Bobber Therapy

[zendancer]

I recently had a conversation with a friend. The friend has a lot of drama in his extended family regarding many different issues. The primary issue at the moment is an older male in-law being charged with some alleged crimes involving underage females. Many members of the family are supportive of the male and expect all other members of the family to be equally supportive. Parts of the family do not know whether the alleged criminal activities actually took place, so they want to reserve judgement until the issue is resolved in court. It may be a "he-said/she-said" case, but there is more than one female involved, and nothing has yet been proven.

My friend and his wife want to stay uninvolved, but they face lots of pressure from other family members. He and his wife love to fish, and every year they rent a cabin on a lake and fish for two weeks. He told me that he was looking forward to two weeks of what he calls "bobber therapy." What he means is that when they go fishing, he and his wife leave all of the family drama behind as they focus on watching their bobbers bob due to fish strikes. They have both realized that their two weeks of fishing results in temporary peace of mind and their peace of mind often carries over for a week or so after they return home. I told him that what he calls "bobber therapy" is actually a form of ATA-T because what they're doing is shifting attention away from thoughts to direct sensory perception. I implied that what they're doing can continue after they return home if they continue shifting attention away from thoughts to what is actually happening in the present moment. He did not express any interest in that, so I didn't say anything more about it.

Afterwards, while thinking about our conversation, I remembered many other people who have described other similar activities that got them out of their heads and into their bodies, so to speak. This included comments by bird watchers, gardeners, hunters, and others. I remember one fellow telling me that his happiest memories from childhood involved going hunting with his father. His father insisted on total silence, and they would often sit together under a tree in a state of alert silence while watching for game. He told me that even if his father never saw a deer or anything else to take a shot at, there was something magical about sitting and watching in silence, and it made him feel very close to his father.

I suspect that most people have similar activities that cause them to shift attention away from self-referential thoughts, family drama-thoughts, or negative thoughts to direct sensory perception, but in most cases this kind of attention shifting is intermittent and short term in nature. I suggested to some people on a recent ND zoom meeting that there are several different approaches used by sages who interact with seekers that include:

1. The Neo-Advaita Tony Parsons approach of "nothing to do." The sage is saying that who the seeker thinks s/he is is imaginary, and the imaginary SVP can't do anything. This approach often triggers awakening events because it metaphorically slams the door on the seeker's mind, and it functions like jamming a log into a set of interlocking gears.

2. The Self-enquiry approach recommended by sages like Ramana. Seekers are told to enquire into who or what is it that sees, hears, feels, or thinks. Contemplating this kind of koan can shut down the mind and force a deeper level of intelligence (some people call it intuition) to become activated and yield an answer. In fact all koan contemplation, in general, works the same way.

3. Mindfulness (ATA+T) practice. This is a meditative activity during which one mentally stands back and dispassionately watches everything including both the "inside world" of thoughts and feelings as well as the "outside world" of what we might call "physical reality." The idea is to break identification with being a SVP and discover that one is awareness, itself.

4. Dissecting thoughts via questioning their validity. This approach is used by sages like Byron Katie. Her basic four questions include, (1) Is a particular thought true? (2) Can you know absolutely that it is true? (3) How do you feel and react when you have that thought? (4) How would you feel if you didn't have that thought? She then suggests reversing the thought and contemplating the implications of that reversal. The underlying idea is to show that all thoughts are both true and false at the same time and that no thoughts accurately reflect the truth.

5. Discarding thoughts altogether by shifting attention away from them (ATA-T) until one becomes free of the mind. Eckhart Tolle is one sage who uses this approach and when reviewing a summary of his teachings on the web, there were two admonitions that stood out--(1) Become free of the mind, and (2) After one becomes free of the mind (after mind is no longer dominant), then one can entertain thoughts without becoming attached to thoughts. This pointer coincides with the goal that Zen people call "non-abidance in mind." IOW, one utilizes various meditative activities to trigger realizations that change habits of mind until the mind becomes submissive to the deeper level of intelligence that is running the whole show. "Bobber therapy" and other forms of ATA-T would all fall under this pathway to truth. I often tell people that 99% of conventional thinking is unnecessary and is nothing more than an unconscious habit. It's not an easy habit to break, but breaking that habit is much like learning to speed-read, and breaking that habit seems to be highly correlated with existential realizations.

There are other pathways, such as mantra repetition favored by Tibetan Buddhists, but even though they may not explicitly state what that activity is doing, it seems to be another way of shutting off conventional thought patterns so that realizations get triggered and ultimately one attains freedom from the mind.

