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Post by laughter on May 10, 2014 15:22:24 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. Just watched an interview with Elizabeth Lesser (co-founder of Omega) last night and she talked about the same thing, so I'll throw it in just cause of the serendipity. She said prayer is asking (I believe she was referring to desires of the heart) and meditation is listening for the answer. I haven't prayed, so I can't weigh in on that, but there's definitely listening in my meditations. A passive listening, if that makes any sense - no expectation. Yes it makes sense and I can relate it to a specific turning point in sitting practice: I'd arrived at the circumstance where subtly inviting the next thought while attention was on attention seemed to make a big difference -- and not that it was a new element, just one that had been sort of forgotten or fallen away. The practice had drifted toward a sort of rejection or refusal and introducing the subtle invitation corrected the drift. It's not that "the next thought" is what we're listening for ... I'd opine that conversation would have to venture far away from rational expression ... but the attitude of openness, a posture of receptiveness, is important. |
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Post by Deleted on May 10, 2014 15:30:04 GMT -5
What apocalyptic? and yes, I am happy with whatever model that appears lol You are still talking about Victoria's Secret models aren't you?  |
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Post by quinn on May 10, 2014 16:17:44 GMT -5
Just watched an interview with Elizabeth Lesser (co-founder of Omega) last night and she talked about the same thing, so I'll throw it in just cause of the serendipity. She said prayer is asking (I believe she was referring to desires of the heart) and meditation is listening for the answer. I haven't prayed, so I can't weigh in on that, but there's definitely listening in my meditations. A passive listening, if that makes any sense - no expectation. Yes it makes sense and I can relate it to a specific turning point in sitting practice: I'd arrived at the circumstance where subtly inviting the next thought while attention was on attention seemed to make a big difference -- and not that it was a new element, just one that had been sort of forgotten or fallen away. The practice had drifted toward a sort of rejection or refusal and introducing the subtle invitation corrected the drift. It's not that "the next thought" is what we're listening for ... I'd opine that conversation would have to venture far away from rational expression ... but the attitude of openness, a posture of receptiveness, is important. Yeah, I might use that suggestion in a meditation class. Oftentimes there's a rejection going on when the 'base thought' (haha) is "Meditation is supposed to still the mind". Understandably. It's one of the subtleties to sit without controlling anything, while at the same time noticing when you're lost in thought and returning to the breath. Any rejection revs the mind up. Engages the ego, I guess. |
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Post by laughter on May 10, 2014 16:41:56 GMT -5
Yes it makes sense and I can relate it to a specific turning point in sitting practice: I'd arrived at the circumstance where subtly inviting the next thought while attention was on attention seemed to make a big difference -- and not that it was a new element, just one that had been sort of forgotten or fallen away. The practice had drifted toward a sort of rejection or refusal and introducing the subtle invitation corrected the drift. It's not that "the next thought" is what we're listening for ... I'd opine that conversation would have to venture far away from rational expression ... but the attitude of openness, a posture of receptiveness, is important. Yeah, I might use that suggestion in a meditation class. Oftentimes there's a rejection going on when the 'base thought' (haha) is "Meditation is supposed to still the mind". Understandably. It's one of the subtleties to sit without controlling anything, while at the same time noticing when you're lost in thought and returning to the breath. Any rejection revs the mind up. Engages the ego, I guess. It's a sort of forgiveness and acceptance -- "oh! I was lost in a recursive loop ... ok, here now!". That's obviously just a comic little expression ... just a description of what happens far too quickly for those words to form.  |
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Post by zendancer on May 10, 2014 17:09:24 GMT -5
Yes, my experience too. When the mind or what is really the duality of a subject/object gets quiet, there is only wholeness, presence, awareness. Interestingly enough even when the duality of the mind is on full blast, there is still only wholeness, presence, awareness.Yes, and the story goes from over here that the times spent in stillness deepens and "increases the frequency" of that recognition. That's just a story though and as Reefs is always quick to point out if you're interested in what nonduality points toward you may as well sit on the couch pounding chips and beer to soap opera's as sit in meditation. This is another one of those conceptually irreconcilable apparent contradictions (paramigudox's) like free will/volition. That's the wall of the mind and thinking after hitting it is always a waste of time.  Yes, we've had the "practice is useless" discussion many times in the past, but after recently reading a section in Gary Weber's book concerning meditative practices, I'll probably revisit that issue in the near future. I think Weber makes some excellent points that would be worth getting some feedback on. |
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Post by laughter on May 10, 2014 17:28:58 GMT -5
