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Post by Deleted on Oct 21, 2023 1:05:42 GMT -5
You can't look at it this way. ~You~ have to get to the point of bare-attention, no attender attending. If there is an attender you always have the possibility of a wolf slipping in in sheep's clothing, ego. An attender attending is how ego stays alive, this feeds ego. In true surrender there is no sense of surrender. There is no political correctness. Do we say the child of eight surrenders their security blanket, they had at 18 months? I have always looked at it as backing up. You back up to a point of honesty. Eventually ~you~ back up past the point which ego exists, to bare attention-awareness. And, there, there is nothing to give up. IOW, ego can never surrender. Surrender is not in its DNA. Surrender, for ego, means I give up this to get that. IOW, ~you~ basically have to be already-outside-ego for any of this to work. (That's the meaning of self-remembering). Surrender is nebulous term that refers to cessation of volition. In the practical sense it means stop reacting. Simple but nuanced. You can't stop reacting. It's impossible! |
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Post by lolly on Oct 21, 2023 1:15:30 GMT -5
Surrender is nebulous term that refers to cessation of volition. In the practical sense it means stop reacting. Simple but nuanced. You can't stop reacting. It's impossible! One hand says it's possible to just observe while the other says the cessation of reaction is impossible.
There's a physical sense, and there a psychological reaction (which itself produces a physical sense), but one hand is saying thought cessation (at will) is possible while the other says this psychological event is inevitable. It's a contradiction.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 21, 2023 4:53:44 GMT -5
You can't stop reacting. It's impossible! One hand says it's possible to just observe while the other says the cessation of reaction is impossible.
There's a physical sense, and there a psychological reaction (which itself produces a physical sense), but one hand is saying thought cessation (at will) is possible while the other says this psychological event is inevitable. It's a contradiction.
What you describe is not the reality. If you turn the corner of the road and are greeted by an image of your house on fire there isn't one hand saying it's possible to just observe. There are no talking hands at play. There is just a reaction. Maybe you're waiting in a long line at the grocery store waiting to pay and you suddenly and spontaneously feel irritated by how long you are having to wait. There are no dancing hands anywhere to be seen. But nevertheless reactivity can be reduced or even eliminated but that comes before the reaction. SDP alluded to this. The work is done beyond ego. The mechanism that produces a triggered reaction is often called the flight fight response. This goes way back in our evolution to a time when survival depended on it as it does today. Confronted by a tiger that wants to eat you triggers the flight fight response where a vast amount of neurodrenaline is pumped around the body giving you the alertness and strength to either fight or flee. That's a helpful case but the flight fight response is also triggered when you are simply frustrated and reactive towards something unwanted that isn't necessarily threatening your life. Getting frustrated sitting in a traffic jam for instance will also trigger that mechanism. When I first started daily meditation practice which involved repeatedly going back to silence and then going back into normal activity I noticed after a while that I was much less spooked by a sudden loud noise or any surprising or startling phenomenon with the potential to make me jump out of my skin. It just subsided. I wasn't trying to observe the reaction at all, I was just reacting normally but the reaction was muted. I had already been told that might happen so I was prepared for it and understood it, so it was the work that was being done in sitting practice going back to pure awareness and then just slipping back into activity that had that effect later when such an event might happen. That's how you deal with a reaction. As I already said you can't do anything about it at the time because it happens so quickly and you are completely captured by it. There's no time to stand back and calmly observe and trying to remind yourself not to be so reactive next time this happens. But the next time it happens exactly the same reaction occurs. So the work on the flight flight response is done completely separately and apart from the actual reaction itself and then one observes that something automatic happens without you having to analyze or observe. It subsides because of the work you have done previously. Repeated immersion in silent awareness will automatically take care of reactivity without having to think about it at all. It's like satisfying your hunger by eating a meal. After you have finished eating you will continue to feel satisfied without having to remember that you ate a meal. The work was done while you were eating. You don't have to do something with the feeling of being satiated to make sure that it remains so. It's automatic. Eat the food and you're not hungry anymore. Simple. Repeatedly immerse yourself in silence and this calmness which permeates activity will reduce or prevent future reactivity. |