AAR, the issue of "bobber therapy" appears to be something that most people can relate to, and I wondered if other people on this forum have found similar activities that take them "beyond the mind?"

[lolly]

True. I care not about the allegations, but relate to bobber theory.

I like doing hard things particularly with landscaping and trees and stuff. My siblings and I share in a joint family estate thingy, so I can't just 'go my own way'. They don't understand it, but I'll explain how in order for a isolated task to be done properly, not only the job in mind needs doing, but a lot of other things which are aligned need to be prepared so the end result is spectacular.

The latest one is to repair a paved pathway. I said it's not just that because the low and high areas have to be evened so the landscape is established and we thereby know where to set the level of the path. That's a much, much bigger task. My sister has a look on her face like she thinks it has to be done right and wants me to just go for it, but my brothers want it fast, so, 'just fudge it' and good enough .

I know how to work in between the lines of tact, so I look like I'm fudging it, but at the same time I'm guestimating the level it would be if the landscape was corrected. Then my brothers will be saying, isn't this al set too high? It doesn't look right. This bit is lower than the soil," but by then it's too late. I say it just looks that way now, but it will be good at the end, and they look kinda worried. It's OK, but it means doing things in the wrong order, which is harder, and it doesn't have the same flow, but it's themiddle ground or something, and they get a fast path while I get the perfect landscape, and my sister loves it because she only wants a spectacular result. It seems discombobulated, but everyone is doing a work-around and it pans out in the end.

My point is, I like it just for the joy of it, and it's not about the work. It's about the workflow. To say it's a lot of work seems quite meaningless when it's really only how it flows. When you feel the flow getting a bit rough, it's time for smoko!

Anyway. Doing physical things is peaceful. The world is always trying to suck you into nonsense, tend to taxes, family dragging you into stuff and so forth, and when they insist I do some obligation, I get it out of the way as soon as I can so I can get back to my bobber therapy.

[zendancer]

May 28, 2023 4:30:10 GMT -5 lolly said:

True. I care not about the allegations, but relate to bobber theory.

I like doing hard things particularly with landscaping and trees and stuff. My siblings and I share in a joint family estate thingy, so I can't just 'go my own way'. They don't understand it, but I'll explain how in order for a isolated task to be done properly, not only the job in mind needs doing, but a lot of other things which are aligned need to be prepared so the end result is spectacular.

The latest one is to repair a paved pathway. I said it's not just that because the low and high areas have to be evened so the landscape is established and we thereby know where to set the level of the path. That's a much, much bigger task. My sister has a look on her face like she thinks it has to be done right and wants me to just go for it, but my brothers want it fast, so, 'just fudge it' and good enough .

I know how to work in between the lines of tact, so I look like I'm fudging it, but at the same time I'm guestimating the level it would be if the landscape was corrected. Then my brothers will be saying, isn't this al set too high? It doesn't look right. This bit is lower than the soil," but by then it's too late. I say it just looks that way now, but it will be good at the end, and they look kinda worried. It's OK, but it means doing things in the wrong order, which is harder, and it doesn't have the same flow, but it's themiddle ground or something, and they get a fast path while I get the perfect landscape, and my sister loves it because she only wants a spectacular result. It seems discombobulated, but everyone is doing a work-around and it pans out in the end.

My point is, I like it just for the joy of it, and it's not about the work. It's about the workflow. To say it's a lot of work seems quite meaningless when it's really only how it flows. When you feel the flow getting a bit rough, it's time for smoko!

Anyway. Doing physical things is peaceful. The world is always trying to suck you into nonsense, tend to taxes, family dragging you into stuff and so forth, and when they insist I do some obligation, I get it out of the way as soon as I can so I can get back to my bobber therapy.

I can definitely relate to that! I love all kinds of physical work from chainsawing to digging ditches. For me it's great fun even though many of my friends think it's rather crazy. When building our most recent home, we couldn't find any subcontractors available at a reasonable price, so I poured all of the concrete footings with a long-time helper. I then laid all of the 1400 twelve inch blocks by myself and mixed the mud in a wheelbarrow by hand. I hadn't done that kind of labor in fifty years, but it was incredibly enjoyable even though it was strenuous. The framing crew caught Covid just before coming to the project, so my helper and I framed the home ourselves (the sixth project where we've done that), and it was terrific fun even though it was a challenging structure with 40 roof planes, fourteen foundation offsets, and 3.5 stories high. Ironically, every minor ache and pain went away because for a year and a half it was like working out at a gym every day for 8 to 10 hours! I think Warren Buffet said it best when he said, "If you enjoy what you're doing, it isn't work; it's more like play." That's what the word "flow" points to. There's also a J. Krishnamurti quote pointing to the same thing. It went something like this, "Do you want to know my secret? I don't object to anything that's happening." K's quote could perhaps be stated more positively as, "Becoming psychologically one-with whatever is happening is a lot of fun." Wei wu wei is the way! When there is flow, there is no one doing anything, but everything gets done.

