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Post by stardustpilgrim on Jul 27, 2024 10:32:24 GMT -5
But you don't have-to go anywhere. Being in nature is a help, it's a kind of deliberate starvation of cultural attachments. This can be done anywhere, in nature is with crutches. Though we have to remember that Gopal won't 'do', so it has to happen 'to' him without any active participation on his part. So it's easy to see why an extended period of nature could be impactful for him. Though I do recall fairly recently that you were talking about meditation, G....? Are you still meditating sometimes or did that stop? The mind and feelings, and even body-doing happen continually, they are like the energizer bunny. I call it meditation sometimes, to smooth things over. But yes, ~I~ try to remember myself, often. What could be called the last prayer of Gurdjieff: "May God keep us from doing evil, by helping us always and everywhere to remember ourselves". Would advise Gopal, there is one thing we can do that does not ~activate~ the highs and lows, just observing, or staying-in attention. Being-in attention (or awareness), does not add to the highs and lows. |
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Post by andrew on Jul 27, 2024 10:39:49 GMT -5
Though we have to remember that Gopal won't 'do', so it has to happen 'to' him without any active participation on his part. So it's easy to see why an extended period of nature could be impactful for him. Though I do recall fairly recently that you were talking about meditation, G....? Are you still meditating sometimes or did that stop? The mind and feelings, and even body-doing happen continually, they are like the energizer bunny. I call it meditation sometimes, to smooth things over. But yes, ~I~ try to remember myself, often. What could be called the last prayer of Gurdjieff: "May God keep us from doing evil, by helping us always and everywhere to remember ourselves". Yes, I've mentioned to Gopal occasionally that there's always something being done. We can't escape the polarity of 'alignment/resistance', we can't escape the polarity of 'moving towards/moving away from'. We can't escape the polarity of 'resonance/discordance'. And so while I take Gopal's points about 'chasing' as valid and generally true, I also saw value in what Sifting had to say about that, on the first pages on the thread. To your edit: yes. |
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Post by stardustpilgrim on Jul 27, 2024 10:46:15 GMT -5
The mind and feelings, and even body-doing happen continually, they are like the energizer bunny. I call it meditation sometimes, to smooth things over. But yes, ~I~ try to remember myself, often. What could be called the last prayer of Gurdjieff: "May God keep us from doing evil, by helping us always and everywhere to remember ourselves". Yes, I've mentioned to Gopal occasionally that there's always something being done. We can't escape the polarity of 'alignment/resistance', we can't escape the polarity of 'moving towards/moving away from'. We can't escape the polarity of 'resonance/discordance'. And so while I take Gopal's points about 'chasing' as valid and generally true, I also saw value in what Sifting had to say about that, on the first pages on the thread. To your edit: yes. Gopal is correct, if it is the so-called SVP that is doing the chasing, the ego-self. But that is not all that exists. |
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Post by andrew on Jul 27, 2024 10:52:08 GMT -5
Yes, I've mentioned to Gopal occasionally that there's always something being done. We can't escape the polarity of 'alignment/resistance', we can't escape the polarity of 'moving towards/moving away from'. We can't escape the polarity of 'resonance/discordance'. And so while I take Gopal's points about 'chasing' as valid and generally true, I also saw value in what Sifting had to say about that, on the first pages on the thread. To your edit: yes. Gopal is correct, if it is the so-called SVP that is doing the chasing, the ego-self. But that is not all that exists. Agree. And I think I understand your view on that quite well. And I resonate with your views pretty well, though given my particular interests, I see downsides/problems to the idea of 'true essential self, and false self'. That's not to say that I discard that distinction, more just that I find it useful to be cautious of it. |
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Post by zazeniac on Jul 28, 2024 9:00:23 GMT -5