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Post by laughter on Oct 21, 2023 8:20:21 GMT -5
The "Christian koan" I described is what remains after all this sort of mind talk expressed in what I'm replying here to eventually quiesces. Or not. All I'm saying, is that from a Biblical perspective, everything that happens is not God's will (obviously). You're better off without this "god" of your conception. "God's will" is already an anthropomorphism. We have already projected our mind onto "God" with "God's will". So, I'm meeting Christianity on its own ground when I use that term. There is no "god" that approves or picks or chooses or agrees. God does not form partnerships, and wisdom is always the creation of men and women, always a product of experience and mind. There is no "god" the way that you've written about it. It's a fiction. |
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Post by laughter on Oct 21, 2023 8:24:41 GMT -5
Maybe, it depends, and it's ultimately another narrative.  True! Though one thing I wanted to clarify about what you mentioned re: the "Christian koan" of everything being God's will... you said therefore the only free will would be whether or not you (freely) chose to accept God's love? I assume that means accepting whatever is the case in the moment, since that is God's will? Or did you mean something else? Whatever is is whatever is, no doubt, but that doesn't mean that we always will or should or even can accept that it shouldn't change. And since now we're in the context of time, we can't even really say that things might not have been preferable had they happened differently -- although that's one of the funniest "koan-like" thoughts imaginable if you consider it in existential terms. Rather, in any given instant, the Christian can never really be absolutely certain that they are not in sin. They can do the best they can by what we might characterize in modern terms by a sort of rule base. They can pray. And then, action happens. Ready or not! |
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Post by laughter on Oct 21, 2023 8:27:39 GMT -5
My reading on the topics philosophy and theology is incredibly shallow. Even still, it's quite clear that the question of volition has been around for as long as men have been writing down words. Yes this topic has been discussed for eons and it's very entertaining and it seems to preoccupy the minds of non-dualists for some reason. Why limit your pre-occupation on the topic to the "nondualists"?  |
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Post by laughter on Oct 21, 2023 8:29:14 GMT -5
You can't look at it this way. ~You~ have to get to the point of bare-attention, no attender attending. If there is an attender you always have the possibility of a wolf slipping in in sheep's clothing, ego. An attender attending is how ego stays alive, this feeds ego. In true surrender there is no sense of surrender. There is no political correctness. Do we say the child of eight surrenders their security blanket, they had at 18 months? I have always looked at it as backing up. You back up to a point of honesty. Eventually ~you~ back up past the point which ego exists, to bare attention-awareness. And, there, there is nothing to give up. IOW, ego can never surrender. Surrender is not in its DNA. Surrender, for ego, means I give up this to get that. IOW, ~you~ basically have to be already-outside-ego for any of this to work. (That's the meaning of self-remembering). Surrender is nebulous term that refers to cessation of volition. In the practical sense it means stop reacting. Simple but nuanced. E' used to use a funny metaphor. He'd distinguish between someone waiving a white flag from simply walking off the battlefield. "The only winning move, is not to play". |
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Post by laughter on Oct 21, 2023 8:30:01 GMT -5
Surrender is nebulous term that refers to cessation of volition. In the practical sense it means stop reacting. Simple but nuanced. You can't stop reacting. It's impossible!  .. just because something is outside of your imagination ... |
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Post by laughter on Oct 21, 2023 8:34:51 GMT -5
One hand says it's possible to just observe while the other says the cessation of reaction is impossible. There's a physical sense, and there a psychological reaction (which itself produces a physical sense), but one hand is saying thought cessation (at will) is possible while the other says this psychological event is inevitable. It's a contradiction.
