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Post by zendancer on Dec 9, 2019 13:08:53 GMT -5
Didya' notice him kidding me 'bout goin' to church?  I keep getting caught out by zd's sense of humor! Haha. I'll try to make my humor more obvious in the future. Yes, personhood is the biggest cosmic joke of all, and a lot of people have told me that upon realizing the truth, they spontaneously started laughing. As I wrote in my Pouring Concrete book, I realized "The joke was on ' me.'" For many years after awakening Tolle giggled all the time at the humor of what he had realized, and I had friends tell me that his giggling (especially on his first audiotapes) drove them to distraction. By contrast, his giggling always made me giggle, and today I consider him one of the funniest sages on the circuit. |
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Post by siftingtothetruth on Dec 9, 2019 22:45:52 GMT -5
Having read Sifty, Godman and James, regarding Atma Vichara, it is something offered to seekers when understanding the theory of advaita vedanta, as offered on this forum and in satsangs, does not seem to work. Now other similar techniques are offered and discussed on this forum and I appreciate and respect each of them and believe that they can also bring a seeker to the end of seeking and the end of self. In the beginning of atma vichara, the thought "I am" is juxtaposed with the thought "I am the body" to point to something underlying the thoughts. There is a difference in the "sense" or "experience" of these two terms that goes deeper than the terms. It is that "sense" that the seeker is encouraged to cultivate and abide as, hold on to. Over time, this sense becomes deeply ingrained and one is able to maintain one's focus on it without effort. This is what I call mushin. When not in mushin, while practicing, atma vichara, thoughts disrupt the hold on "I am" and I regain it with some effort, actively moving attention back to that sense of "I am." Now I understand that many of you have a problem with the words, "sense," "experience," and even "I am." I understand the logic aligned against these. My only counter argument is that my experience, proves to me, that these terms are indeed extremely useful in the practice of atma vichara. I have now not meditated, zazen,for a few weeks and find myself on the path of atma vichara, and if I may be so bold as to say, moving very rapidly. I know that some will use the fact that I no longer practice zazen as a way to denigrate that practice. I can assure you, that is a mistake. Zazen allowed me to easily transition and experience a depth of being that dovetails nicely into atma vichara. Here's the question. Was Ramana wrong about atma vichara? It is a practice that relies on experience though admittedly the target IS no experience, no objects, but only Self/love. I'll just read your responses. I find lately very little desire to interject, but still enjoy hanging, sharing/reading, what the nice folk on this forum post. So glad atma vichara resonates with you. I would clarify that, as I teach it at least, self-inquiry is not quite "holding on" to the I but is always rather hunting the I. The paradox is that it is so self-evident that "I am," but that when the source of this knowledge is looked for, it is so elusive. Whenever you think you are "holding on" to the I am, you are inevitably always holding on to some object of experience instead. So the process of self-inquiry is to continuously notice that fact, and then redirect attention back in search of the "I am," trying to see just what this self-evident knowledge is. As you search for it, the question of what it is that one is searching for will take a turn. The "I am" cannot be held; it can only be searched for, raced after. Which applies to these states of mushin you talk about: self-inquiry would immediately ask -- who is it that is going into them, and who is it that is leaving them? |
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Post by Deleted on Dec 10, 2019 8:46:04 GMT -5
Having read Sifty, Godman and James, regarding Atma Vichara, it is something offered to seekers when understanding the theory of advaita vedanta, as offered on this forum and in satsangs, does not seem to work. Now other similar techniques are offered and discussed on this forum and I appreciate and respect each of them and believe that they can also bring a seeker to the end of seeking and the end of self. In the beginning of atma vichara, the thought "I am" is juxtaposed with the thought "I am the body" to point to something underlying the thoughts. There is a difference in the "sense" or "experience" of these two terms that goes deeper than the terms. It is that "sense" that the seeker is encouraged to cultivate and abide as, hold on to. Over time, this sense becomes deeply ingrained and one is able to maintain one's focus on it without effort. This is what I call mushin. When not in mushin, while practicing, atma vichara, thoughts disrupt the hold on "I am" and I regain it with some effort, actively moving attention back to that sense of "I am." Now I understand that many of you have a problem with the words, "sense," "experience," and even "I am." I understand the logic aligned against these. My only counter argument is that my experience, proves to me, that these terms are indeed extremely useful in the practice of atma vichara. I have now not meditated, zazen,for a few weeks and find myself on the path of atma vichara, and if I may be so bold as to say, moving very rapidly. I know that some will use the fact that I no longer