk to bodily sensations and whatever is happening in the present moment as a way of escaping the negative influences of mind talk and also as a way to have existential realizations.

Some people, like Gary Weber, have suddenly experience a total cessation of mind talk at a particular point in time, and they report that their level of functional effectiveness and creativity actually increased as a result of such internal silence. Tolle has noted that his kensho experience reduced the amount of his reflective thinking about 80%.

Unlike Weber, I have never had the internal dialogue suddenly cease, but because I practiced ATA-T for many years, mind talk gradually diminished, and became something that could be stopped at will. Early this morning, for example, I was driving east on an interstate highway toward a nearby city, and was listening to jazz on some earphones. As the color of the clouds in front of me began to glow orange, pink, and red due to sunlight rising behind distant hills, I decided to shut off the jazz and just watch the show. By shifting attention to the sky and everything else in the visual field, all mental talk ceased, and I drove along in total silence. Someone once asked me what it's like to look at the world in silence, and I told them that there's no real difference except that there's no mental commentary going on--a commentary that for most people usually takes precedence over consciously seeing whatever is in front of one's eyes.

SDP often talks about living life on autopilot. By this he means that the body continues to function intelligently even if there is daydreaming. Conscious attention to the "outside world" is not required because the body knows how to function intelligently even if the mind is reflecting about something that happened yesterday or is fantasizing about something that might happen tomorrow or is involved in an incessant commentary. Ironically, even if the mind is totally silent, the body still runs on autopilot because it knows what to do even if attention is focused upon direct sensory perception.

The primary advantage I see in becoming relatively free of mind talk is that it conserves energy, psychologically unifies body and mind, and, according to neuroscientists, gradually changes the way the brain processes input. It then becomes more likely to shift from what neuroscientists call "the default mode neural network" (which maintains the self-referential consensus paradigm) to what we might call "a unified perspective neural network."

Something I've noticed over the years in the field of construction is that workers who do not talk a great deal seem to have a lot more energy, are more connected to what is actually happening, and exhibit far more creativity than those who do. I don't know if this has ever been studied, but there seems to be a big difference between how people respond to life events if they primarily "live in their heads" versus those who don't. A fellow contractor and I were once discussing this, and he laughingly suggested that we should think up some ways to test the degree to which potential hires "lived in their heads." One suggestion that I remember was to have two workmen walk by a potential new hiree carrying some heavy boards. One of the workmen could purposely drop his end of the load, and the contractor could watch the response of the potential hiree who was standing nearby. If the new guy immediately jumped to offer help, that would be a good indication that he wasn't lost in reflective thought.

I don't know how many people on the forum have gone on silent retreats, but it's often amazing how much more energy one seems to have after spending a few days in relative silence with no talking and/or a fair amount of meditation. Long before I became a meditator I took a six week trip to Japan to look at architecture and Zen landscaping gardens. I spent almost every day walking many miles alone and just looking at what, for me, was a new environment and new things I'd never seen. When I returned to the states, I was astonished at the extremely-high level of energy I had and how creative I seemed to be. Only many years later did I realize that while on that trip I had been doing ATA-T almost around-the-clock. In many ways it was like going on a six week silent retreat. I'm just curious, but how many other people have experienced this sort of thing?

[laughter]

I've told all sorts of different fragments of this story many times, and you might have read a few of those, so one more can't hurt, and the great thing about a forum is that you don't have to read what disinterests you.

In 2009, in reading the "Power of Now", I followed Tolle's pointer's to "watch the thinker", and while at the time it didn't seem important, this was done in the context of his funny little suggestion up front that "You Are Not Your Mind". I'd never had any experience with meditation, and didn't realize at the time that I was taking up a form of it.

One day, even before I'd finished reading the book, I turned the brass hasp to the back door of my house to go out and stretch some modest yoga poses, and the reflection from it seemed to sort of come alive. Stepping out onto the small deck, the air, the trees in the yard, the sky, they all seemed so beautiful and vibrant. Everything seemed very different somehow -- like I was high on a drug like grass or even acid, but at the same time I was still completely lucid. This was the start of a few months of a marvelous and deeply profound bliss. I'd always loved skiing, swimming and all sorts of other pursuits that led to a naturally quiet state of mind, and this new feeling was like a sustained pleasure-high from a day doing that, but it didn't go away, and I was still working a white-collar law-related business and just going about the day-to-day. But it still didn't go away, and wasn't being caused by what I'd usually do to chase it.