In the Zendo there was a constant refrain:"no expectations, no illusions." Similar to what you say about chasing. My wife always talks about closure and resolution. She has these media inspired expectations about life events that never match reality. It never matches the actual. I forewarn her to no avail. We realize that the words aren't enough. The minds propensity for grasping requires retraining it. Why we sit for no reason, just to sit. No expectation about it. It's not easy to let go of this tendency. We are thoroughly conditioned by it. Once you become aware of it. You begin to notice it everywhere. It hard to let go of this pattern. The mind is the consumate bullshit artist. 🙂 I came here to post this, start a new thread. I think some instructions got lost somewhere along the line, in zazen. What is the minimum necessary to acknowledge existence? Descartes got close, the cogito. ZD says the self is illusory, yes, the so-called SVP is illusory. Niz was told by his teacher to acknowledge I Am, in the sense of being. Gurdjieff said, life is real only then, when I am. So, basically, what I'm asking is, what does ZD acknowledge, as the minimum to be able to say the Whole is? This is what got lost in the zazen instructions. (And no, I will neither affirm a correct answer nor deny an incorrect answer. A correct answer is self-validating). I'm not sure what you mean by zazen instructions. Talk of an svp existing or not existing is never considered. You might get bonked in the head. I don't think the person is an illusion as much as a useful concept. It allows us to function, exchange ideas, share bread etc. Nothing hinges on that idea, that we are essentially a deduction, nothing tangible, the I-thought. The question of who or what forms that conclusion is significant though zazen approaches it from a different angle. I think that notion has become a sort of litmus test for ND, sadly. You get a lot of gibberish because of it. Like me telling a distraught friend not to worry because he doesn't exist. You see a lot that sort of drivel. |
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Post by stardustpilgrim on Jul 28, 2024 9:57:44 GMT -5
I came here to post this, start a new thread. I think some instructions got lost somewhere along the line, in zazen. What is the minimum necessary to acknowledge existence? Descartes got close, the cogito. ZD says the self is illusory, yes, the so-called SVP is illusory. Niz was told by his teacher to acknowledge I Am, in the sense of being. Gurdjieff said, life is real only then, when I am. So, basically, what I'm asking is, what does ZD acknowledge, as the minimum to be able to say the Whole is? This is what got lost in the zazen instructions. (And no, I will neither affirm a correct answer nor deny an incorrect answer. A correct answer is self-validating). Talk of an svp existing or not existing is never considered. You might get bonked in the head. I don't think the person is an illusion as much as a useful concept. It allows us to function, exchange ideas, share bread etc. Nothing hinges on that idea, that we are essentially a deduction, nothing tangible, the I-thought. The question of who or what forms that conclusion is significant though zazen approaches it from a different angle. I think that notion has become a sort of litmus test for ND, sadly. You get a lot of gibberish because of it. Like me telling a distraught friend not to worry because he doesn't exist. You see a lot that sort of drivel. . (There are some additional instructions, the how, spine straight, the legs go this way, etc.). I don't have in mind anything that has ordinarily been discussed here on ST's. I don't have in mind, anything in mind. |
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Post by zendancer on Jul 28, 2024 10:14:12 GMT -5
Zen Masters and Zen teachers rarely explain anything about Zen to new students. They usually issue a single admonition that boils down to "Sit down, shut up, and meditate!" They will add a few other words of explanation concerning sitting posture, hand position, the importance of silence and motionlessness, and breath counting as a beginner form of meditation, but little else. The following is my attempt to explain what is behind this admonition, why they advocate meditation, and how they use private interviews:
Most adults live in their heads, and they spend an enormous amount of their time talking to themselves (via an internal dialogue) ABOUT life/reality. As they grow from childhood to adulthood, humans shift from directly perceiving the world through their senses and interacting with the world directly and spontaneously through their bodies to perceiving and interacting with the world through their ideas. They learn, via cultural conditioning, to distinguish separate aspects of reality and give those aspects names. This allows them to communicate with other humans using language about a shared set of distinctions and symbols representing those distinctions. In the simplest terms, they shift away from directly interacting with reality to interacting with an imaginary meta-reality (an intellectual overlay) composed of thoughts and beliefs, and this shift happens so gradually and so unconsciously that most people never realize what happened to them on the way to becoming an adult.
