|
|
Post by stardustpilgrim on Feb 22, 2015 13:22:22 GMT -5
Hi Tzu: We may be talking about the same thing, but what I was describing was a direct seeing that the sense of selfhood had vanished. The understanding of what was going on occurred after the direct seeing. There remained a body, but there was no longer a "me" inhabiting the body as I had previously imagined. As I've noted before, prior to that day I had had what might be called a "hard-core" sense of selfhood, as if I were a little person inside the head directing the body to do certain things. On that particular day the "little inside guy" disappeared, and it became obvious that the cosmos was the only actor behind all appearances. For all I know, someone with a "soft-core" sense of selfhood might have a different kind of realization. I certainly agree that the "willingness to let it all go" frees the mind from attachment and creates a greater opportunity for clarity. Today, I use language like everybody else, and I talk about things and events in casual conversation as if they were separate, but having directly seen the unity behind all apparent separateness, I never forget that separateness is a kind of cognitive illusion, and that no real boundaries exist except in imagination. As noted before, some boundaries are obviously imaginary, such as lines of longitude and latitude, but some boundaries are not so obvious, such as the boundary separating two rocks from each other. As a humorous aside (I think I read this in an Alan Watts book), the English calendar at one time was seriously flawed (maybe about 1500AD?), and the king's advisors recommended rectifying the flaw by changing an upcoming date by 10 days or so. IOW, the king announced that May 1 would become May 11, or something like that. Farmers concluded that the king was thereby shortening their lives by ten days, and there was a riot. Such is the power of mistaking a cognitive grid for reality. ha ha. I can relate....somewhat. When I went to work for my last company, we got paid the week we worked, the pay week was from Friday to the following Thursday, we turned in our time Thursday afternoon, we got paid on Fridays. But eventually the check-writer (Boss/company owner's wife) felt rushed and the pay period was changed to Thursday to the following Wednesday. So, the week of the change we lost a day's pay (being paid for four days instead of five days). .....Even though I knew I would eventually get that day back, it felt like loosing a days pay (I worked my normal five days but got paid for only four days)..... ........Yea, I know, most companies hold back the first week's pay anyway.....but it felt like loosing a day's pay, and that day's pay was missing ...for years.......... But last year I finally got that day's pay back.......  |
|
|
|
Post by laughter on Feb 22, 2015 13:27:29 GMT -5
A still mind is a hyper-minder goal. Only an overworked monkey mind would find a still mind interesting. You are not the mind. That's all you have to know. Once you own that knowing, you're done with the spiritual circus and the 'still mind good/ active mind bad' strawman. Get involved and let it rip! Yuppers, mind isn't a problem to begin with, though maybe we could say the unceasing interest in the thoughts is. As such, we're dealing with interest rather than trying to do something directly with thoughts. 'Still the mind' as a prescription is a craps, as anyone who has tried to still the mind knows. Thoughts arise spontaneously, and one is only aware of them after the fact of their appearance. Trying to stop them is an exercise in futility, which is useful if one needs to learn something about futility, but it's not going to still the mind. 'Still the mind' as a pointer is useful, but as you suggest, what it's pointing to is the realization that you are not the mind, or any of the other things that mind tells you that you are. As the interest wanes, the monkey mind calms spontaneously, since it's the interest in the thoughts that creates all the activity in the first place. Calming the mind is useful so that some clarity of seeing may emerge, but once it does, it doesn't matter if thinking is happening or not. What appears to happen is that the will to focus attention becomes engaged. |
|
|
|
Post by laughter on Feb 22, 2015 13:44:35 GMT -5
I've been thinking about this still mind bizniz... What I've taken from a lot of talk about it is that it's a goal to obtain (but I could be wrong). Is a non-still mind seen as a problem? Do you need to move from having a non-still mind to a still mind? Do you have a still mind, or does still mind have a you? I can see how the persuit of a still mind could create a whole lot of gear grinding and frustration... (I know because I've poured years of effort into it!!! heh heh heh  ) Once you've got a still mind can you lose it? Earnest: Those are good questions, but as Reefs noted, the effort to attain a still mind is a split-mind activity. Forty years ago, when I initially read the Carlos Castenada books, the Yaqui sorcerer discussed the importance of stopping the internal dialogue, and I wondered if that sort of thing was possible. The idea of attaining a silent mind had great appeal because this body/mind's internal dialogue had run amok--sort of a monkey-mind on steroids. Ha ha. A few years later, I started meditation specifically to try to get some peace of mind--to get some freedom from what Tolle has called "the compulsion of incessant thought." After doing several forms of breath awareness exercises, I had an insight one day after noticing a building that I passed all the time on the road but had