|
|
Post by laughter on May 14, 2014 20:46:03 GMT -5
A minute-to-minute habit of "watching the thinker" or "ATA'ing" or "refuse thought other than 'I AM'" or "arousing the mind without resting it on anything" can lead to moments of noticing and in those moments there's a chance to simply recognize what was being thought about as it was noticed. Not to make an enemy of thinking, not to judge it or suppress it, but instead just an opportunity to ask ... "well, WIBIGO??  " Yup, and really it's a simple thang. Follow a thought if you like, but don't follow it into mind. Follow it back to God. Why go back the way you came? Just take that natural curiosity, STFU, and expand out to infinity, which just means dropping all the boundaries that thought is in the biznis of creating. Seems some peeps take that absence of limitation -- the reference to infinity -- to mean so much more than it is ... all woo-woo and "out there beyond reach", gotta suffer to get it, "insight is required" etc. etc.. It's really just so shockingly simple, it is of course, quite funny. The cosmic joke!  |
|
|
|
Post by enigma on May 14, 2014 22:02:05 GMT -5
Yup, and really it's a simple thang. Follow a thought if you like, but don't follow it into mind. Follow it back to God. Why go back the way you came? Just take that natural curiosity, STFU, and expand out to infinity, which just means dropping all the boundaries that thought is in the biznis of creating. Seems some peeps take that absence of limitation -- the reference to infinity -- to mean so much more than it is ... all woo-woo and "out there beyond reach", gotta suffer to get it, "insight is required" etc. etc.. It's really just so shockingly simple, it is of course, quite funny. The cosmic joke! It seems inevitable that the simple gets complicated with words. Yer right, and yet I was trying to simplify it. Hehe. |
|
|
|
Post by laughter on May 14, 2014 22:08:28 GMT -5
Seems some peeps take that absence of limitation -- the reference to infinity -- to mean so much more than it is ... all woo-woo and "out there beyond reach", gotta suffer to get it, "insight is required" etc. etc.. It's really just so shockingly simple, it is of course, quite funny. The cosmic joke! It seems inevitable that the simple gets complicated with words. Yer right, and yet I was trying to simplify it. Hehe. Naw I thought your expression was quite trim ... it's just that there's just no a'countin' fer what peeps do with words once they hear'em. |
|
|
|
Post by etolle on Feb 17, 2019 22:46:55 GMT -5
I have often told people that prayer is talking to spirit, God, ancestors or what ever you wish to call it. And meditation is learning to listen to what they have to say. I tell people that they have to learn to experience what we call numb brain, that roar of silence between the ears, before this communication can even start. Some people get to this numb brain place easy and some have to work at it for years. The sweat lodge is the only short cut that I know of to help people experience this silence is just a few hours. I tell people if they want to learn to meditate they need to remember this feeling and learn to return to this place. It is a great place to get answers. The only problem that I have is remembering that I had a question. Real spitit stuff is real simple, if a six year old cannot understand it, it might not be worth saying. Never prayed very much for most of my life until in my thirties my wife would occasionally ask me to pray with her .. looking back it was likely her way of trying to interest me in Christianity. The part of any prayer where one asks for something always has struck me as sardonically amusing and brings to mind Joplin's "Mercedez Benz", so I've always been inclined to keep that part very light, general and altruistic ... and I always insisted on praying to "whatever is". The moment of mental stillness after any prayer did catch my attention though, I must admit. Meditation is simply prayer without asking for something or apologizing for anything. thanks laughter,might use that meditation definition at next aa meeting |
|
|
|
Post by laughter on Feb 19, 2019 18:22:10 GMT -5
Never prayed very much for most of my life until in my thirties my wife would occasionally ask me to pray with her .. looking back it was likely her way of trying to interest me in Christianity. The part of any prayer where one asks for something always has struck me as sardonically amusing and brings to mind Joplin's "Mercedez Benz", so I've always been inclined to keep that part very light, general and altruistic ... and I always insisted on praying to "whatever is". The moment of mental stillness after any prayer did catch my attention though, I must admit. Meditation is simply prayer without asking for something or apologizing for anything. thanks laughter,might use that meditation definition at next aa meeting my pleasure.  |
|
|
|
Post by etolle on Feb 19, 2019 20:46:07 GMT -5
thanks laughter,might use that meditation definition at next aa meeting my pleasure. tremendous wisdom/experience/wakin up, in these old threads |
|
|
|
Post by etolle on Feb 19, 2019 21:01:24 GMT -5
Yup, and really it's a simple thang. Follow a thought if you like, but don't follow it into mind. Follow it back to God. Why go back the way you came? Just take that natural curiosity, STFU, and expand out to infinity, which just means dropping all the boundaries that thought is in the biznis of creating. Seems some peeps take that absence of limitation -- the reference to infinity -- to mean so much more than it is ... all woo-woo and "out there beyond reach", gotta suffer to get it, "insight is required" etc. etc.. It's really just so shockingly simple, it is of course, quite funny. The cosmic joke! this right here is a fantastic sharing by both you fellers.. these newer threads just do not resonate with me..but I did not know it was that simple until I experienced it rather than try to figure it out with the mind..i tried to "figure it out"for years....great stuff |
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Feb 21, 2019 11:27:13 GMT -5
Seems some peeps take that absence of limitation -- the reference to infinity -- to mean so much more than it is ... all woo-woo and "out there beyond reach", gotta suffer to get it, "insight is required" etc. etc.. It's really just so shockingly simple, it is of course, quite funny. The cosmic joke! this right here is a fantastic sharing by both you fellers.. these newer threads just do not resonate with me..but I did not know it was that simple until I experienced it rather than try to figure it out with the mind..i tried to "figure it out"for years....great stuff Some times the truth is dangerous. Heads will explode! |
|
|
|
Post by krsnaraja on Feb 21, 2019 12:03:42 GMT -5
this right here is a fantastic sharing by both you fellers.. these newer threads just do not resonate with me..but I did not know it was that simple until I experienced it rather than try to figure it out with the mind..i tried to "figure it out"for years....great stuff Some times the truth is dangerous. Heads will explode! The mind are laden with mines. These mines are truths. Be careful not to step on one. It will blow your mind. |
|
frustratedwanter
Full Member
Apparently I posted something in 2020. I don't think that's what I'm looking for but what ta hey?
