Gimmicks and Tricks

[karen]

I've been thinking it might be nice to have a thread where people could share any gimmicks or tricks they've learned along the way.

[karen]

I took an NLP class a few years ago and didn't find too much help in it right away, but a while later I noticed myself using some of the techniques in my life.

For example, when the neighborhood kids would hang around their cars parked in front of my house, they'd leave lots of trash. And after a while of this, I decided to put up a sign to remind them to not litter. But if I said "No Littering" they might rebel and litter more. Putting a trash can out there wouldn't have worked either because it would just attract more people playing hoops with their trash and missing. But armed with my NLP training, I made a sign that said this:

Let's keep our
streets clean
and free
from litter

Now the funny thing about that sentence is that visually it looks like a request - so it doesn't challenge anyone. But it presupposes a leadership position without coming out and giving commands. And most importantly - it worked. Trash that I had to pick up daily, went to once a week.

So recently, I spontaneously using a presupposition to highlight distance between myself and thoughts/beliefs. It takes the form of:

"I actually believe, I'm ___!"

An example is: "I actually believe that guy made me mad! I do! I actually believe this!!!"

Or when just realizing I had been identifying with a train of thoughts/beliefs, I'll go: "You actually thought that was you?"

The beauty of the structure of this is that I'm being honest by acknowledging my feelings as real and acknowledging my beliefs, but by using the "actually", I'm presupposing that it's not true in reality.

So that's one gimmick. It might only be of limited value, but I've found it useful.

[zendancer]

Karen: I've already mentioned the gimmick of placing and hiding notes around the home and office to remind us to focus on the here and now. Examples would be "What am I doing now (thinking or directly experiencing isness)?" "What is seen?" "What is heard?" "Wake up." "Don't think." "Be here now." "Come out of the mind." "Look around." Etc. These kinds of reminders help us realize the degree to which we are lost in the mind, cause us to stop and consider what's going on, and bring us back to the truth, if even for a few moments.

You're already mentioned the trick of focusing upon an object while hiking and then re-focusing upon the next object to come into view. The same thing can be done with sounds. One can focus on
"universal sound" or whatever environmental sounds might be present, and then stick with one of the other or switch back and forth between them.

When driving a vehicle, it is often helpful to let the eyes scan one's entire field of view without lingering too long in any one spot. We watch the road, but we also look at our hands on the steering wheel, the trees and fields on each side of the road, red-tailed hawks sitting on treelimbs beside the highway, other animals, the hood of the car, the texture of the dashboard, etc. By moving the eyes around the entire field of view, it keeps us from falling into the usual trance-like state of mind.

Many people have watches that can be set to ring periodically and this can act like a regular wake-up call. Charles Tart, in one of his books, describes using a small bell to do the same sort of thing. Each time one hears the ringtone one remembers and returns to presence

In several Buddhist traditions people chant the heart sutra accompanied by the beating of a moktak or similar resonant instrument. I used to play a tape recording of that chant and chant in unison with it while driving on long trips. After a while, that sort of thing can put one into a strange place. Awareness is just watching the activity, but reflective thought gets shut down by the chanting. It becomes amazing to watch the body chant words in total emptiness. How are the words being formed without a volitional element? How does this happen without a person making it happen? After two hundred miles, there is hyper-alertness but thoughts are gone.

Here's another interesting experiment. Sometimes in the winter we get out of bed and the floor is very cold. Our usual response is to go "Ooh! The floor is so cold," and we rush to put something warm on our feet. If, instead, we watch the body respond to the coldness, something different happens. There is some separation and the usual feeling of coldness becomes impersonal and distant. We may think, "How interesting. The coldness used to bother me, but now it isn't felt in the same way." Awareness is just being aware without the personal component. It is as if the response is happening in emptiness, and there is no need to escape the response. In the Gospel of Thomas I think there is a verse where Jesus is reported to have said, "Become as a passerby."

These are a few things that immediately came to mind when I saw this thread, but I'm sure that other people will be able to offer similar suggestions. Cheers.