never noticed before. I realized that meditation (non-conceptual awareness) was a different way of interacting with the world than through thoughts and it seemed to increase my awareness of the world around me. At that time I saw thoughts as "bad" and the absence of thoughts as "good." This led to increasing amounts of formal meditation and the informal pursuit of ATA-MT during the day. After five months, I began falling into states of absolute samadhi while meditating. I had no idea what was happening, of course, or even that such a state of mind was possible, but there was no denying the strangeness of it, the somatic phenomena associated with entry into it, the feeling of becoming internally unified, the disappearance of selfhood, the absence of selfhood while in that state, and the pure awareness that continued without any content. Following three successive nights of deep samadhi, I had a CC experience which resulted in numerous realizations and answered several important existential questions that had been a quandary for many years. Afterwards, I theorized that the answers to all existential questions exist "within" at some level of mind (using the word "mind" in the broadest possible sense). I therefore concluded that a silent mind would yield more insights and realizations than a busy talkative mind, and my goal was to attain an increasingly silent mind through the pursuit of formal sitting meditation and informal ATA-MT during the day. I even put notes in my truck and office containing phrases like, "Don't think!" and "What is the mind doing now?" to remind myself to shift attention away from thoughts to what could be seen, heard, or felt. My theory about the value of attaining a silent mind seemed to be valid because as the mind became increasingly silent, answers to more and more of my existential questions appeared. I began to trust that I could find the answer to any existential question simply by contemplating it in silence. Fast forward several years. The mind had ceased to be a problem, and I could stop thinking at will. All of my existential questions had been answered, except one. My final question, in essence, was, "How can I stay in a unity-conscious state of mind permanently?" Because this one issue remained unresolved, and because I was still seeking an answer to this question, I continued to go on long hikes while practicing ATA-MT. After one such solitary hiking trip in the mountains, I had an emotional experience of deep gratitude. Afterwards, I felt light and buoyant. A few hours later, I happened to look within and discovered that my prior sense of selfhood had vanished without a trace. I saw, without any doubt, that my past identity as a person had been a figment of imagination, and my true identity was the cosmos. The cosmos had fallen under the illusion of being a separate entity, and now the illusion had collapsed. This ended the body/mind's search for truth, and there ceased to be a sense of "inside" or "outside." Inside and outside had become one, and life became a kind of continuous flow, or unfolding. From that point on, it no longer mattered whether the mind was silent or busy because there was no longer a person seeking anything or trying to control the mind in an effort to attain anything. Later, it became obvious that trying to control the mind, or silence the mind, had been a split-mind activity based upon the illusion that I was a person at the center of life directing various activities. In retrospect it became obvious that an imaginary person cannot do anything, and that what one IS is the only actor on the stage. Bottom line? Freedom from thought seems to be correlated with insights about what's going on and with the penetration of cognitive illusions. Some people may need more internal silence than others for insights to occur. Each human being is unique. Gary Weber pursued a fairly intense course of meditation and yoga for several years, and suddenly one day out of the blue his internal dialogue totally ceased, and he realized what was going on. Other people have reported the same sort of thing. The key seems to be persistent ATA-MT without expectation or self-checking. Unlike Weber, the internal dialogue of this body/mind never ceased, but the issue of internal silence ceased to matter. Sometimes the mind is talkative and sometimes it is silent, and it makes no difference one way or the other because there is no longer an idea that anything needs to be controlled in any way. I hope this long-winded explanation helps answer some of the questions you raised. About two years after I'd read Tolle and months after the woo-woo fireworks had died down and the hyperspin about "whaaaat was that??  " was in full bloom I had an interesting few turns out on the slopes.  The days on the snow all seem to pass so quickly, and, along the lines of that final existential question you had, I wanted to be there fully present for every moment. At the end of one particular run, during the slow-down on the runnout, I sort of lamented that I hadn't experienced the run fully and completely. I resolved that on the next I was going to use every practice technique I'd cultivated up to that point so that I wouldn't miss even one single instant of the slide.  (** straight face **) Like three turns in from the top, as soon as there was just a little bit of pitch and some turned-up snow, that got dangerous. It was very very funny, really. That little experiment made it very clear in that instant the distinction between the pattern of thought and emotion that would want to be present, and ... presence. The cautionary ideas about "self-checking" seem to me to be directed at that pattern, and yes, any effort to still the mind is split-mind, but self-inquiry happens, and the conditioning that generates the patterns of thought and emotion that we can become conscious of through that process are billions of years in the making ... so even if the process is seen for what it is, even if what is at the center of it is seen for illusion, some illusions are very persistent and very convincing. Bottom line is that just as there's nothing wrong with an active mind, there ain't no problem with a still mind neither. ... meditation happens. |