practice zazen as a way to denigrate that practice. I can assure you, that is a mistake. Zazen allowed me to easily transition and experience a depth of being that dovetails nicely into atma vichara. Here's the question. Was Ramana wrong about atma vichara? It is a practice that relies on experience though admittedly the target IS no experience, no objects, but only Self/love. I'll just read your responses. I find lately very little desire to interject, but still enjoy hanging, sharing/reading, what the nice folk on this forum post. So glad atma vichara resonates with you. I would clarify that, as I teach it at least, self-inquiry is not quite "holding on" to the I but is always rather hunting the I. The paradox is that it is so self-evident that "I am," but that when the source of this knowledge is looked for, it is so elusive. Whenever you think you are "holding on" to the I am, you are inevitably always holding on to some object of experience instead. So the process of self-inquiry is to continuously notice that fact, and then redirect attention back in search of the "I am," trying to see just what this self-evident knowledge is. As you search for it, the question of what it is that one is searching for will take a turn. The "I am" cannot be held; it can only be searched for, raced after. Which applies to these states of mushin you talk about: self-inquiry would immediately ask -- who is it that is going into them, and who is it that is leaving them? I appreciate your thoughts and find your inputs always enlightening. This is basically what I am following. Godman and James advise on this is the same. Below is a quote from Godman's, "Be As You Are". But the instruction in James book is the same. "Beginners in self-enquiry were advised by Sri Ramana to put their attention on the inner feeling of ‘I’ and to hold that feeling as long as possible. They would be told that if their attention was distracted by other thoughts they should revert to awareness of the ‘I’-thought whenever they became aware that their attention had wandered. He suggested various aids to assist this process – one could ask oneself ‘Who am I?’ or ‘Where does this I come from?’ - but the ultimate aim was to be continuously aware of the ‘I’ which assumes that it is responsible for all the activities of the body and the mind. In the early stages of practice attention to the feeling ‘I’ is a mental activity which takes the form of a thought or a perception. As the practice develops the thought ‘I’ gives way to a subjectively experienced feeling of ‘I’, and when this feeling ceases to connect and identify with thoughts and objects it completely vanishes. What remains is an experience of being in which the sense of individuality has temporarily ceased to operate. The experience may be intermittent at first but with repeated practice it becomes easier and easier to reach and maintain. When self-enquiry reaches this level there is an effortless awareness of being in which individual effort is no longer possible since the ‘I’ who makes the effort has temporarily ceased to exist. It is not Self-realization since the ‘I’-thought periodically reasserts itself but it is the highest level of practice. Repeated experience of this state of being weakens and destroys the vasanas (mental tendencies) which cause the ‘I’-thought to rise, and, when their hold has been sufficiently weakened, the power of the Self destroys the residual tendencies so completely that the ‘I’-thought never rises again. This is the final and irreversible state of Self-realization.This practice of self-attention or awareness of the ‘I’-thought is a gentle technique which bypasses the usual repressive methods of controlling the mind. It is not an exercise in concentration, nor does it aim at suppressing thoughts; it merely invokes awareness of the source from which the mind springs. The method and goal of self enquiry is to abide in the source of the mind and to be aware of what one really is by withdrawing attention and interest from what one is not. In the early stages effort in the form of transferring attention from the thoughts to the thinker is essential, but once awareness of the ‘I’-feeling has been firmly established, further effort is counterproductive. From then on it is more a process of being than doing, of effortless being rather than an effort to be. Being what one already is is effortless since beingness is always present and always experienced. On the other hand, pretending to be what one is not (i.e. The body and the mind) requires continuous mental effort, even though the effort is nearly always at a subconscious level. It therefore follows that in the higher stages of self-enquiry effort takes attention away from the experience of being while the cessation of mental effort reveals it. Ultimately, the Self is not discovered as a result of doing anything, but only by being. As Sri Ramana himself once remarked: ‘Do not meditate – be! Do not think that you are – be! Don’t think about being – you are!’" The first bold is the instruction to "hold" the feeling. The second bold is what I call mushin. I will not be able to respond to your reply to this post. I am taking a hiatus from this site. I will be away for a few months. Thanks for all your help. |
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Post by zazeniac on Oct 31, 2021 22:05:46 GMT -5
I asked this question before. It had to do with realization and night dreams. So RM said in sahaja the mind retires permanently. I take that to mean that the illusion of an individual person is recognize as such. I buy that.