[lolly]

May 28, 2023 9:44:04 GMT -5 zendancer said:

May 28, 2023 4:30:10 GMT -5 lolly said:

True. I care not about the allegations, but relate to bobber theory.

I like doing hard things particularly with landscaping and trees and stuff. My siblings and I share in a joint family estate thingy, so I can't just 'go my own way'. They don't understand it, but I'll explain how in order for a isolated task to be done properly, not only the job in mind needs doing, but a lot of other things which are aligned need to be prepared so the end result is spectacular.

The latest one is to repair a paved pathway. I said it's not just that because the low and high areas have to be evened so the landscape is established and we thereby know where to set the level of the path. That's a much, much bigger task. My sister has a look on her face like she thinks it has to be done right and wants me to just go for it, but my brothers want it fast, so, 'just fudge it' and good enough .

I know how to work in between the lines of tact, so I look like I'm fudging it, but at the same time I'm guestimating the level it would be if the landscape was corrected. Then my brothers will be saying, isn't this al set too high? It doesn't look right. This bit is lower than the soil," but by then it's too late. I say it just looks that way now, but it will be good at the end, and they look kinda worried. It's OK, but it means doing things in the wrong order, which is harder, and it doesn't have the same flow, but it's themiddle ground or something, and they get a fast path while I get the perfect landscape, and my sister loves it because she only wants a spectacular result. It seems discombobulated, but everyone is doing a work-around and it pans out in the end.

My point is, I like it just for the joy of it, and it's not about the work. It's about the workflow. To say it's a lot of work seems quite meaningless when it's really only how it flows. When you feel the flow getting a bit rough, it's time for smoko!

Anyway. Doing physical things is peaceful. The world is always trying to suck you into nonsense, tend to taxes, family dragging you into stuff and so forth, and when they insist I do some obligation, I get it out of the way as soon as I can so I can get back to my bobber therapy.

I can definitely relate to that! I love all kinds of physical work from chainsawing to digging ditches. For me it's great fun even though many of my friends think it's rather crazy. When building our most recent home, we couldn't find any subcontractors available at a reasonable price, so I poured all of the concrete footings with a long-time helper. I then laid all of the 1400 twelve inch blocks by myself and mixed the mud in a wheelbarrow by hand. I hadn't done that kind of labor in fifty years, but it was incredibly enjoyable even though it was strenuous. The framing crew caught Covid just before coming to the project, so my helper and I framed the home ourselves (the sixth project where we've done that), and it was terrific fun even though it was a challenging structure with 40 roof planes, fourteen foundation offsets, and 3.5 stories high. Ironically, every minor ache and pain went away because for a year and a half it was like working out at a gym every day for 8 to 10 hours! I think Warren Buffet said it best when he said, "If you enjoy what you're doing, it isn't work; it's more like play." That's what the word "flow" points to. There's also a J. Krishnamurti quote pointing to the same thing. It went something like this, "Do you want to know my secret? I don't object to anything that's happening." K's quote could perhaps be stated more positively as, "Becoming psychologically one-with whatever is happening is a lot of fun." Wei wu wei is the way! When there is flow, there is no one doing anything, but everything gets done.

I've heard JK simply say, "I don't mind what happens". I get it, because when you do mind it's distressing, and usually you don't have to mind. I do hard training at the gym and I like hard labour, 'speshly digging and stuff, so it's really just pain every day that sedentary people won't experience in years. I sometimes get covered in leaches, and a few weeks ago I got bit by a red back (basically a black widow), which poisoned my whole leg. It mostly hurts a little bit. It's not comfortable, but there's another kind of rush you get from strenuous activity, and I don't feel right unless I do hard things.

The best part is, if you sit around a lot with a computer or something, the brain gets over amped, but just say you have a paving job or something, it's quiet inside. I'm going for 'mastery', so not only shoveling the dirt or whatever, but flowing through it with complete efficiency. It takes a long time for the body to learn to move just right, but when it 'remembers', you can just let it do the things.