|
|
|
Post by laughter on Feb 22, 2015 13:53:26 GMT -5
I never forget that separateness is a kind of cognitive illusion, and that no real boundaries exist except in imagination. From corresponding with peeps on the internet and reading about this stuff I've concluded that this sort of experience is very literally unforgettable, and that there's really no way back from it. Another word for this is obviously: transformative. Depending on the conditions that were the context for it though, some people do make the effort to turn around and forget. |
|
|
|
Post by laughter on Feb 22, 2015 14:05:42 GMT -5
Hi Tzu: We may be talking about the same thing, but what I was describing was a direct seeing that the sense of selfhood had vanished. The understanding of what was going on occurred after the direct seeing. There remained a body, but there was no longer a "me" inhabiting the body as I had previously imagined. As I've noted before, prior to that day I had had what might be called a "hard-core" sense of selfhood, as if I were a little person inside the head directing the body to do certain things. On that particular day the "little inside guy" disappeared, and it became obvious that the cosmos was the only actor behind all appearances. For all I know, someone with a "soft-core" sense of selfhood might have a different kind of realization. I certainly agree that the "willingness to let it all go" frees the mind from attachment and creates a greater opportunity for clarity. Today, I use language like everybody else, and I talk about things and events in casual conversation as if they were separate, but having directly seen the unity behind all apparent separateness, I never forget that separateness is a kind of cognitive illusion, and that no real boundaries exist except in imagination. As noted before, some boundaries are obviously imaginary, such as lines of longitude and latitude, but some boundaries are not so obvious, such as the boundary separating two rocks from each other. As a humorous aside (I think I read this in an Alan Watts book), the English calendar at one time was seriously flawed (maybe about 1500AD?), and the king's advisors recommended rectifying the flaw by changing an upcoming date by 10 days or so. IOW, the king announced that May 1 would become May 11, or something like that. Farmers concluded that the king was thereby shortening their lives by ten days, and there was a riot. Such is the power of mistaking a cognitive grid for reality. ha ha. That would be funny if it weren't so frighteningly insane. 
Nooo! That's what's so d@mned funny 'bout it!  ... just imagining the conversations in the town squares is quite hilarious, and really, the farmers were probly just waitin' for some excuse to hand-out the pitchforks. ... Kings tend to be greedy and corrupt, as power tends to have that effect on peeps. |
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Feb 22, 2015 14:20:16 GMT -5
I've been thinking about this still mind bizniz... What I've taken from a lot of talk about it is that it's a goal to obtain (but I could be wrong). Is a non-still mind seen as a problem? Do you need to move from having a non-still mind to a still mind? Do you have a still mind, or does still mind have a you? I can see how the persuit of a still mind could create a whole lot of gear grinding and frustration... (I know because I've poured years of effort into it!!! heh heh heh ) Once you've got a still mind can you lose it? Hi earnest, good questions. To me stilling the mind was an attempt at mind control. I have struggled in the past through meditation to restrain my mind and found it to be impossible. It's like the old split mind thing again. Since my mind is inseparable from the meditator, my mind was never really convinced of the need to restrain itself, no matter how wonderful the reason for doing so. |
|
|
|
Post by enigma on Feb 22, 2015 14:29:55 GMT -5
Hi Tzu: We may be talking about the same thing, but what I was describing was a direct seeing that the sense of selfhood had vanished. The understanding of what was going on occurred after the direct seeing. There remained a body, but there was no longer a "me" inhabiting the body as I had previously imagined. As I've noted before, prior to that day I had had what might be called a "hard-core" sense of selfhood, as if I were a little person inside the head directing the body to do certain things. On that particular day the "little inside guy" disappeared, and it became obvious that the cosmos was the only actor behind all appearances. For all I know, someone with a "soft-core" sense of selfhood might have a different kind of realization. I certainly agree that the "willingness to let it all go" frees the mind from attachment and creates a greater opportunity for clarity. Today, I use language like everybody else, and I talk about things and events in casual conversation as if they were separate, but having directly seen the unity behind all apparent separateness, I never forget that separateness is a kind