I can't really recall the exact sequence during those weeks at this point, but I remember actually laughing at some of the thoughts that came and went -- some of the more outlandish fantasies or scenarios I'd find the ego chasing, stuff like "what if that guy I cut off on the road was connected, and the mafia decided to try to steal my house out from under me, where would I go?" I can't remember if that happened before or after the brass-hasp morning, but there was definitely a sudden collapse and cessation of the internal dialog at some point. This released an anxiety that I really didn't even know I'd had until it was gone.

I didn't even realize it until months later during the informing of mind, but during those months, I'd walk around for sustained periods with no "I-thought" whatsoever, even when I was talking to people and working. And there were a few other intense point-experiences -- a few of those happened later, after I started corresponding online -- but during those first few months there was no urge to share, just a happy camper sense "of course it's this way, hadn't it always been this way?". For about six months or more after this happened, I only related it to my wife. I knew that the change was substantial, and told her the book had completely changed my mind about spirituality. By that point I'd mellowed away from hard atheism into a condescending agnosticism, but did'nt have much interest in spirituality. Why I picked up Tolle in the first place is a different story.

In the months that followed after getting curious about it, I noticed the persistent return of the "I-thought". It was hard to miss because I was in the habit of watching the thinker by then, But now, it was mostly a focus on a curiosity about all sorts of versions of the questions I related here: "how is it that we share this commonality, if there is no objective, physical reality in which to share it, and how is it that 'Consciousness' can be undivided, if you are not me, and I am not you?", and while this spurred me to get more serious about deliberately pursuing a practice of silence, frankly, I saw self-reference as a sort of problem to be solved. Ultimately, as you've suggested elsewhere, the answer to that "problem" is found, in silence. At first I looked for both an explanation for what had happened, and a path of how to recreate and deepen the bliss-feeling and ditch self-reference. I looked for that in some of the new-age and science inspired ideas about the "oneness of consciousness" I'd been pursuing before Tolle, but silence is what reveals that sort of misdirection for what it is.

But that anxiety never returned, and what I came to understand eventually that what had really gone away on brass-hasp-day, much to my surprise, was the fear of death.

[zendancer]

Nov 8, 2018 16:32:43 GMT -5 laughter said:

I've told all sorts of different fragments of this story many times, and you might have read a few of those, so one more can't hurt, and the great thing about a forum is that you don't have to read what disinterests you.

In 2009, in reading the "Power of Now", I followed Tolle's pointer's to "watch the thinker", and while at the time it didn't seem important, this was done in the context of his funny little suggestion up front that "You Are Not Your Mind". I'd never had any experience with meditation, and didn't realize at the time that I was taking up a form of it.

One day, even before I'd finished reading the book, I turned the brass hasp to the back door of my house to go out and stretch some modest yoga poses, and the reflection from it seemed to sort of come alive. Stepping out onto the small deck, the air, the trees in the yard, the sky, they all seemed so beautiful and vibrant. Everything seemed very different somehow -- like I was high on a drug like grass or even acid, but at the same time I was still completely lucid. This was the start of a few months of a marvelous and deeply profound bliss. I'd always loved skiing, swimming and all sorts of other pursuits that led to a naturally quiet state of mind, and this new feeling was like a sustained pleasure-high from a day doing that, but it didn't go away, and I was still working a white-collar law-related business and just going about the day-to-day. But it still didn't go away, and wasn't being caused by what I'd usually do to chase it.

I can't really recall the exact sequence during those weeks at this point, but I remember actually laughing at some of the thoughts that came and went -- some of the more outlandish fantasies or scenarios I'd find the ego chasing, stuff like "what if that guy I cut off on the road was connected, and the mafia decided to try to steal my house out from under me, where would I go?" I can't remember if that happened before or after the brass-hasp morning, but there was definitely a sudden collapse and cessation of the internal dialog at some point. This released an anxiety that I really didn't even know I'd had until it was gone.