The result of this shift in psychological functioning are adults who imagine that the world is composed of separate things being observed by a separate volitional person (SVP) called "me," and none of that is true. By the age of about five or six the average human has developed a strong sense of selfhood, and this sense of being a separate entity simply continues to solidify more and more strongly into what is called "an ego." By the time humans become teen-agers all kinds of self-referential thought patterns have become deeply entrenched, and this leads to a wide range of mental habits that Zen people point to with different names, such as "comparing mind," "judgmental mind," "desiring mind," "competitive mind," "fantasizing mind," "worrying mind," "closed mind," "opinionated mind," etc. These mental habits make adults feel like they are separate entities riding a roller coaster of good experiences and bad experiences. Most people never investigate what is behind this way of interacting with reality or whether the sense of being a SVP is valid.
Zen people advise students to meditate as a way to help penetrate the cognitive illusions that comprise what Charles Tart called "the concensus trance state." It is assumed that mental silence, alone, will ultimately lead to greater existential clarity. Some Zen people use koans to help in this process. In the Rinzai tradition of Zen new students have one-on-one interviews with Zen teachers who present them with existential questions. In an initial interview a Zen teacher might hold up some object, perhaps a teacup, and ask, "What is this?" The student will usually answer, "It's a teacup." The teacher will respond, "No, I didn't ask you how this can be distinguished; I asked you what it IS. This (pointing to the teacup) can be distinguished and labeled as a teacup, or a ceramic object, or a container for holding liquids, or a physical object, etc, but that's not what it IS. You already understand directly what this is, but you're in the habit of thinking about reality in terms of separate things with various names. I'm asking you to forget the idea of names and forms and let your innate intelligence--what we call 'body-knowing'--or 'intuition'--to answer my question. Head-knowing is useful, but body-knowing is more fundamental and more powerful. For this reason I want you to leave your thinking mind outside of the interview room and only bring your before-thinking mind to these interviews. Go meditate upon my question and come back with a before-thinking mind answer to it."
The student will then go sit on her meditation cushion, mull the question over, and then shift her attention to breath counting, breath following, mantra repetition, or some other meditative activity. Periodically she will bring the existential question back into conscious awareness, and then shift attention back to her meditative activity, At some point she will have a realization, and during her next interview she will attempt to answer her koan in a different way. If she has penetrated the issue and answered correctly, the teacher will then give her another koan to work on. If not, the teacher will send her back to contemplate the issue further. A correct answer to the teacup koan would be to silently take the teacup and pantomime sipping a liquid from it. She knows what the teacup is, directly, and she demonstrates her understanding without having to use words. Her response shows the teacher than she understands the issue. Other initial koans involve penetrating illusions regarding causality, judgmentalness, differentiation, time, motivation, and so forth.
By meditating and resolving koans the student breaks various ingrained thinking habits, and begins to get into the habit of responding to the world directly. This leads to living more and more attentively in the present moment without worrying about the future, regretting the past, or intellectually reflecting about anything. Meditation cuts through the habit of rumination, second-guessing oneself, negative thought patterns, and self-referential thinking in general. Some koans are used as "enlightenment koans" and people who penetrate those koans usually have major insights into the nature of reality. Essentially, meditation and the contemplation and resolution of existential questions helps students "get out of their heads." They become action-oriented people rather than reflection-oriented people.
People who do a significant amount of meditation often fall into the state of nirvikalpa samadhi, and this state of empty pure awareness is often followed by cosmic-consciousness experiences that Zen people call "kensho." Kensho can be either a brief glimpse or a mind-blowing insight, and it is defined as "seeing into one's true nature." Kensho events often result in numerous existential realizations. Some people have completely awakened as a result of a single cosmic-conscious event, but even a minor kensho can give one a glimpse of the Infinite, and make one realize that reality is NOT what one had imagined. A primary kensho event is called "passing through the gateless gate" because one then discovers in concrete terms the difference between what is actual and what is imaginary, and one then becomes substantially freed from the conventional idea of name and form. Passing through the gateless gate is considered to be an entry into the world of the absolute--a world without separation.