Yes, and the story goes from over here that the times spent in stillness deepens and "increases the frequency" of that recognition. That's just a story though and as Reefs is always quick to point out if you're interested in what nonduality points toward you may as well sit on the couch pounding chips and beer to soap opera's as sit in meditation. This is another one of those conceptually irreconcilable apparent contradictions (paramigudox's) like free will/volition. That's the wall of the mind and thinking after hitting it is always a waste of time. Yes, we've had the "practice is useless" discussion many times in the past, but after recently reading a section in Gary Weber's book concerning meditative practices, I'll probably revisit that issue in the near future. I think Weber makes some excellent points that would be worth getting some feedback on. What you wrote last year about the "reassertion of the dominance of mind" has led to some interesting self-observation during that time, and specifically as it relates to practice. I look forward to that discussion. |
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Post by enigma on May 10, 2014 18:43:37 GMT -5
People can and some people do choose if and when to actively conjure thoughts, much of misunderstanding about such matters is related to the experiencer assuming that others have the same mindscapes that the experiencer has.. Without a thinker there is no thought, in the same way that without a vehicle there is no driver.. if the 'thinker/thought' seems like a problem, ask yourself why, there is no avoiding the actuality of that relationship, and.. the intention to separate the thinker from the thought is like trying to separate the wet from water, it creates an irreconcilable illusion/conflict as can be observed in this thread.. allow it to be what it is, and the conflict vanishes.. There is a significant amount of thinking about thoughts here at ST, a lot of false certainty.. i understand Leonard Jacobsen's description, it is consistent with my experience.. With the proper structure in the analogy, we can see that the thinker's existence depends on the existence of thought. 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. This (the post) is an example of clear thinking devoid of the recursion and bias we see so much of here. The mind is very active, but it's not rabidly forming illusions just by virtue of it's activity. |
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Post by enigma on May 10, 2014 19:05:17 GMT -5
Thoughts of the kinds you mentioned just don't occur very often after one becomes primarily focused on the NOW. It's not that one is oblivious to the horrors of man's inhumanities, but one stays focused most of the time upon the concrete events of whatever is happening here and now. IOW, abstract thoughts may occasionally arise, but one is more likely to be directly involved in everyday activities. Most of us do not live in a war zone, so our only exposure is through TV news. The so-to-speak "untrained mind" jumps around from idea to idea and repeats innumerable tape loops throughout the day. The sage's mind just doesn't do that. It is much stiller and stays focused on what is present. Thoughts about "good" "bad" "sick" "fair" "unfair" "okay" "not-okay," and other similar judgments ABOUT the world, do not arise. The sage is at peace, and s/he brings that peace to anyone within his/her sphere of influence. Thought experiments regarding boundaries involve thinking about the apparent boundaries that "divide" things from one another. The hand-wrist-arm boundaries are one example. Where does each thing begin and end, precisely? Another example is to lift a glass a water to one's mouth and drink it while contemplating precisely when the water ceases to be a glass of water and becomes "you." Or, consider air located in front of the mouth. Take a deep breath and contemplate what happened as you inhaled the air. When did the air cease to be air and become "you." Where is the boundary between the air and "you?" Or, imaginatively begin to remove parts from an automobile. When does it become impossible to imagine that the car is still a car? When the wheels have been removed? The body? The engine? Or, consider the growth of a tree. It begins as a small seed, sprouts, grows tendrils which become roots, sends up a shoot, becomes a tiny sapling, a small tree, a larger tree, etc. When does a sapling become a tree, precisely? Or, consider the tornadic nature of the human body. Food goes in, poop comes out, oxygen goes in, carbon dioxide comes out, moisture evaporates from the pores, cells divide, cells die, etc. There is no stability at all. The human body is like a mini-tornado, changing every moment, so what are we doing mentally that makes us think that it is a stable thing with fixed boundaries separate from the world around it? Or, make a fist, and then open your hand. Where did "your fist" go? In general, simply contemplate the nature of all apparent boundaries/distinctions. An automobile body seems solid, but the surface of the auto is continually oxidizing. It is literally disintegrating in front of our eyes, but at a very slow rate. After a million years, the automobile will be unrecognizable, so when does it cease to be an automobile? I like the first paragraph, but towards the end, it made me think about the monk who immolated over a political situation in his country - this came up last week here - I just can't help but wonder how that fits in with what you said. I like the human body / tornadic nature example -- but just like one of those Rube Goldberg mousetraps -- there's a method to the madness -- and all the 'events' that happen with one's body while it's alive (or dead, I guess) happen with militaristic precision. For some stupid reason, I can almost always see 'both sides'. And as far as the car goes, that's what primer or bondo and paint come in and yeah, it slows the process down unless there's someone to maintain it. So many things depending on other things... This is a good example of the opposite of what I said about Top's post. |