I didn't even realize it until months later during the informing of mind, but during those months, I'd walk around for sustained periods with no "I-thought" whatsoever, even when I was talking to people and working. And there were a few other intense point-experiences -- a few of those happened later, after I started corresponding online -- but during those first few months there was no urge to share, just a happy camper sense "of course it's this way, hadn't it always been this way?". For about six months or more after this happened, I only related it to my wife. I knew that the change was substantial, and told her the book had completely changed my mind about spirituality. By that point I'd mellowed away from hard atheism into a condescending agnosticism, but did'nt have much interest in spirituality. Why I picked up Tolle in the first place is a different story.

In the months that followed after getting curious about it, I noticed the persistent return of the "I-thought". It was hard to miss because I was in the habit of watching the thinker by then, But now, it was mostly a focus on a curiosity about all sorts of versions of the questions I related here: "how is it that we share this commonality, if there is no objective, physical reality in which to share it, and how is it that 'Consciousness' can be undivided, if you are not me, and I am not you?", and while this spurred me to get more serious about deliberately pursuing a practice of silence, frankly, I saw self-reference as a sort of problem to be solved. Ultimately, as you've suggested elsewhere, the answer to that "problem" is found, in silence. At first I looked for both an explanation for what had happened, and a path of how to recreate and deepen the bliss-feeling and ditch self-reference. I looked for that in some of the new-age and science inspired ideas about the "oneness of consciousness" I'd been pursuing before Tolle, but silence is what reveals that sort of misdirection for what it is.

But that anxiety never returned, and what I came to understand eventually that what had really gone away on brass-hasp-day, much to my surprise, was the fear of death.

Great story and observation. The question it raises is how can one go about purposely attaining such a non-self-referentially unified state? And for people who discover/stumble-into such a state, what must be done to stay in that unified state? In Flora Courtois's case the I-thought apparently returned after about two and a half years, and subsequently her state of psychological unity gradually dissipated. The key, as you noted, is mental silence. The Zen people use formal meditation for that purpose (even if they don't explicitly distinguish the logical basis for it), and there is also in Zen an implied admonition to keep attention focused upon whatever is happening in the present moment. Intermittent but regular ATA-T seems preferable to that approach simply because it can be done informally throughout the day and has no "specialness" associated with it. Tolle points to this, but, to the best of my recollection, he never makes it explicit. Adya, Bankei, and many other sages also point in that direction, but they also don't make it explicit.

I recently re-read about twenty accounts of people who reported either CC experiences or huge life-changing realizations to find out what they were doing immediately prior to those events. In virtually every case they had consciously or unconsciously been shifting attention away from mind talk to direct perception. They had stopped judging, evaluating, cognizing, reflecting, etc., and had become internally silent. These lines from Courtois's story are typical:

" I finally decided that Reality must be unlike any preconceived idea I might have of it and reached a point of just waiting and letting be. For long periods I simply sat, saying inwardly 'No, not this' as if waiting, for what I knew not.
Sometime in April, Easter vacation arrived, and I went home to spend a week with my parents. There, about three days later, alone in my room, sitting quietly on the edge of my bed and gazing at a small desk, not thinking of anything at all, in a moment too short to measure, the universe turned on its axis and my search was over.
The small, pale green desk at which I'd been so thoughtlessly gazing had totally and radically changed. It appeared now with a clarity, a depth of three-dimensionality, a freshness I had never imagined possible. At the same time, in a way that is utterly indescribable, all my questions and doubts were gone as effortlessly as chaff in the wind. I knew everything and all at once, yet not in the sense that I had ever known anything before."

What's the takeaway message? Relax and keep shifting attention away from thoughts to what lies in plain sight. Silence unifies; cognition/mentation divides.

[explorer]

We Quakers know the supreme value of Silence as a practice for quietening the mind (so silence is not only a zen or yoga practice!)

Here's a quotation from the Quaker tradition: "True silence is...to the spirit what sleep is to the body: nourishment and refreshment." (William Penn)

and another quotation from the Yoga tradition: "Through the portals of Silence, the healing sun of wisdom and peace will shine on you." (Paramahansa Yogananda)

Peace be with you!

[zendancer]

Nov 24, 2018 1:53:38 GMT -5 explorer said:

We Quakers know the supreme value of Silence as a practice for quietening the mind (so silence is not only a zen or yoga practice!)

Here's a quotation from the Quaker tradition: "True silence is...to the spirit what sleep is to the body: nourishment and refreshment." (William Penn)

and another quotation from the Yoga tradition: "Through the portals of Silence, the healing sun of wisdom and peace will shine on you." (Paramahansa Yogananda)

Peace be with you!