Zen people use the word "satori" for the realization that there is no separate "me" who does anything, and this realization usually ends active seeking and results in a feeling of freedom, equanimity, and acceptance of whatever is happening as an unfolding of an intellectually incomprehensible process. Continued meditation usually only adds icing on the cake. Most Zen adherents continue to meditate even after waking up because formally meditating a certain amount of time each day has become an integral part of their lives. Other people who wake up via Zen activities may cease to do formal meditation, but their way of life involves what could be called "informal meditation" because they spend much more time directly attending whatever is happening without intellectual reflection than most people who have not discovered the value of staying present to "what is."
In short, Zen is a methodology that some people use to "get out of their heads" and return to a childlike way of interacting with the world. The general goal of Zen has been called "non-abidance in mind," which means living life detached from ideas and beliefs.
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Post by zazeniac on Jul 28, 2024 11:33:59 GMT -5
I'm not sure what you mean by zazen instructions. Talk of an svp existing or not existing is never considered. You might get bonked in the head. I don't think the person is an illusion as much as a useful concept. It allows us to function, exchange ideas, share bread etc. Nothing hinges on that idea, that we are essentially a deduction, nothing tangible, the I-thought. The question of who or what forms that conclusion is significant though zazen approaches it from a different angle. I think that notion has become a sort of litmus test for ND, sadly. You get a lot of gibberish because of it. Like me telling a distraught friend not to worry because he doesn't exist. You see a lot that sort of drivel. . (There are some additional instructions, the how, spine straight, the legs go this way, etc.). I don't have in mind anything that has ordinarily been discussed here on ST's. I don't have in mind, anything in mind. Have you ever gotten wacked? ("Bonked on the head"). What happened next? Immediately? [Usually, in our meetings, some one, per meeting, got verbally wacked, that is, someone went off to >LaLa Land<, and got ~called back~]. Yes. Very specific detailed instructions on how to sit. There was a gentleman who referred to the great enlightenment vibe in the zendo. Sensei told him if he was there for enlightenment, he was in the wrong place. If he came just to sit, he came to the right place. That's the intended context of my "sit." Never got bonked in the head, just the traps with the kiusaku. Kept me awake during zazen. Not much talk in the zendo. |
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Post by Gopal on Jul 30, 2024 1:14:55 GMT -5
But you don't have-to go anywhere. Being in nature is a help, it's a kind of deliberate starvation of cultural attachments. This can be done anywhere, in nature is with crutches. Though we have to remember that Gopal won't 'do', so it has to happen 'to' him without any active participation on his part. So it's easy to see why an extended period of nature could be impactful for him. Though I do recall fairly recently that you were talking about meditation, G....? Are you still meditating sometimes or did that stop? I never meditated. Cheers! |
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Post by Gopal on Jul 30, 2024 1:26:13 GMT -5
The mind and feelings, and even body-doing happen continually, they are like the energizer bunny. I call it meditation sometimes, to smooth things over. But yes, ~I~ try to remember myself, often. What could be called the last prayer of Gurdjieff: "May God keep us from doing evil, by helping us always and everywhere to remember ourselves". Yes, I've mentioned to Gopal occasionally that there's always something being done. We can't escape the polarity of 'alignment/resistance', we can't escape the polarity of 'moving towards/moving away from'. We can't escape the polarity of 'resonance/discordance'. And so while I take Gopal's points about 'chasing' as valid and generally true, I also saw value in what Sifting had to say about that, on the first pages on the thread. To your edit: yes. His statement is absolutely wrong. That shows that he hasn't seen clearly. All That Is is creating our reality, it is just imagining the reality, it can imagine anything. When you chase, it creates the problem for you to chase again. It will never be solved. Realizing the chasing indicates something is amiss is way to the clarity. Once again, chasing other than what's happening is the real problem. |
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Post by stardustpilgrim on Jul 30, 2024 7:42:50 GMT -5