But in my night dreams, lately they've been about college. Imagine that. But no reference about the illusion of personhood or anything remotely related to it occurs in my dreams. In your dreams, do you realize that that person, the dream person, is illusory? Or are you just as bound to that dream persona as I am to mine. Does the realization carry over into the night dream? I suspect it doesn't and that's a curious thing
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Post by Reefs on Oct 31, 2021 23:54:54 GMT -5
I asked this question before. It had to do with realization and night dreams. So RM said in sahaja the mind retires permanently. I take that to mean that the illusion of an individual person is recognize as such. I buy that. But in my night dreams, lately they've been about college. Imagine that. But no reference about the illusion of personhood or anything remotely related to it occurs in my dreams. In your dreams, do you realize that that person, the dream person, is illusory? Or are you just as bound to that dream persona as I am to mine. Does the realization carry over into the night dream? I suspect it doesn't and that's a curious thing Can you get the original quote? People imagine all kinds of things what the natural state or sahaja could be. If we take sahaja as deep flow, then this is the hands in the clay mode, i.e. fully immersed in the NOW and at one with whatever you are doing, wu-wei, i.e the subject object split gone, the doer being the doing and the done, the seer being the seeing and the seen - not the (artificial) witnessing mode where you declare that you are not the body and everything that is perceived as dream content and yourself beyond that dream content. Compared to deep flow, that would be TMT actually. There would be no room for that. |
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Post by zazeniac on Nov 1, 2021 8:21:57 GMT -5
I asked this question before. It had to do with realization and night dreams. So RM said in sahaja the mind retires permanently. I take that to mean that the illusion of an individual person is recognize as such. I buy that. But in my night dreams, lately they've been about college. Imagine that. But no reference about the illusion of personhood or anything remotely related to it occurs in my dreams. In your dreams, do you realize that that person, the dream person, is illusory? Or are you just as bound to that dream persona as I am to mine. Does the realization carry over into the night dream? I suspect it doesn't and that's a curious thing Can you get the original quote? People imagine all kinds of things what the natural state or sahaja could be. If we take sahaja as deep flow, then this is the hands in the clay mode, i.e. fully immersed in the NOW and at one with whatever you are doing, wu-wei, i.e the subject object split gone, the doer being the doing and the done, the seer being the seeing and the seen - not the (artificial) witnessing mode where you declare that you are not the body and everything that is perceived as dream content and yourself beyond that dream content. Compared to deep flow, that would be TMT actually. There would be no room for that. Is the subject/object split gone in the night dream as well? |
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Post by zazeniac on Nov 1, 2021 9:30:20 GMT -5
I asked this question before. It had to do with realization and night dreams. So RM said in sahaja the mind retires permanently. I take that to mean that the illusion of an individual person is recognize as such. I buy that. But in my night dreams, lately they've been about college. Imagine that. But no reference about the illusion of personhood or anything remotely related to it occurs in my dreams. In your dreams, do you realize that that person, the dream person, is illusory? Or are you just as bound to that dream persona as I am to mine. Does the realization carry over into the night dream? I suspect it doesn't and that's a curious thing Havent seen before. "But in my night dreams, lately they've been about college." You be at school here I figure,
the enviroment set-up in dreamland is for you to awaken (without emotion) as the Conscious Dreamer.
Haven't dreampt for ages, my then dreams informing me that I fell asleep and had not noticed what was shown-me in the dream. Dreamtime is imaginative; as a conscious-dreamer one can work within the laboratory of their mind, like a God,
to create new things in preparation to awakening in the morning,
so that One can put their 'Hands in their Head' and become Practical.
You are bound to the Dream if you are the sleeping-dreamer
where nightmares have to awaken you,
this happening when we are engaged in Ignorance to such a degree, our dreams haunt us.
Yes, your 'suspect moment' be true. Unless the cat dies of course;
then there be no dreams.
I imagine those that are truly free have no further need of dreams as you describe their function. Yes. I used to experiment with dreams a la Carlos Castenedas. It was interesting and fun for awhile. Lost its flavor like chewing gum, after some time. |
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Post by Reefs on Nov 1, 2021 12:51:20 GMT -5
Can you get the original quote? People imagine all kinds of things what the natural state or sahaja could be. If we take sahaja as deep flow, then this is the hands in the clay mode, i.e. fully immersed in the NOW and at one with whatever you are doing, wu-wei, i.e the subject object split gone, the doer being the doing and the done, the seer being the seeing and the seen - not the (artificial) witnessing mode where you declare that you are not the body and everything that is perceived as dream content and yourself beyond that dream content. Compared to deep flow, that would be TMT actually. There would be no room for that. Is the subject/object split gone in the night dream as well? You can answer that question yourself. What is a dream to begin with, mental imagery, right? And what did UG say about mental images and the natural state? |
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Post by zendancer on Nov 1, 2021 13:01:24 GMT -5
Havent seen before. "But in my night dreams, lately they've been about college." You be at school here I figure,
the enviroment set-up in dreamland is for you to awaken (without emotion) as the Conscious Dreamer. Haven't dreampt for ages, my then dreams informing me that I fell asleep and had not noticed what was shown-me in the dream. Dreamtime is imaginative; as a conscious-dreamer one can work within the laboratory of their mind, like a God,
to create new things in preparation to awakening in the morning,
so that One can put their 'Hands in their Head' and become Practical. You are bound to the Dream if you are the sleeping-dreamer
where nightmares have to awaken you,
this happening when we are engaged in Ignorance to such a degree, our dreams haunt us.