of cognitive illusion, and that no real boundaries exist except in imagination. As noted before, some boundaries are obviously imaginary, such as lines of longitude and latitude, but some boundaries are not so obvious, such as the boundary separating two rocks from each other. As a humorous aside (I think I read this in an Alan Watts book), the English calendar at one time was seriously flawed (maybe about 1500AD?), and the king's advisors recommended rectifying the flaw by changing an upcoming date by 10 days or so. IOW, the king announced that May 1 would become May 11, or something like that. Farmers concluded that the king was thereby shortening their lives by ten days, and there was a riot. Such is the power of mistaking a cognitive grid for reality. ha ha. I can relate....somewhat. When I went to work for my last company, we got paid the week we worked, the pay week was from Friday to the following Thursday, we turned in our time Thursday afternoon, we got paid on Fridays. But eventually the check-writer (Boss/company owner's wife) felt rushed and the pay period was changed to Thursday to the following Wednesday. So, the week of the change we lost a day's pay (being paid for four days instead of five days). .....Even though I knew I would eventually get that day back, it felt like loosing a days pay (I worked my normal five days but got paid for only four days)..... ........Yea, I know, most companies hold back the first week's pay anyway.....but it felt like loosing a day's pay, and that day's pay was missing ...for years.......... But last year I finally got that day's pay back....... Your pay for that day was just deferred until the next payday. Same for every payday after that. It's odd to look at it like they didn't pay you for that day until years later.  |
|
|
|
Post by enigma on Feb 22, 2015 14:31:49 GMT -5
Yuppers, mind isn't a problem to begin with, though maybe we could say the unceasing interest in the thoughts is. As such, we're dealing with interest rather than trying to do something directly with thoughts. 'Still the mind' as a prescription is a craps, as anyone who has tried to still the mind knows. Thoughts arise spontaneously, and one is only aware of them after the fact of their appearance. Trying to stop them is an exercise in futility, which is useful if one needs to learn something about futility, but it's not going to still the mind. 'Still the mind' as a pointer is useful, but as you suggest, what it's pointing to is the realization that you are not the mind, or any of the other things that mind tells you that you are. As the interest wanes, the monkey mind calms spontaneously, since it's the interest in the thoughts that creates all the activity in the first place. Calming the mind is useful so that some clarity of seeing may emerge, but once it does, it doesn't matter if thinking is happening or not. What appears to happen is that the will to focus attention becomes engaged. It's mostly appearance, though. |
|
|
|
Post by enigma on Feb 22, 2015 14:36:41 GMT -5
That would be funny if it weren't so frighteningly insane.
Nooo! That's what's so d@mned funny 'bout it! ... just imagining the conversations in the town squares is quite hilarious, and really, the farmers were probly just waitin' for some excuse to hand-out the pitchforks. ... Kings tend to be greedy and corrupt, as power tends to have that effect on peeps. That's where keeping the subjects ignorant can backfire on the king. |
|
|
|
Post by earnest on Feb 22, 2015 14:38:10 GMT -5
Thanks everyone for the replies, I feel very fortunate to be here. I need to head off to work so can't get into much of a discussion now. Laughter, I'm interested in those two questions you mentioned. why I asked (the op) was is that I can stop thinking at will, and that's nice, but whether I'm thinking or not isn't anywhere near as important as it used to be. Everything is easier without the mental commentary, but it's also easier without being bothered if the mental commentary is happening. And like peeps have said, when the bothering stops things go quiet by themselves!! |
|
|
|
Post by zendancer on Feb 22, 2015 14:40:07 GMT -5
My experience, like that of Leonard Jacobsen, Gary Weber, and others, has been somewhat different regarding this issue. With persistent shifting of attention away from thoughts, it eventually becomes possible to stop thinking at will. I consider this similar to how people learn to speed read. With practice a speed reader learns to look, see, and understand words without any verbal mental repetition of the words. A person who constantly shifts attention away from thoughts to direct sensory perception eventually becomes able to look, see, and understand the world in total mental silence. Thoughts once again arise when attention upon direct seeing is relaxed. In Weber's case, and I don't have any reason to doubt his claim, the internal dialogue never returned after it ceased. I don't consider the ability to remain mentally silent, at will, for extended periods of time particularly important, but it is certainly attainable for some people. Right, as long as one is engaging the practice, it works. Ultimately, though, didn't your thinking relax because you lost interest in most of the thoughts? We may be talking about two different things. In the same way that a speed reader does not lose the ability to speed-read once it is attained, one who attains the ability to stop thinking retains that ability. The speed reader does not usually return to the mental verbalization of words because it is understood to be unnecessary as well as a hindrance, and the person who