The mind and feelings, and even body-doing happen continually, they are like the energizer bunny. I call it meditation sometimes, to smooth things over. But yes, ~I~ try to remember myself, often. What could be called the last prayer of Gurdjieff: "May God keep us from doing evil, by helping us always and everywhere to remember ourselves". Yes, I've mentioned to Gopal occasionally that there's always something being done. We can't escape the polarity of 'alignment/resistance', we can't escape the polarity of 'moving towards/moving away from'. We can't escape the polarity of 'resonance/discordance'. And so while I take Gopal's points about 'chasing' as valid and generally true, I also saw value in what Sifting had to say about that, on the first pages on the thread. To your edit: yes. Just to be clear, the ego/so-called SVP is what chases. Essence doesn't chase. So if you are chasing, you are functioning through the self-circuits. If you are not-chasing, you are (almost) in essence. Not-chasing is better than chasing. Meditating, done properly, is not chasing. Submission enters here, sacrifice. |
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Post by andrew on Jul 30, 2024 10:55:45 GMT -5
Yes, I've mentioned to Gopal occasionally that there's always something being done. We can't escape the polarity of 'alignment/resistance', we can't escape the polarity of 'moving towards/moving away from'. We can't escape the polarity of 'resonance/discordance'. And so while I take Gopal's points about 'chasing' as valid and generally true, I also saw value in what Sifting had to say about that, on the first pages on the thread. To your edit: yes. His statement is absolutely wrong. That shows that he hasn't seen clearly. All That Is is creating our reality, it is just imagining the reality, it can imagine anything. When you chase, it creates the problem for you to chase again. It will never be solved. Realizing the chasing indicates something is amiss is way to the clarity. Once again, chasing other than what's happening is the real problem. It may sound odd to you, but I agree with both your points of view. |
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Post by andrew on Jul 30, 2024 11:10:11 GMT -5
Yes, I've mentioned to Gopal occasionally that there's always something being done. We can't escape the polarity of 'alignment/resistance', we can't escape the polarity of 'moving towards/moving away from'. We can't escape the polarity of 'resonance/discordance'. And so while I take Gopal's points about 'chasing' as valid and generally true, I also saw value in what Sifting had to say about that, on the first pages on the thread. To your edit: yes. Just to be clear, the ego/so-called SVP is what chases. Essence doesn't chase. So if you are chasing, you are functioning through the self-circuits. If you are not-chasing, you are (almost) in essence. Not-chasing is better than chasing. Meditating, done properly, is not chasing. Submission enters here, sacrifice. The way 'I' function (or 'this body-mind' if that works better), is through values, and my values are very consistent. But at part of that, I can engage with a different point of view every day. I can engage with different points of view multiple times a day. I look for the spiritual point of view that serves my values most, given the situation and conditions at hand, in any given moment. So sitting yesterday, I found myself thinking about stuff that ZD says, and what he points to, and that was useful for me in that moment. On a different day, I will resonate with someone else's words. Seems to me that everyone here has something to offer spiritually, because what they are offering generally works for them. So...I get what you are saying here, and have no problem with it. But from a different point of view, it could be said that the 'I-thought' is the ONLY doer. That all action happens from 'mind', and that 'beingness' is prior to all doing. It could be said that perhaps ego can potentially serve a positive function, as well as a negative function. It could be said that meditation, even done properly, could still be said to be 'chasing'....and by that standard, everything we do, is a form of 'chasing'. So as said, at a general level, I agree with most of what you say. But I also have to see things in different ways. I have to take counter positions, and as said, I do that because of my values/interests. It's not that I'm playing 'devils advocate', or being deliberately awkward, it's just that conditions change, and I adapt to them to suit my values. |
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Post by stardustpilgrim on Jul 31, 2024 20:27:53 GMT -5
I just now chanced on this. It may be relevant to the thread.
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Post by Gopal on Aug 10, 2024 2:26:54 GMT -5
Life flows smoothly without our conscious effort. Then, one day, we begin to crave external things and emotional states, and that’s when chaos starts to infiltrate our lives. Unfortunately, we lack the power to halt this pursuit we’ve initiated. As life progresses, this chase takes on various forms until one day we realize that all the turmoil in our lives stems from chasing anything other than the present moment
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