Yes, your 'suspect moment' be true. Unless the cat dies of course;
then there be no dreams.
I imagine those that are truly free have no further need of dreams as you describe their function. Yes. I used to experiment with dreams a la Carlos Castenedas. It was interesting and fun for awhile. Lost its flavor like chewing gum, after some time. Z: It probably depends upon one's situation. THIS, in the form a single zen monk who spends most of his time meditating, working in a zendo, perhaps teaching novices, etc, the mind may be relatively inactive, whereas THIS, in the form of a married businesswoman with all kinds of business and family-related issues to deal with, the mind may be quite active. Dreaming appears to be a function of the intellect, something like a temporarily idling motor continuing to run even though the transmission is not engaged, and the image-making function keeps doing something similar to what it does in daily waking life. FWIW, Sengstan, the third patriarch of Zen, wrote in his "Verses on the Faith Mind," If the eye never sleeps, all dreams will naturally cease. If the mind makes no discriminations, the ten-thousand things are as they area, of single essence. To understand the mystery of this One-essence is to be released from all entanglements. When all things are seen equally the timeless Self-essence is reached. No comparisons or analogies are possible in this causeless, relation less state." In these lines Sengstan may be referring to what UG referred to as something that can happen in the Nature State. I worked in construction for 50 years, and I'm still doing construction work, and my dreams are almost all construction related (in deep sleep there are no dreams at all). If I ceased thinking about construction details associated with construction projects during the day, and spent a few weeks hiking in the woods or doing ATA-T, it might change the nature of whatever dreams occurred, and, for all I know, it might cause dreaming to cease entirely. I'll let you know if that happens.  |
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Post by zazeniac on Nov 1, 2021 13:38:45 GMT -5
I imagine those that are truly free have no further need of dreams as you describe their function. Yes. I used to experiment with dreams a la Carlos Castenedas. It was interesting and fun for awhile. Lost its flavor like chewing gum, after some time. Z: It probably depends upon one's situation. THIS, in the form a single zen monk who spends most of his time meditating, working in a zendo, perhaps teaching novices, etc, the mind may be relatively inactive, whereas THIS, in the form of a married businesswoman with all kinds of business and family-related issues to deal with, the mind may be quite active. Dreaming appears to be a function of the intellect, something like a temporarily idling motor continuing to run even though the transmission is not engaged, and the image-making function keeps doing something similar to what it does in daily waking life. FWIW, Sengstan, the third patriarch of Zen, wrote in his "Verses on the Faith Mind," If the eye never sleeps, all dreams will naturally cease. If the mind makes no discriminations, the ten-thousand things are as they area, of single essence. To understand the mystery of this One-essence is to be released from all entanglements. When all things are seen equally the timeless Self-essence is reached. No comparisons or analogies are possible in this causeless, relation less state." In these lines Sengstan may be referring to what UG referred to as something that can happen in the Nature State. I worked in construction for 50 years, and I'm still doing construction work, and my dreams are almost all construction related (in deep sleep there are no dreams at all). If I ceased thinking about construction details associated with construction projects during the day, and spent a few weeks hiking in the woods or doing ATA-T, it might change the nature of whatever dreams occurred, and, for all I know, it might cause dreaming to cease entirely. I'll let you know if that happens. I have had quite a few dreams lately where I don't see myself as one of the characters in the dream. It's just a story and I'm not in it. |
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Post by zazeniac on Nov 2, 2021 8:36:34 GMT -5
Thanks for the replies about dreams. They were enlightening. Revealing much about ego. Not yours but mine.
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Post by zazeniac on Nov 1, 2022 11:30:13 GMT -5
This is an interesting description of freedom. Does it jibe with what folks here experience?