[question]

1) This one I discovered about ten years ago. It's the noticing of how incredibly weird everything is. Bipedal beings, with seven holes in their heads, teeth in the mouth, weird looking ears on the sides of their heads, hair, skin, bones, blood, bodies mostly made of strange liquids. Weird plantlife all over the place, insects that look like alien lifeforms etc. Most of the time, most of us kinda take everything for granted and the weirdness is overlooked. But when I fully dive into this weirdness, a not-knowingness opens up and it's so overwhelming that one just can't help but say "Ok I lose, I don't know wtf this is." The noticing can be done at will, and it jerks me out into not-knowing and into just watching whatever is around, everything becomes extremely unfamiliar, then I have no clue what I am and what I'm doing here, even my parents look like aliens. And the biggest weirdness is obviously "why is there something at all instead of nothing", that one also works well, but with a different flavour, less focus on what is and more focus on the mind.

2) This one I figured out when I began painting and really looking at things closely. Basically one just stares at an object, say a red sweater. Step by step one eliminates all words and thoughts from this experience. Take away the word sweater. Now it's a red object and I don't know what it is and what its function is. Next I take away the colour red. Then the word colour. Then the word object. Then I take away the thought that "it" is. The the word "is". What remains is a much clearer seeing without noticeable ideas attached to it. Again at the end of this process there's just looking at I don't know what, what once was a simple red sweater is now a complete mystery and it's hard to attaach the words "red sweater" to it, and it doesn't even make sense to call it anything.

3) This one is a recent discovery and I don't know yet what happens there. I'm looking at a mirror. Her's my body and there's the image of the face of my body. Now I start a thought loop, something silly and automatic, like singing the national anthem or just doo-dee-daa-doo. Now there's three things, me, my image, my thought, but none of it can be located anywhere, somethings breaks down and the mind splits apart. Where am I, where is my image and where is the thought?

[zendancer]

Oh yeah! Teeth are just the weirdest things imaginable. I love that one. I love to ask people how they grew their teeth.

The mirror one is great, too. You can stare into the eyes in the mirror and just stay with it. What is being seen, and who is seeing? If you can find someone (perhaps a lover) who is willing to have some fun, stare into each other's eyes for twenty minutes or more in silence. Gangaji has used this exercise in some of her retreats, and it can be very powerful.

[vacant]

Karen, good start of a thread, this. As soon as I read your post I started to explore the tricks I often use and could not help noticing that a lot have been inspired by Bob Fergeson . Gimmicks, tricks and traps is something he writes extensively about. I’d want to give here a link to the stalking of the I thought essay but can’t find it just now, and it’s probably more directly valid to tell about my own experience with it: these days I do more meditating walking about in the streets than sitting formal, surely any individual can apply it in their own circumstances, I just stalk any thought where “I” is the one talking or thinking. No need to necessarily eradicate it or block it or see it as a bad thing, just catching myself thinking it, I clock it with the underlying question “who’s that?” or even just clock it and that’s all. It’s a tiring exercise at first such is the mind’s repetitive nature with “I”, but educative and fruitful.

I’ve also taken your advice, ZD, when you posted it before about leaving written notes all around the operating space (computer, car, kitchen surface, coat hanger, etc) and found it very efficient (thank you)…

The limitation with gimmicks & tricks is that — ego-mind which we are trying to trick here, being so quickly adaptable and re-inventive— they only work as long as they are novelty. Pass that and they get swallowed and incorporated in the automatic unconscious routine. To that effect I refer again to Bob Fergeson, this very topical essay and the important cautionary notes

But we all need a few tools! Now said quietly: most efficient of all for me is the knowledge that life and its circumstances never fail to come up with the opportunity and tool of the day when given attention.

[vacant]

And what's NLP?

[lightmystic]

Hey Karen, great idea -

Vacant - NLP is Neuro Linguistic Programming. It's using a way of phrasing things to suggest a certain way of looking at things to the mind (either our own mind or others' minds). Karen gave some good examples of that above....

Something that I've noticed to be particularly helpful is to put everything on the level of a feeling - and I'm not talking about emotions here, but, literally, what does it FEEL like. This helps move out of the head.