Amen.

[Xiao]

The Chan (禪) tradition in China, which of course later became the Japanese Zen, speaks about this greatly. There is 無心 or no-mind, but also 無念 or no-thought. Regardless of word/pointer, it's essentially a chinese way of pointing to ATA.


兀然無事坐、春夾草自生

"Sitting quietly, doing nothing, Spring comes, and the grass grows by itself."

[stardustpilgrim]

Nov 8, 2018 16:32:43 GMT -5 laughter said:

I've told all sorts of different fragments of this story many times, and you might have read a few of those, so one more can't hurt, and the great thing about a forum is that you don't have to read what disinterests you.

In 2009, in reading the "Power of Now", I followed Tolle's pointer's to "watch the thinker", and while at the time it didn't seem important, this was done in the context of his funny little suggestion up front that "You Are Not Your Mind". I'd never had any experience with meditation, and didn't realize at the time that I was taking up a form of it.

One day, even before I'd finished reading the book, I turned the brass hasp to the back door of my house to go out and stretch some modest yoga poses, and the reflection from it seemed to sort of come alive. Stepping out onto the small deck, the air, the trees in the yard, the sky, they all seemed so beautiful and vibrant. Everything seemed very different somehow -- like I was high on a drug like grass or even acid, but at the same time I was still completely lucid. This was the start of a few months of a marvelous and deeply profound bliss. I'd always loved skiing, swimming and all sorts of other pursuits that led to a naturally quiet state of mind, and this new feeling was like a sustained pleasure-high from a day doing that, but it didn't go away, and I was still working a white-collar law-related business and just going about the day-to-day. But it still didn't go away, and wasn't being caused by what I'd usually do to chase it.

I can't really recall the exact sequence during those weeks at this point, but I remember actually laughing at some of the thoughts that came and went -- some of the more outlandish fantasies or scenarios I'd find the ego chasing, stuff like "what if that guy I cut off on the road was connected, and the mafia decided to try to steal my house out from under me, where would I go?" I can't remember if that happened before or after the brass-hasp morning, but there was definitely a sudden collapse and cessation of the internal dialog at some point. This released an anxiety that I really didn't even know I'd had until it was gone.

I didn't even realize it until months later during the informing of mind, but during those months, I'd walk around for sustained periods with no "I-thought" whatsoever, even when I was talking to people and working. And there were a few other intense point-experiences -- a few of those happened later, after I started corresponding online -- but during those first few months there was no urge to share, just a happy camper sense "of course it's this way, hadn't it always been this way?". For about six months or more after this happened, I only related it to my wife. I knew that the change was substantial, and told her the book had completely changed my mind about spirituality. By that point I'd mellowed away from hard atheism into a condescending agnosticism, but did'nt have much interest in spirituality. Why I picked up Tolle in the first place is a different story.

In the months that followed after getting curious about it, I noticed the persistent return of the "I-thought". It was hard to miss because I was in the habit of watching the thinker by then, But now, it was mostly a focus on a curiosity about all sorts of versions of the questions I related here: "how is it that we share this commonality, if there is no objective, physical reality in which to share it, and how is it that 'Consciousness' can be undivided, if you are not me, and I am not you?", and while this spurred me to get more serious about deliberately pursuing a practice of silence, frankly, I saw self-reference as a sort of problem to be solved. Ultimately, as you've suggested elsewhere, the answer to that "problem" is found, in silence. At first I looked for both an explanation for what had happened, and a path of how to recreate and deepen the bliss-feeling and ditch self-reference. I looked for that in some of the new-age and science inspired ideas about the "oneness of consciousness" I'd been pursuing before Tolle, but silence is what reveals that sort of misdirection for what it is.

But that anxiety never returned, and what I came to understand eventually that what had really gone away on brass-hasp-day, much to my surprise, was the fear of death.

Where is laughter these days?

[stardustpilgrim]

Nov 8, 2018 10:46:06 GMT -5 zendancer said:

Someone recently PM'd me about the internal dialogue and about "mushin" (a state of internal silence), and I decided to write a quick post about this. Tolle and many other ND sages focus on the effect of the internal dialogue because they see it as a habit of mind that psychologically reinforces the consensus paradigm, and creates most of the psychological problems that people deal with. Byron Katie, as another example, uses four questions ("The Work") to help people see how their mind talk creates anger, resentment, feelings of low self worth, and many other "negative" mind states. Tolle, of course, suggests shifting attention away from mental talk to bodily sensations and whatever is happening in the present moment as a way of escaping the negative influences of mind talk and also as a way to have existential realizations.