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Post by ouroboros on Nov 1, 2022 17:20:58 GMT -5
This is an interesting description of freedom. Does it jibe with what folks here experience? There is something to this. Something which ties in with some of the other stuff we've been talking about recently (okay mostly me). But it seems to me that the story he tells about the guy at the end is very similar to the way ZD has talked about ATA-T in the past. It ties in with the spontaneity aspect of ATA-T. It's like, the more present you are the more effortlessly it all unfolds, no doubt about that. And you often find a sort of 'synchronicity' in events, similar to the way he talked about the vid with the swimming pool contractor etc. Things present themselves with greater fluidity. I'm just not convinced you can safely live your life like that. That it's foolproof as it were. Zd seems to be more so than I. And I would certainly tend to talk about some things differently than he does in the video. For example, early on when he talks about "a state where people don't have a mind", and "losing your capacity to think, choose and decide". . Definitely something interesting there though. What he had to say also reminded me of when sree was talking about the old folks who lost their home in the storm and was trying to fathom how TPTPAU would help them. It occurred to me at the time that as well as the detachment that would inevitably come from having realised TPTPAU, there is something else to be said. Something along the lines that, it's also the case that somehow it's less likely that someone who had realised TPTPAU would actually find themselves in that sort of situation anyway. It's a bold statement because it's really hard to quantify, or even just to outline. But I sense that it ties in with such notions as LOA, alignment, and kamma. This …spontaneity, ties in with that stuff. Unfortunately I don't have time to get too far into it right now, (and I'm still trying to make sense of it myself anyway). |
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Post by zazeniac on Nov 1, 2022 21:03:18 GMT -5
This is an interesting description of freedom. Does it jibe with what folks here experience? There is something to this. Something which ties in with some of the other stuff we've been talking about recently (okay mostly me). But it seems to me that the story he tells about the guy at the end is very similar to the way ZD has talked about ATA-T in the past. It ties in with the spontaneity aspect of ATA-T. It's like, the more present you are the more effortlessly it all unfolds, no doubt about that. And you often find a sort of 'synchronicity' in events, similar to the way he talked about the vid with the swimming pool contractor etc. Things present themselves with greater fluidity. I'm just not convinced you can safely live your life like that. That it's foolproof as it were. Zd seems to be more so than I. And I would certainly tend to talk about some things differently than he does in the video. For example, early on when he talks about "a state where people don't have a mind", and "losing your capacity to think, choose and decide". . Definitely something interesting there though. What he had to say also reminded me of when sree was talking about the old folks who lost their home in the storm and was trying to fathom how TPTPAU would help them. It occurred to me at the time that as well as the detachment that would inevitably come from having realised TPTPAU, there is something else to be said. Something along the lines that, it's also the case that somehow it's less likely that someone who had realised TPTPAU would actually find themselves in that sort of situation anyway. It's a bold statement because it's really hard to quantify, or even just to outline. But I sense that it ties in with such notions as LOA, alignment, and kamma. This …spontaneity, ties in with that stuff. Unfortunately I don't have time to get too far into it right now, (and I'm still trying to make sense of it myself anyway). Yes. Zd describes his life pretty much like that. Hedderman describes being run over twice by a car, when he was drunk. His take is that during the really traumatic moments peace comes over you. I can't imagine every single enlightened soul -- I use that term with caution -- has been able to dodge war, torture, mayhem or sree.😁 |
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Post by Deleted on Nov 1, 2022 22:44:09 GMT -5
Hedderman describes being run over twice by a car, when he was drunk. His take is that during the really traumatic moments peace comes over you That comment from Hedderman caught my eye. Very true except that if you are established in being, if your permanent state is sahaja samadhi then there is always peace. It's just that the peace becomes very noticeable if it is in contrast to something traumatic that is happening. I can think of two occasions. The first was when my wife's sister was in the throes of a cranial embolism. After uncontrollable fits her body became completely lifeless and I thought she had died in my arms. I was completely calm, absolutely serene, while her husband and my wife were going nuts. I remember noticing the absolute stillness in that moment while noticing the panic around me. I casually felt to see if I could find a pulse. She suddenly reanimated, and we followed an ambulance with flashing lights in a mad dash to the hospital emergency room. Happily she survived without any debilitating effects at all. The second occasion is when I fell off my motorbike after rather stupidly putting on the brakes too hard to avoid someone. There again there was what I can only describe as a cocoon of Peace around me. I only had minor injuries and a couple of passers by helped me up. I was very near to home so I went home and cleaned up my wounds and then drove to the nearby clinic where I needed to get some stitches for one of the wounds. The whole thing seem to happen in a dream. I was in it but I was just witnessing it. Both instances I describe were traumatic but without the personal trauma. The peace I felt was like an airbag inflating to prevent collision with the steering wheel. |
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