Posts: 150
|
Post by frustratedwanter on Apr 22, 2019 1:04:20 GMT -5
Top wrote, "Trees grow, but there is no grower of trees. Water flows but there is no flow-er of water. Wind blows, but there is no blower of the wind. The heart pumps, but there is no pumper of the heart. Discrete doers are a product of our mind trying to reason and cope with the perceived world. The mind thinks, but there is no thinker behind the mind." I would say that the grower of trees, the flow-er of water, the blower of wind, the pumper of blood, and the thinker of thoughts is the aware, unified, and intelligent cosmos. Call it "God" or "what is" or "the ground of all being." THAT is the only real do-er, but when it manifests as human beings, it usually imagines that it is a separate entity interacting with an external world. It fails to see that it is BOTH the entire cosmos AS WELL AS a particular human being through which the cosmos is momentarily manifesting. It is pretty easy to do thought experiments that reveal that all boundaries are abstract, artificial, and illusory, but such experiments have no power to make us feel the unity, or boundarylessness, of "what is." There has to be significant freedom from the mind before it is possible to feel that we are flowing like water through the river of life. No inside, no outside, no cognition, no impulse, no intention, no motive, no purpose, and no knowingness need arise in the emptiness of whatever is happening. Seeing, being, and acting are one flowingness in the same way that trees grow, water flows, and the heart pumps blood. Yeah, Top's descriptors are rather poetic...and all of this is very intriguing. I can't 'help' (?) the thoughts about when people do sick things - or they just get sick....wars, violence, etc. It's pretty darned hard for me to see these as 'okay' and I just don't know what to make of 'it all'. I'd like a couple examples of these 'thought experiments' you mentioned. The only things that come to mind are that headless exercise (I forget the guy's name but I saw the vid) or zen koans..... |
|
frustratedwanter
Full Member
Apparently I posted something in 2020. I don't think that's what I'm looking for but what ta hey?
Posts: 150
|
Post by frustratedwanter on Apr 22, 2019 2:35:32 GMT -5
Think I'm doing this right. Been away....Seems like often thought is just something running in the background, irrelevant to whatever I'm doing. And I DO MEAN absolutely irrelevant to whatever I'm doing. Like the sound of rain outside. I couldn't say that I am silent or I am not silent. I know I'm thinking if I take a look. If I don't attend to it, who cares? These independently running thoughts for me are usually some sort of historical grievances, childhood wounds, whatever. I imagine that this is the "me". They don't affect me at all, just crap running in the background, the rain outside. I do notice sometimes, maybe many times, and I'll ask myself "What does THAT have to do with anything here?" Then I suppose the rain stops for awhile, I go back about doing whatever business. And if it starts raining again? Maybe I notice, maybe I don't, who cares? If I'm not getting wet, not being affected or influenced, it doesn't matter. I got really good at suppressing thought. Really, really good. And it's a tremendously frustrating experience having this little Nazi in the head that thinks I should for some reason be absolutely without thought. Clamping down, clamping down, clamping down. (Paul Hedderman? "Silence is not the absence of sound. Silence is the absence of YOU!") Recently I've been telling myself: "It's O.K. to think! You can LET yourself THINK!" Just the other day it was "You know? If you let yourself think life might even be interesting again." I have to say. This is a newish thing for me but I'm feeling lighter. Like Mr. Hedderman says, it's all about traveling lighter. Going back to "I know I'm thinking if I look." There's this ringing in my ears. Om or tinnitus, depending on who I ask. I would say it's constant 'cause it's always there when I look. It's here right now. Most of the day, I'm not attending to it, as far as I'm concerned it's not there. Just doesn't matter. That's all folks! Good to be back.
|
|
|
|
Post by satchitananda on Apr 22, 2019 2:49:16 GMT -5
Yeah that's a lot of thinking.
|
|