Some people, like Gary Weber, have suddenly experience a total cessation of mind talk at a particular point in time, and they report that their level of functional effectiveness and creativity actually increased as a result of such internal silence. Tolle has noted that his kensho experience reduced the amount of his reflective thinking about 80%.

Unlike Weber, I have never had the internal dialogue suddenly cease, but because I practiced ATA-T for many years, mind talk gradually diminished, and became something that could be stopped at will. Early this morning, for example, I was driving east on an interstate highway toward a nearby city, and was listening to jazz on some earphones. As the color of the clouds in front of me began to glow orange, pink, and red due to sunlight rising behind distant hills, I decided to shut off the jazz and just watch the show. By shifting attention to the sky and everything else in the visual field, all mental talk ceased, and I drove along in total silence. Someone once asked me what it's like to look at the world in silence, and I told them that there's no real difference except that there's no mental commentary going on--a commentary that for most people usually takes precedence over consciously seeing whatever is in front of one's eyes.

SDP often talks about living life on autopilot. By this he means that the body continues to function intelligently even if there is daydreaming. Conscious attention to the "outside world" is not required because the body knows how to function intelligently even if the mind is reflecting about something that happened yesterday or is fantasizing about something that might happen tomorrow or is involved in an incessant commentary. Ironically, even if the mind is totally silent, the body still runs on autopilot because it knows what to do even if attention is focused upon direct sensory perception.

........../.........

{Mostly just using ZD's post as a "jumping off" place}.

Autopilot means doing something automatically. So yes you are right about the body continuing to function even if there is daydreaming, but it even more-so means the daydreaming itself. We don't do daydreaming, it just does itself, that's autopilot. Autopilot is like playing back something that has been recorded. If the mind is reflecting about something that happened yesterday or is fantasizing about something that might happen tomorrow or is involved in incessant commentary, that's autopilot. So thinking can be on autopilot, emotions/feelings can be on autopilot, and actions can be on autopilot, we can function completely on autopilot.

What I would juxtapose to autopilot is being conscious, or being present (or presence). We live on a continuum. On one end is being conscious, on the other end is operating on autopilot, that is, zero being-conscious. The five senses take in impressions, but they are mostly filtered through our conditioning, that is, they activate our conditioning and we in turn operate from our conditioning, that is, on autopilot. That's one end of the continuum. Or we can be conscious of this whole operation. And then things might happen in a different way.

So how to begin? First you have to see how things happen automatically, how thinking just happens, how feelings just happen, how actions just happen. Seeing this is the beginning of being conscious. It's a kind of catching oneself in the act. But it's not seeing this just once and then having a formula of how the body-mind operates in the world. That's another form of going on autopilot. The seeing has to be fresh and new each moment, that's the meaning of being conscious. So one second one can see one is operating on autopilot, and the next second cease to see it. Ceasing to see it is to once again be completely on autopilot, that is, not-being-conscious (or just not conscious). And then the thing is, no one can ever be conscious, automatically. That is, being conscious can never be automatic, one can never be automatically conscious. The very definition of being conscious is not being conscious automatically. So then thinking, feeling/emotion and actions are functions. These functions can operate automatically, that is, operate on autopilot. But being conscious is altogether different from thinking, feeling/emotion and bodily actions. That is, being conscious (consciousness) is different than the functions thinking, emotion/feeling and bodily actions.

One way of not being on autopilot is ATA-T. One form of ATA-T is the headless way. Now, headless is a pointer. (And you have to actually try to do it to come-to what's being pointed to). I would say to be headless is to be egoless. The - (minus) in ATA-T is to be egoless. Is entering the minus for very long easy? No, at least not in the beginning and possibly not for a long time. So, enter into the minus, and the next second the minus goes away, that is, ego jumps back into center stage. And then eventually you begin to love the minus, you love being minus ego. For a long time ego will jump back in trying to take charge, jump back up automatically. But if one loves being conscious, the minus will be entered into...one will keep coming back to the minus. So it is of great value to keep coming back to the minus.