What you describe is not the reality. If you turn the corner of the road and are greeted by an image of your house on fire there isn't one hand saying it's possible to just observe. There are no talking hands at play. There is just a reaction. Maybe you're waiting in a long line at the grocery store waiting to pay and you suddenly and spontaneously feel irritated by how long you are having to wait. There are no dancing hands anywhere to be seen. But nevertheless reactivity can be reduced or even eliminated but that comes before the reaction. SDP alluded to this. The work is done beyond ego. The mechanism that produces a triggered reaction is often called the flight fight response. This goes way back in our evolution to a time when survival depended on it as it does today. Confronted by a tiger that wants to eat you triggers the flight fight response where a vast amount of neurodrenaline is pumped around the body giving you the alertness and strength to either fight or flee. That's a helpful case but the flight fight response is also triggered when you are simply frustrated and reactive towards something unwanted that isn't necessarily threatening your life. Getting frustrated sitting in a traffic jam for instance will also trigger that mechanism. When I first started daily meditation practice which involved repeatedly going back to silence and then going back into normal activity I noticed after a while that I was much less spooked by a sudden loud noise or any surprising or startling phenomenon with the potential to make me jump out of my skin. It just subsided. I wasn't trying to observe the reaction at all, I was just reacting normally but the reaction was muted. I had already been told that might happen so I was prepared for it and understood it, so it was the work that was being done in sitting practice going back to pure awareness and then just slipping back into activity that had that effect later when such an event might happen. That's how you deal with a reaction. As I already said you can't do anything about it at the time because it happens so quickly and you are completely captured by it. There's no time to stand back and calmly observe and trying to remind yourself not to be so reactive next time this happens. But the next time it happens exactly the same reaction occurs. So the work on the flight flight response is done completely separately and apart from the actual reaction itself and then one observes that something automatic happens without you having to analyze or observe. It subsides because of the work you have done previously. Repeated immersion in silent awareness will automatically take care of reactivity without having to think about it at all. It's like satisfying your hunger by eating a meal. After you have finished eating you will continue to feel satisfied without having to remember that you ate a meal. The work was done while you were eating. You don't have to do something with the feeling of being satiated to make sure that it remains so. It's automatic. Eat the food and you're not hungry anymore. Simple. Repeatedly immerse yourself in silence and this calmness which permeates activity will reduce or prevent future reactivity. Notice that you resort to an extreme case. In the other extreme, most mental reactivity is entirely unnecessary, and, for some folks, entirely counterproductive. But that's just the psychology of the situation. There is an essence to literal silence that is a shadow of the existential truth of not-two. A hint. Some people get interested enough in that hint to follow it all the way to nirvikalpa samadhi. |
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Post by zazeniac on Oct 21, 2023 8:41:15 GMT -5
Robert Sapolsky's book. I read a headline about it. He's a neuroscientist who argues free will is an illusion. Makes things so much easier. Given the same circumstances, we're all likely to be Hamas or the IDF. Kind of undoes the anger and hatred. I like it. No interest in reading the book though. You know there's a lot of shit we ignore. Tigray, CAR, Myanmar, South Sudan. Violence and war, slaughter somewhere at any given moment. We focus on Ukraine and Israel, why? I think I know why. It doesn't matter. It's not my focus. "First take the plank out of your eye." I'd argue Hamas and ilk are exercising will. I think what undoes anger and hatred is more like 'they know not what they do'.
There's a difference between predestination and no-will. People say surrender, but they specifically refer to the will. I don't like the nebulous terms like 'surrender 'that are not specific. I prefer to be precise. I've already ranted at length about will being perpetuated by psychological reactivity so won't bang on, but surrender is difficult because it's not easy to cease reactivity.
The Hamas ilk are highly reactive, and there's reasons in the sense that reactivity is tied into and perpetuates identity by inciting will.