I've noticed this to be amazingly effective in all areas, but is particularly obvious in the form of fulfilling desires. It works like this:

A.) Notice what the desire is that's feeling unfulfilled
B.) Recognize that the desire itself is a feeling, and the "thing" that we think is going to fulfill that desire is really just an assumption about what is going to bring the experience enough to fulfill that feeling in a satisfying way. In other words, separate the feeling (which is the desire itself) from the idea of what we think is going to fulfill that feeling (because, when we say "desire" we tend to lump those two together, and that actually gets in the way of the fulfillment).
C.) Recognize that, even if our assumption about what's going to fulfill the desire is a reasonable one, Life could provide many other circumstances that would fulfill our desires as well or better than what we are thinking, and recognize that, by assuming that only the way we've come up with is what's going to do it, we've actually closed ourselves off to receiving it in whatever way Life is trying to give it (unless it happens to coincide with our ideas about how to get it, which is rarely the case in my experience).
D.) Clearly state your desire to Life (doesn't have to be physically) and be open to letting Life fulfill it in whatever way Life wants.

I have never had a desire not be fulfilled when doing this process. It's just that it rarely looks on the surface like I would have expected...that's why really acknowledging the feeling, yet maintaining that openness, is so important.....


Another way of talking about the process:
You want to acknowledge your feelings and desires 100%, but you want to avoid trying to control them in any way - let life drive, let life decide how to fulfill the desires. You're job is just to want it, and to be open to receiving the fulfillment of it when the opportunity for fulfillment presents itself....

[zendancer]

Byron Katie's four questions (The Work) are extremely helpful to many people.

1. Is this particular thought the truth?
2. Can I know, absolutely, that this thought is the truth?
3. Who would I be and how would I feel without this thought?
4. If I turned the thought around, could I gain some perspective on it? If my thought, for example, is "My boss is a bad person who is out to get me," could I gain any insight by entertaining the idea, "My boss is a good person who is not out to get me?"

[karen]

I've also used this as a target for attention:



And while peering into it deeply with focused attention, turn my attention back into the array of my awareness and hold it as long as possible. Of course that can be done with any attention on anything with any sense, but this digital camera spoke is very easy to look at in that way for me.

I've printed those out and put them in various places.

[loverofall]

Great thread!!! This was somthing I printed out and a couple people read it while it was laying around and were moved so I keep it posted around me in a couple places.

All there is, is This, there's nothing else.
There's nowhere to go, nothing to do, nothing to become
This is all there is.
All there ever was is This.
All there will ever be is This.
Nothing mystical. Nothing mundane.
Just This.
And you are This.

[maggie]

Hey Karen,
Thank you for a great thread! One of the gimmicks I use is the question, What am I? and its relative forms, What is this? Just sitting with attention not providing an answer.

The other favorite gimmick is notes, they are all over the house, favorite Nisargadatta quotes such as this one on the window sill, "keep quiet, undisturbed, and the wisdom and the power will come on their own. You need not hanker. Wait in silence of the heart and mind. It is very easy to be quiet, but willingness is rare".

Sometimes I am moved to pull a card from my ACIM quote box, recently pulled out; "All your past except its beauty is gone, and nothing is left but a blessing. Enjoy reading all the posts!

[alpha]

Feb 25, 2010 13:54:10 GMT -5 loverofall said:

Great thread!!! This was somthing I printed out and a couple people read it while it was laying around and were moved so I keep it posted around me in a couple places.

All there is, is This, there's nothing else.
There's nowhere to go, nothing to do, nothing to become
This is all there is.
All there ever was is This.
All there will ever be is This.
Nothing mystical. Nothing mundane.
Just This.
And you are This.

Loverofall, you may like these also...

This is not a place from which
To launch your search
This is it

Luckily you haven’t wasted
Any time searching
This was it all along

This is not part of everything
This is everything

This
Means everything that is
And it’s the same this
As this
This

If this is it
And it’s not satisfactory
Then that’s it

Any pointer can only
Point to this
Because this is all there is
When God is everything
It makes him hard to spot

[loverofall]

Thanks for the poem. Here are great cartoons I came across. Funny and the visual pointers help me.

advaitatoons.blogspot.com/

[loverofall]

And now a pointing song. Its got a relaxing sound and James Braha wrote a bunch of pointers into it about his teacher Sailor Bob.

www.jamesbraha.com/sailor_bob_song.html