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Post by enigma on May 10, 2014 19:19:39 GMT -5
For ZD, I suspect that there are very few competing impulses to act. If they arise, there is not much emotional energy behind them that needs to be diffused, the decision between which impulse to act on is easy, and the inacted impulses are dissipated with relatively little noise from the commentator. I believe this model is a good description, allowing for variance of many factors to cover the range of experiences. Multiple competing impulses with high amounts of emotional energy overloading the system to create inaction due to conflicting action and the commentator noisily pregnant doges and moans about all the waves that can't be ridden. vs. One impulse to act on at a time (perhaps with significant gaps between them), low energy invested in the impulse, and a mostly silent commentator. ---------------------- So many people consider mind movement to be only what I call Gross Mind Movement, or the word based thoughts that arise that define a phenomena and then references those phenomena to an imagined self. But there are also the 'fine', or subtle movements of mind, like simple obesrving, and subtle familiarity/re-cognition. So for the sake of conversation, we can identify 'Gross' mind movements, and 'Subtle' mind movements.Gross mind movements are things like internal verbal cognitions, naming, and defining, also self referential thoughts that link internal verbal cognition of phenomena to an imagined self, and finally emotions, that are the result of self referential thoughts. Subtle mind movements are the simple sensory perceptions that we cognize without any movement into the Gross mind movements, and example of this kind of subtle mind movement is ATA-MT....which is really not minus ALL thought, because sensory perception itself is a kind of subtle thought or movement, rather, ATA-MT is really Atending the actual minus Gross Thought Movement....only deep or absolute Samadhi is trully ATA-MT because only absolute samadhi is without subtle movement as well as being absent gross mind movement. However, Subtle Mind Movement (SMM) without Gross Mind Movement can appear to be mental stillness in the same way that a car moving at 10 miles per hour can appear to be still if you pass it in another car doing 80 miles per hour. Subtle Mind Movements (SMM) still remain as long as there is cognition of a sensory environment...the sensory environment is itself a Subtle Mind Movement. Sensory perception often gives rise to another kind of SMM which includes a subtle movement into a kind of non-mentally-verbal familiarity/re-cognition, which can be 'paired back' with alertness and conciousness to simple, non-re-cognizing sensory perception without subtle familiarity, and without turning it into the more complex mind movement of an internal dialogue defining phenomena, and without moving in turn into the more complex mind movement of self referential thoughts that are referencing an imagined self juxtaposed against the now verbally define sensory phenomena. SMM compounds in complexity into GMM...but only if one is not being concious of the process, and only if there is some desire causing the movement toward more complexity. In my own experience, desire seems to be the key in the initiation of Gross Mind Movements arising out of Subtle Mind Movements. Awhile back, I realized that it was utterly impossible to truelly know anything as absolute truth or reality...the realization removed my desire for truth and knowing, and in the absence of that desire causing a movement of mind, most of my mind movement simply vanished....its frankly astounding how much of our, or at least my mind movement, was centered around the desire for knowledge and knowing...almost everything I did or thought was centered around an inate desire to 'know' or come to know. In the absence of that desire, the vast majority of mind movement just went away, stopped arising out of the stillness. To backtrack a little bit, this morning, this thread intitiated a question: Why does GMM arise from the natural mental stillness that seems to pervade my general being these days? So I did a little investigation, because, if the mind is still, why does it 'start' again? Then I had to look at for what reason there is mind movement arising from the stillness, what kind of mind movements are they and why do they arise? A short investigation revealed that the only reason mind movement arises out of the stillness, is because of a desire, and the resulting intentions that was 'set' regarding the fulfillment of those desires before the mind became still. Desire, which moves into intention or impulse, seems to initiate specific mind movements out of the stillness that support the fulfillment of the associated desires. In a different iteration of this moment, which we can call an earlier phase of my life for easy conversation, my biggest and prevailing desire was to 'know' something from every experience. When my desire to 'know' evaporated, the mind movements relative to this desire stopped arising, and for me, this turned out to be the cause of almost all my mind movement....I suspect it is also so with most but not all 'normal' people. These days, my mind is mostly still of all GMM, except with regard to some remaining desires and intentions that don't seem to require much GMM to endeveor to fulfil. I have a desire to have a stable financially secure home and living environment for my wife, and some security with regard to food and shelter, and to secure this in such a way that I can have lots of time spent being still, and still have my wife feel as though she has adequate companionship for her desires. This desire, and a few others, turns into an