My deaf dog has fear-biting panic attacks. While I pet her, she'll turn on me and come after me. My reaction is to go after her. No will involved. I've come to accept that she can't help it. It's not something she can control. This helps me not react angrily which is good because the anger only makes her more fearful and more likely to have a panic attack. However, the body, my body, feels that rush of noradrenaline when shenattacks and no amount of purification is going to change that. The only thing that changed is my behavior. Is that the will? It doesn't feel like it. But like I said, I just read the headline about Sapolsky's book. No interest in reading it or the will, no will discussion. |
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Post by Deleted on Oct 21, 2023 8:48:15 GMT -5
You can't stop reacting. It's impossible! .. just because something is outside of your imagination ... So it's in your imagination. Because that's what it is - imagination. |
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Post by Deleted on Oct 21, 2023 8:50:22 GMT -5
What you describe is not the reality. If you turn the corner of the road and are greeted by an image of your house on fire there isn't one hand saying it's possible to just observe. There are no talking hands at play. There is just a reaction. Maybe you're waiting in a long line at the grocery store waiting to pay and you suddenly and spontaneously feel irritated by how long you are having to wait. There are no dancing hands anywhere to be seen. But nevertheless reactivity can be reduced or even eliminated but that comes before the reaction. SDP alluded to this. The work is done beyond ego. The mechanism that produces a triggered reaction is often called the flight fight response. This goes way back in our evolution to a time when survival depended on it as it does today. Confronted by a tiger that wants to eat you triggers the flight fight response where a vast amount of neurodrenaline is pumped around the body giving you the alertness and strength to either fight or flee. That's a helpful case but the flight fight response is also triggered when you are simply frustrated and reactive towards something unwanted that isn't necessarily threatening your life. Getting frustrated sitting in a traffic jam for instance will also trigger that mechanism. When I first started daily meditation practice which involved repeatedly going back to silence and then going back into normal activity I noticed after a while that I was much less spooked by a sudden loud noise or any surprising or startling phenomenon with the potential to make me jump out of my skin. It just subsided. I wasn't trying to observe the reaction at all, I was just reacting normally but the reaction was muted. I had already been told that might happen so I was prepared for it and understood it, so it was the work that was being done in sitting practice going back to pure awareness and then just slipping back into activity that had that effect later when such an event might happen. That's how you deal with a reaction. As I already said you can't do anything about it at the time because it happens so quickly and you are completely captured by it. There's no time to stand back and calmly observe and trying to remind yourself not to be so reactive next time this happens. But the next time it happens exactly the same reaction occurs. So the work on the flight flight response is done completely separately and apart from the actual reaction itself and then one observes that something automatic happens without you having to analyze or observe. It subsides because of the work you have done previously. Repeated immersion in silent awareness will automatically take care of reactivity without having to think about it at all. It's like satisfying your hunger by eating a meal. After you have finished eating you will continue to feel satisfied without having to remember that you ate a meal. The work was done while you were eating. You don't have to do something with the feeling of being satiated to make sure that it remains so. It's automatic. Eat the food and you're not hungry anymore. Simple. Repeatedly immerse yourself in silence and this calmness which permeates activity will reduce or prevent future reactivity. Notice that you resort to an extreme case. In the other extreme, most mental reactivity is entirely unnecessary, and, for some folks, entirely counterproductive. But that's just the psychology of the situation. There is an essence to literal silence that is a shadow of the existential truth of not-two. A hint. Some people get interested enough in that hint to follow it all the way to nirvikalpa samadhi. So you are in agreement with me. |
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Post by lolly on Oct 21, 2023 8:56:27 GMT -5
When I was a lad what they called sin is different to what they call sin now. The rules in the same Church have changed, and Churches don't even agree on what the rules are. It's a man's judgment of good and evil whereas actual good and evil is about a man's intent. Hence two different men can do the same thing but one does evil and the other good.
Some will say it's all a man made delusion. That there's no good and evil in reality, and even more that men who intend to hurt and harm are helpless in what they do - that they have to, it's predestined in light of there being no will at all. It's not such a bad mistake because it takes blame out of the equation. You can't judge a stone that rolled down a hill.
I judge not for a completely different reason. Mine just comes from understanding the causal chain of physicality and reactivity and how the larger portion of people don't know how to break it. It's pretty simple in principle - just observe - but it's very nuanced IRL, and a large number of people aren't capable of it anyway.
That's why we invented meditation, just so you get to stop, and by 'stop' I mean cessation of volition. Then you'll see, the evil is actually volitional, but it's not free will. On the contrary, it's compelled by reactivity.
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Post by laughter on Oct 21, 2023 9:31:37 GMT -5
Notice that you resort to an extreme case. In the other extreme, most mental reactivity is entirely unnecessary, and, for some folks, entirely counterproductive. But that's just the psychology of the situation. There is an essence to literal silence that is a shadow of the existential truth of not-two. A hint. Some people get interested enough in that hint to follow it all the way to nirvikalpa samadhi. So you are in agreement with me. No. |
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Post by Deleted on Oct 21, 2023 9:46:47 GMT -5
So you are in agreement with me. No. I advocate for nirvikalpa samadhi. That is what I'm ultimately talking about. Now you are suggesting that some people move towards that so that sounds like you're giving it your seal of approval So we do agree. |
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.. just because something is outside of your imagination ...