The point of the tenth headless man story (thread) is that there is a kind of crossing over from being not-headless to being headless, from + to minus. The minus* is a plus that must be seen to be a plus, which becomes a minus (or the minus is the one who sees correctly, or more correctly, just seeing as things are). That's why the nine counted only nine*, but the headless man counted ten (IOW, nobody was lost in the current). And yes, the point of the story is a pointer, but an almost invisible pointer (and that's a pointer too).

Now, there's one (other) person on this forum who should understand (all) that. But then, that's where valuation comes in. IOW, do ~you~ value the + or the -?

[bluey]

Jan 31, 2019 16:26:56 GMT -5 stardustpilgrim said:

Nov 8, 2018 10:46:06 GMT -5 zendancer said:

Someone recently PM'd me about the internal dialogue and about "mushin" (a state of internal silence), and I decided to write a quick post about this. Tolle and many other ND sages focus on the effect of the internal dialogue because they see it as a habit of mind that psychologically reinforces the consensus paradigm, and creates most of the psychological problems that people deal with. Byron Katie, as another example, uses four questions ("The Work") to help people see how their mind talk creates anger, resentment, feelings of low self worth, and many other "negative" mind states. Tolle, of course, suggests shifting attention away from mental talk to bodily sensations and whatever is happening in the present moment as a way of escaping the negative influences of mind talk and also as a way to have existential realizations.

Some people, like Gary Weber, have suddenly experience a total cessation of mind talk at a particular point in time, and they report that their level of functional effectiveness and creativity actually increased as a result of such internal silence. Tolle has noted that his kensho experience reduced the amount of his reflective thinking about 80%.

Unlike Weber, I have never had the internal dialogue suddenly cease, but because I practiced ATA-T for many years, mind talk gradually diminished, and became something that could be stopped at will. Early this morning, for example, I was driving east on an interstate highway toward a nearby city, and was listening to jazz on some earphones. As the color of the clouds in front of me began to glow orange, pink, and red due to sunlight rising behind distant hills, I decided to shut off the jazz and just watch the show. By shifting attention to the sky and everything else in the visual field, all mental talk ceased, and I drove along in total silence. Someone once asked me what it's like to look at the world in silence, and I told them that there's no real difference except that there's no mental commentary going on--a commentary that for most people usually takes precedence over consciously seeing whatever is in front of one's eyes.

SDP often talks about living life on autopilot. By this he means that the body continues to function intelligently even if there is daydreaming. Conscious attention to the "outside world" is not required because the body knows how to function intelligently even if the mind is reflecting about something that happened yesterday or is fantasizing about something that might happen tomorrow or is involved in an incessant commentary. Ironically, even if the mind is totally silent, the body still runs on autopilot because it knows what to do even if attention is focused upon direct sensory perception.

........../.........

{Mostly just using ZD's post as a "jumping off" place}.

Autopilot means doing something automatically. So yes you are right about the body continuing to function even if there is daydreaming, but it even more-so means the daydreaming itself. We don't do daydreaming, it just does itself, that's autopilot. Autopilot is like playing back something that has been recorded. If the mind is reflecting about something that happened yesterday or is fantasizing about something that might happen tomorrow or is involved in incessant commentary, that's autopilot. So thinking can be on autopilot, emotions/feelings can be on autopilot, and actions can be on autopilot, we can function completely on autopilot.

What I would juxtapose to autopilot is being conscious, or being present (or presence). We live on a continuum. On one end is being conscious, on the other end is operating on autopilot, that is, zero being-conscious. The five senses take in impressions, but they are mostly filtered through our conditioning, that is, they activate our conditioning and we in turn operate from our conditioning, that is, on autopilot. That's one end of the continuum. Or we can be conscious of this whole operation. And then things might happen in a different way.

So how to begin? First you have to see how things happen automatically, how thinking just happens, how feelings just happen, how actions just happen. Seeing this is the beginning of being conscious. It's a kind of catching oneself in the act. But it's not seeing this just once and then having a formula of how the body-mind operates in the world. That's another form of going on autopilot. The seeing has to be fresh and new each moment, that's the meaning of being conscious. So one second one can see one is operating on autopilot, and the next second cease to see it. Ceasing to see it is to once again be completely on autopilot, that is, not-being-conscious (or just not conscious). And then the thing is, no one can ever be conscious, automatically. That is, being conscious can never be automatic, one can never be automatically conscious. The very definition of being conscious is not being conscious automatically. So then thinking, feeling/emotion and actions are functions. These functions can operate automatically, that is, operate on autopilot. But being conscious is altogether different from thinking, feeling/emotion and bodily actions. That is, being conscious (consciousness) is different than the functions thinking, emotion/feeling and bodily actions.