becomes able to stop reflecting may cease to reflect because it is also understood to be unnecessary. However, in my case, the idea of not thinking, as a way to attain a permanent state of unity consciousness, ceased to be an influence as soon as it was realized that the one seeking such an attainment did not exist. From a private communication with Weber it appears that his usual self-referential internal dialogue suddenly ceased on a particular day. It was more a case of that dialogue becoming an unnecessary usage of mind than a loss of interest in it (although one could certainly see those statements as similar). Tolle also comes to mind in this regard. He claims that after his CC experience 80% of his thinking simply ceased, and he attributed that cessation of thought to the reason for his consequent state of happiness and contentment. My main point was that the internal dialogue can stop. In my case I had wondered if it was possible for that to happen, and I later discovered that it was. It's a minor point, but I mentioned it only because it is generally assumed that thinking cannot stop. |
|
|
|
Post by tzujanli on Feb 22, 2015 15:25:58 GMT -5
Right, as long as one is engaging the practice, it works. Ultimately, though, didn't your thinking relax because you lost interest in most of the thoughts? We may be talking about two different things. In the same way that a speed reader does not lose the ability to speed-read once it is attained, one who attains the ability to stop thinking retains that ability. The speed reader does not usually return to the mental verbalization of words because it is understood to be unnecessary as well as a hindrance, and the person who becomes able to stop reflecting may cease to reflect because it is also understood to be unnecessary. However, in my case, the idea of not thinking, as a way to attain a permanent state of unity consciousness, ceased to be an influence as soon as it was realized that the one seeking such an attainment did not exist. From a private communication with Weber it appears that his usual self-referential internal dialogue suddenly ceased on a particular day. It was more a case of that dialogue becoming an unnecessary usage of mind than a loss of interest in it (although one could certainly see those statements as similar). Tolle also comes to mind in this regard. He claims that after his CC experience 80% of his thinking simply ceased, and he attributed that cessation of thought to the reason for his consequent state of happiness and contentment. My main point was that the internal dialogue can stop. In my case I had wondered if it was possible for that to happen, and I later discovered that it was. It's a minor point, but I mentioned it only because it is generally assumed that thinking cannot stop. Thinking can and does stop, which is why many people don't realize it, their frame of reference is limited by attachment to the thoughts.. Mostly, unless i, or the situation happening, invoke thinking, i am simply experiencing the happening, so i affirm your understanding that 'internal dialogue' can stop.. |
|
|
|
Post by laughter on Feb 22, 2015 15:42:05 GMT -5
What appears to happen is that the will to focus attention becomes engaged. It's mostly appearance, though. In one sense it's a matter of degree, because for some peeps, even if the nature of the appearance is of an individual separate from what appears to them, then they can experience something like a deferred payday of the mind. In another sense it's not, because once the true nature of that separation is known, attention and interest no longer come with a price. |
|
|
|
Post by laughter on Feb 22, 2015 15:44:51 GMT -5
Nooo! That's what's so d@mned funny 'bout it! ... just imagining the conversations in the town squares is quite hilarious, and really, the farmers were probly just waitin' for some excuse to hand-out the pitchforks. ... Kings tend to be greedy and corrupt, as power tends to have that effect on peeps. That's where keeping the subjects ignorant can backfire on the king. Well yeah, that's 'cause everyone really actually knows what's goin' on ... all the time! .. and it's only just a game they play with themselves that it's ever otherwise.  |
|
|
|
Post by laughter on Feb 22, 2015 15:54:52 GMT -5
Thanks everyone for the replies, I feel very fortunate to be here. I need to head off to work so can't get into much of a discussion now. Laughter, I'm interested in those two questions you mentioned. why I asked (the op) was is that I can stop thinking at will, and that's nice, but whether I'm thinking or not isn't anywhere near as important as it used to be. Everything is easier without the mental commentary, but it's also easier without being bothered if the mental commentary is happening. And like peeps have said, when the bothering stops things go quiet by themselves!! I understand the first part of this but not the 2nd. Do you mean to say without being bothered with the question as to whether or not the mind is still? Do you mean it's easier not to concern yourself with the sort of "self-checking" that ZD mentioned? If you can stop your thinking at will you don't need my questions. ... I would have asked them separately otherwise, but, they are: (1) Does thinking come naturally to a healthy person who would be considered by most other people to be well-adjusted? (2) Is it possible to pause this process, and what's the effect? |
|
) 
(** straight face **) 
... just imagining the conversations in the town squares is quite hilarious, and really, the farmers were probly just waitin' for some excuse to hand-out the pitchforks. 