intention to do certain tasks relating to these desires...these intentions give rise to mind movement arising out of the stillness when mind movement is needed to fullfil the existing desires. The less desires there are, the less intentions there are, the less 'mental movement' there is. So you can be still in two different ways, one requires effort, the other requires a letting go...through alert conciousness you can arrest mental movement for a time, but as long as there is desire, movement will return, because it is VERY difficult (but not impossible) to maintain constant alert vigilence that arrests mind movement. The other option, is to let go of desires, without desires and the intention of action that arise from the desires, stillness is there waiting as the natural state....without desire, no effort is needed prevent mental movement from arising, because desire is the cause of Gross Mind Movement.All GMM is the result of desire compounding into intention and/or impulse. I agree that desire stimulates that kind of thought, and the desire to stop that thought splits the mind and leads to internal battle that will likely never be resolved. This is why clarity is useful; it modifies those desires. |
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Post by enigma on May 10, 2014 19:40:33 GMT -5
Here's an odd analogy. The 'me thought' is like having a child. Once we've given birth to it, we feel responsible for it's welfare. We want to protect it, nurture it, help it to learn and grow up to become a happy, responsible 'me thought'. We also enjoy it and laugh and play with it, and most of all we grow to love (and sometimes hate) it as it is the epitome of intimacy. If folks can identify with that analogy, it's useful to notice that it IS a relationship of one to another in which the 'other' bears a striking resemblance to Harvy the rabbit.  Harvey is maybe what some folks wind up with after they've made friends with their me and listened to him and soothed and stroked his fur for awhile ... you know -- let him calm down, fed a few carrots so that he's not so grumpy ..  "Miss Kelly, perhaps you'd like this flower. I seem to have misplaced my buttonhole ... Miss Kelly, you know, when you wear my flower you make it look beautiful." (kiki from the Tolle board's sig)Yeah, there seems to be a stage that a lot of peeps go through where they take that relationship with ego to the next level, and it gets kinda kinky.  |
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Post by enigma on May 10, 2014 19:42:26 GMT -5
He's probly just describing what's happening. There's no implication that he places himself as the volitional cause. Yeah, probably, I'm just saying thinking when necessary and not thinking when it isn't necessary isn't non-volition. It can be. Thinking can arise spontaneously when the situation calls for it. |
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Post by Deleted on May 10, 2014 21:14:23 GMT -5
Yeah, probably, I'm just saying thinking when necessary and not thinking when it isn't necessary isn't non-volition. It can be. Thinking can arise spontaneously when the situation calls for it. Thought arising spontaneously is non-volitional. A quote 'situation' is just another thought arising spontaneously. |
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Post by silence on May 10, 2014 23:21:22 GMT -5
Yes it makes sense and I can relate it to a specific turning point in sitting practice: I'd arrived at the circumstance where subtly inviting the next thought while attention was on attention seemed to make a big difference -- and not that it was a new element, just one that had been sort of forgotten or fallen away. The practice had drifted toward a sort of rejection or refusal and introducing the subtle invitation corrected the drift. It's not that "the next thought" is what we're listening for ... I'd opine that conversation would have to venture far away from rational expression ... but the attitude of openness, a posture of receptiveness, is important. Yeah, I might use that suggestion in a meditation class. Oftentimes there's a rejection going on when the 'base thought' (haha) is "Meditation is supposed to still the mind". Understandably. It's one of the subtleties to sit without controlling anything, while at the same time noticing when you're lost in thought and returning to the breath. Any rejection revs the mind up. Engages the ego, I guess. What if that base thought is actually true and the whole reason you drove somewhere to sit on the floor and pretend to be interested in your lungs? |
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Post by laughter on May 10, 2014 23:56:24 GMT -5
Harvey is maybe what some folks wind up with after they've made friends with their me and listened to him and soothed and stroked his fur for awhile ... you know -- let him calm down, fed a few carrots so that he's not so grumpy .. "Miss Kelly, perhaps you'd like this flower. I seem to have misplaced my buttonhole ... Miss Kelly, you know, when you wear my flower you make it look beautiful." (kiki from the Tolle board's sig) Yeah, there seems to be a stage that a lot of peeps go through where they take that relationship with ego to the next level, and it gets kinda kinky.  |
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Post by enigma on May 11, 2014 0:03:37 GMT -5
It can be. Thinking can arise spontaneously when the situation calls for it. Thought arising spontaneously is non-volitional. A quote 'situation' is just another thought arising spontaneously. Right, you said it isn't non-volitional. That's why we're talking about it. |
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Harvey is maybe what some folks wind up with after they've made friends with their me and listened to him and soothed and stroked his fur for awhile ... you know -- let him calm down, fed a few carrots so that he's not so grumpy .. 