One way of not being on autopilot is ATA-T. One form of ATA-T is the headless way. Now, headless is a pointer. (And you have to actually try to do it to come-to what's being pointed to). I would say to be headless is to be egoless. The - (minus) in ATA-T is to be egoless. Is entering the minus for very long easy? No, at least not in the beginning and possibly not for a long time. So, enter into the minus, and the next second the minus goes away, that is, ego jumps back into center stage. And then eventually you begin to love the minus, you love being minus ego. For a long time ego will jump back in trying to take charge, jump back up automatically. But if one loves being conscious, the minus will be entered into...one will keep coming back to the minus. So it is of great value to keep coming back to the minus.

The point of the tenth headless man story (thread) is that there is a kind of crossing over from being not-headless to being headless, from + to minus. The minus* is a plus that must be seen to be a plus, which becomes a minus (or the minus is the one who sees correctly, or more correctly, just seeing as things are). That's why the nine counted only nine*, but the headless man counted ten (IOW, nobody was lost in the current). And yes, the point of the story is a pointer, but an almost invisible pointer (and that's a pointer too).

Now, there's one (other) person on this forum who should understand (all) that. But then, that's where valuation comes in. IOW, do ~you~ value the + or the -?

I don't know about the daydreaming thingamajig anymore. I know before This happened I was a constant daydreamer especially being a Pisces. March 14 any presents welcome 😂

But this silence and stillness even in sleep and working even though it's very ordinary now. Is just focused on the now. Earlier at 21 I couldn't understand the change that had happened. Why I approached teachers or the teachers appeared.

Even at work the work is much easier now I look at a style and someone enquiries or buys.

Before I would be in fear I need to do this or that. By doing this I can achieve this or that.

But fear has died.

Now it's more of a flow. The mind comes in gently informs and the rest appears.

I know my body was constantly tired after work but now it doesn't have that same feel to it. It's more relaxed.

Daydreaming has disappeared and I know as I was a born a Pisces.

From your story of the head count. Definitely the silence counts the other heads the parts of you and brings silence to them. That brings deeper realisations. As you are made more nothing and That makes itself known more in the apparent individual character.

As meher baba talked of the masts some who just lose it when they awaken can't function in this world and those who function in this world but both are in That

I know both sides as I needed a teacher to help bring me back into functioning in this world

But like meher baba said in both cases there is a slowing down of the mind and a functioning in pure silence and stillness. It's not the madness where the mind speeds up.

It's a madness if people who are identified with just the mind and habitual thinking. They may see you as mad as you know longer fit into their game. Or the pain body as Eckhart points out.

You have a new way of Being moving, experience and expression which when you are empty. You don't know what's appearing or where you are moving as That is in the directors chair doing the head count, moving the characters around. And you trust in That.

And that's a big jump for me in the past trust was a real problem as I used to having my hand slapped.

But probably being with Tantric teachers their wild behaviour has rubbed off.

[mamza]

It's fairly uncommon these days, but back when I practiced ATA (fanatically, in retrospect) I would occasionally have moments of such clarity that, like laughter, I felt I was somehow still on a drug and the trip never ended. Everything feels relocated somehow, and what I saw felt like a pastel painting. As I began to slowly shift away from ATA over the years, the sensation typically reoccurs when I hear certain songs that, for whatever reason, put me in the zone and make me feel like superman. Anything is possible in those moments, and every fiber of my being is ready to do it. Shortly after, my mind will kick back in and say, "If only I wasn't in this car!" Hahaha. Oh well.

I can't tell you how often I find myself dreaming about how amazing I am at math while I do my math homework.. just to bust out laughing at how absolutely false the idea is.

[krsnaraja]

The mind is silenced when one chants silently
from within the Hare Krsna
mantra. In the Narada Pancaratra 
it says, "All the Vedas, conclusions and
rituals are summarized into just 8 words,
Hare Krsna Hare Krsna Krsna Krsna Hare Hare."