[stardustpilgrim]

I have a lot of memories going back to at least age 4, probably 3 but I can't verify that. Four I know because I have numerous memories of being with my Grandpa, and he died when I was 4 years 5 months old. First, I remember liking to be alone. But I remember at a very early age one of my favorite activities was looking for 4 leaf clovers. I could spend considerable time doing this, without knowing specifically I'd guess an hour would be no problem whatsoever. Also remember liking to fly a kite. My favorite was a paper Texaco kite I got for free at a local Texaco station. I also had first, a green plastic kite. My dad tied two spools of kite line together, and I could get all that line completely out, the kite got very tiny, I'm guessing 500 ft lines, so that would be 1,000 ft. Both my parents sang in the choir, so Sundays in church I was basically free. Probably at least up to age eight after all the singing and what-not, I would lay down on my back for the sermon. The ceiling had ceiling tiles. There were rows of dots in the tiles. Down one side, I would count the dots. I'm pretty sure there were 20 dots in 20 rows. I could almost get to 20 then my vision would blur, I would have to blink.

When I was still rather young, guessing about ten or eleven, once we had a snowstorm and I was playing outside up the hill maybe about 100 yards from our house, alone. I laid down in the snow, it was cold, it was close to sunset. I laid there for some minutes and just about had to get up from the cold when there came over me this exquisite warmth. There was this unbelievable sense of comfort, I felt like I could have laid there forever. I'm guessing it was at least 15-20 minutes. As it was getting darker I figured I needed to get up and go home.

Probably about 11 or 12 I was at the beach, we went every year for a weeks vacation. I remember Daddy buying this $2.00 blue plastic raft for me, long, full body, it was basically a pool raft, not a beach raft. One late afternoon the ocean and beach formed a large pool. I laid on my raft, not worried about sunburn, and just drifted around the pool of water. I did this for at least an hour, could have been 2 hours. But that exquisite feeling was there. I didn't connect it to the laying in snow until years later, but it was that same exquisite comfort never-wanting-it-to-end comfort. It was extraordinary.

In eight grade my home room class was in a trailer. It was adjacent to the parking lot, a wide open space with no traffic, about 80 yards from the buses. Somehow, I don't know how it first started, but my favorite part of the day was walking to the bus. I looked down at my feet and watched my feet walk. Everything was focused on watching my feet. But this exquisite state was there. I walked slowly and deliberately to make it last. I looked forward to that walk every day.

I didn't talk about these things to anyone. They were quite memorable, but I never figured out that I could make that link to other "activities", and get back that exquisite feeling in other ways. All this went away after that 8th grade, I don't remember getting-to-that feeling until years later.

My spiritual search began for other reasons, two pretty specific. But later I learned about meditation and such. Eventually I made a connection, Oh, that's what that was..... And I realized I had, those younger years, entered and cherished the silent mind (except the counting the dots one, but that was pretty close to quiet). There was just the exquisiteness, nothing else.

[stardustpilgrim]

That was getting long, decided to do another post for this.

Now to the bobber part. About 250 yards from my house, up a field-hill and down the hill my Grandma had a pond. It was a rain pond built for watering the cows, but it was a fishing pond also. At age 8-9 I was allowed to go by myself because i knew how to swim. Fishing was a favorite activity in the summer. My record at that pond was 17 fish caught in one day. They were mostly all small, some bass, some bream, I just threw them back in. But I loved watching the bobber. There is a technique to catching fish, I learned from experience. This was with a cane pole. If you are not watching your cork, the fish can get your worm and leave. So I learned, a little nibble, do nothing, cork goes under, pull it out. This usually get you a fish. But I could fish for hours, just watching my cork. Accidentally, I discovered a moving pattern I could see on still water. It was a moving pattern, colorless, moving either from the center outwards or outwards back to the center. I couldn't quite tell, sometimes it seemed one way, sometimes the other way. But it had to be on still water, if there were ripples, the pattern wouldn't come. And then I accidentally discovered I could also see it in a cloudless sky. This was totally cool to watch. It was about 10-12 inches in diameter, the edges just faded away. I saw it years later in still form on a book cover, This Seasons people by Stephen Gaskin. So then I knew it was a something. Only just a few years ago I realized I was seeing either the top or bottom of a torus, the direction of the flow was determined if it was "top" or "bottom" (one end or the other). I'll put as my avatar the picture that closest approximates what I was seeing, but it's vastly more complicated than any picture or even any video I've ever seen. The picture is not completely accurate because as the "waves" move outward, they get bigger, like when a rock is thrown into a pond it makes ripples, and the ripples keep getting bigger as they move out from the place-of-splash. My previous avatar shows some of the energy of subtle bodies of a human being. It's a torus. All energy in the universe is essentially a torus. Another name is vortex. Each of the chakras is a torus, connecting the physical to the higher planes. Each chakra is connected to a body-physical-gland.