[esponja]

Nov 8, 2018 10:46:06 GMT -5 zendancer said:

Someone recently PM'd me about the internal dialogue and about "mushin" (a state of internal silence), and I decided to write a quick post about this. Tolle and many other ND sages focus on the effect of the internal dialogue because they see it as a habit of mind that psychologically reinforces the consensus paradigm, and creates most of the psychological problems that people deal with. Byron Katie, as another example, uses four questions ("The Work") to help people see how their mind talk creates anger, resentment, feelings of low self worth, and many other "negative" mind states. Tolle, of course, suggests shifting attention away from mental talk to bodily sensations and whatever is happening in the present moment as a way of escaping the negative influences of mind talk and also as a way to have existential realizations.

Some people, like Gary Weber, have suddenly experience a total cessation of mind talk at a particular point in time, and they report that their level of functional effectiveness and creativity actually increased as a result of such internal silence. Tolle has noted that his kensho experience reduced the amount of his reflective thinking about 80%.

Unlike Weber, I have never had the internal dialogue suddenly cease, but because I practiced ATA-T for many years, mind talk gradually diminished, and became something that could be stopped at will. Early this morning, for example, I was driving east on an interstate highway toward a nearby city, and was listening to jazz on some earphones. As the color of the clouds in front of me began to glow orange, pink, and red due to sunlight rising behind distant hills, I decided to shut off the jazz and just watch the show. By shifting attention to the sky and everything else in the visual field, all mental talk ceased, and I drove along in total silence. Someone once asked me what it's like to look at the world in silence, and I told them that there's no real difference except that there's no mental commentary going on--a commentary that for most people usually takes precedence over consciously seeing whatever is in front of one's eyes.

SDP often talks about living life on autopilot. By this he means that the body continues to function intelligently even if there is daydreaming. Conscious attention to the "outside world" is not required because the body knows how to function intelligently even if the mind is reflecting about something that happened yesterday or is fantasizing about something that might happen tomorrow or is involved in an incessant commentary. Ironically, even if the mind is totally silent, the body still runs on autopilot because it knows what to do even if attention is focused upon direct sensory perception.

The primary advantage I see in becoming relatively free of mind talk is that it conserves energy, psychologically unifies body and mind, and, according to neuroscientists, gradually changes the way the brain processes input. It then becomes more likely to shift from what neuroscientists call "the default mode neural network" (which maintains the self-referential consensus paradigm) to what we might call "a unified perspective neural network."

Something I've noticed over the years in the field of construction is that workers who do not talk a great deal seem to have a lot more energy, are more connected to what is actually happening, and exhibit far more creativity than those who do. I don't know if this has ever been studied, but there seems to be a big difference between how people respond to life events if they primarily "live in their heads" versus those who don't. A fellow contractor and I were once discussing this, and he laughingly suggested that we should think up some ways to test the degree to which potential hires "lived in their heads." One suggestion that I remember was to have two workmen walk by a potential new hiree carrying some heavy boards. One of the workmen could purposely drop his end of the load, and the contractor could watch the response of the potential hiree who was standing nearby. If the new guy immediately jumped to offer help, that would be a good indication that he wasn't lost in reflective thought.

I don't know how many people on the forum have gone on silent retreats, but it's often amazing how much more energy one seems to have after spending a few days in relative silence with no talking and/or a fair amount of meditation. Long before I became a meditator I took a six week trip to Japan to look at architecture and Zen landscaping gardens. I spent almost every day walking many miles alone and just looking at what, for me, was a new environment and new things I'd never seen. When I returned to the states, I was astonished at the extremely-high level of energy I had and how creative I seemed to be. Only many years later did I realize that while on that trip I had been doing ATA-T almost around-the-clock. In many ways it was like going on a six week silent retreat. I'm just curious, but how many other people have experienced this sort of thing?

I listened to this today
m.youtube.com/watch?v=ntSgWktJ2nE

He spoke about how you gain energy when you are silent or placing attention on that which is not coming and going, as it takes a lot of energy to be a person.
He made a funny remark about most awakened have a silent mind and sometimes step into the personal I, whereas most people on the spiritual path have moments of silence.

It was good for me to listen to as I often fall asleep in my meditations which Mooji adressed. It’s the habit of the psyche, it doesn’t want me to wake up. Avoidance apparently. So the advice is to stay ‘on it’.. watch for it...