DesertBob Posted October 3, 2011 Share Posted October 3, 2011 If what you have is learning to be at peace with what you don't have, then you always have it, eh eh? Deva believes that she can hope to be secure in something called "nisarga" which she also believes is attainable. I have come to believe that all security is illusion. As such, I suppose that, yes, you're correct, the only "it" one can "always have" is what you don't have. Yay. By the way the dog was whimpering because she had vomited all over her pen. Second time in as many days. I guess I'm off to bequeath another inheritance on the vet! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Noggy Posted October 3, 2011 Share Posted October 3, 2011 If what you have is learning to be at peace with what you don't have, then you always have it, eh eh? Deva believes that she can hope to be secure in something called "nisarga" which she also believes is attainable. I have come to believe that all security is illusion. As such, I suppose that, yes, you're correct, the only "it" one can "always have" is what you don't have. Yay. By the way the dog was whimpering because she had vomited all over her pen. Second time in as many days. I guess I'm off to bequeath another inheritance on the vet! It sounds sad, doesn't it? Learning to be content with what you don't have? It sounds like such a poor man's philosophy. But once you have that, it doesn't matter, because you're at peace. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deva Posted October 3, 2011 Share Posted October 3, 2011 Deva believes that she can hope to be secure in something called "nisarga" which she also believes is attainable. I have come to believe that all security is illusion. As such, I suppose that, yes, you're correct, the only "it" one can "always have" is what you don't have. Yay. But the thing is, we do have it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Noggy Posted October 3, 2011 Share Posted October 3, 2011 Thirty spokes converge at the hub, but emptiness completes the wheel. Clay is shaped to make a pot, and what's useful is its emptiness. Care fine doors and windows, but the room is useful in its emptiness. What is is beneficial, while what is not also proves useful. Tao Te Ching, Translation by Tao Tzu 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rev R Posted October 4, 2011 Share Posted October 4, 2011 Heya Jeff, Good on you for finding something you seem to enjoy so much. If you need something, just hit me up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Noggy Posted October 4, 2011 Share Posted October 4, 2011 And again, "Ever desireless, one can see the mystery. Ever desiring, one sees only the manifestations. The mystery itself is the doorway to all understanding." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Antlerman Posted October 4, 2011 Share Posted October 4, 2011 Self-realization or God-realization, but both are really the same thing. We are not God, but we are of the same essence as God, gods within God. We are not our minds, bodies, wills, or emotions. We are the eternal, unchanging Self, the Atman, and the goal of life is to realize that truth. The teachings of Advaita Vedanta resonate with me too. I also am strongly attracted to Vaishnavism and Shaivism. I find something in the teachings of all of the major Hindu sects to appreciate. Yes, I can agree with this. If you do meditation or even just for a few minutes - meaning you stop thinking about everything and anything under the sun, you can see there is something really great and indestructible there. Some essence, if you will, that is beyond thought, feeling, body, and anything else. It exists but it cannot be described. I think this is fantastic that Brother Jeff has come into this. I agree fully about meditation. It can heal a great deal of our anxieties and neurosis. It grounds us and keeps us clear. Our perception of reality is altered where we are no longer the center of everything that buffets us, as our identity steps back into more our true Nature. I started practicing daily meditation first thing in the morning now for at least 30 minutes up to an hour if allowed. There has been a marked shift that has occurred for me where nothing is quite the same now. Anxieties have dropped off. I am fluidly aware of my body and my environment. I listen to others better, I am clearer, lighter, freer, more alert and attentive, I see the world unobstructed. I see others. People have said to me when they see me, "You look different. Your face looks different. There is good presence about you." This from several entirely unrelated situations and people. I know it myself. Something has changed, and its a change that is not going back. That I know. It is easy for habits to creep back and suck you back into your head and all its created worlds, but I'm too aware of it now as it happens. It's not where we belong. I don't see stepping back now. I fully believe to just go into solitude and not just think about things, but let all thoughts dissolve into simply just being where you do not engage any thinking about it but simply breathing in your simple state of being, there is profound release and inhaling of life into you, a relaxing of it out, and as you complete, it flows through you from your head to your feet and grounds you as you move out into the day. There is a place of finding ground and truth in yourself, but not by reading books about it, someone telling you about it, having dogma jammed in your face about it, or reasoning and analyzing yourself into it. It is found in one place - stillness. You are that. There is talk, and then there is finding. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DesertBob Posted October 5, 2011 Share Posted October 5, 2011 There is a place of finding ground and truth in yourself, but not by reading books about it, someone telling you about it, having dogma jammed in your face about it, or reasoning and analyzing yourself into it. It is found in one place - stillness. You are that. There is talk, and then there is finding. I have a new situation / general clusterfuck to deal with since mid-July and it is one of those deals where I have very little control over the situation and to attempt to exert control can only make matters worse -- both in reality and in between my own ears. To educate myself I dipped into a support group last night and at bottom all they really talk about is relinquishing control and having good boundaries. I reflected that I have a leg up on this situation: since I lost all control of my life years ago I'm actually used to it. My problem is not so much the need to control -- I could tell by talking to others in the same situation that I have a lot less anger and frustration and moment to moment struggle than most -- as missing the illusion of control and learning to accept the idea that there's never any end to this sort of thing and going into the home stretch of life with, in some important ways, more of it than ever. In other words it's almost like a meta-problem for me, I can deal with the stuff in my life but I have trouble dealing with dealing with the stuff in my life, if you catch my drift. My internal dialog tends towards things like, I'm too old for this shit. Enough already. When do I get to mentally and emotionally and existentially retire and apply myself to things I actually choose to apply myself to. Never, I guess. At any rate I agree with what you're saying in principle. The way into it for me seems to be that I have to throw in the towel and acquiesce to the process. I don't know about mediation per se but I can say that Wednesdays are, for various reasons, the most stressful day of the week for me and I was just able to lie down and shut my brain off and stare at a virtual brick wall for 10 minutes and I will admit, I feel more centered. That in and of itself seems insane to me. But what the hell. It's a start I suppose. :-) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Antlerman Posted October 5, 2011 Share Posted October 5, 2011 The way into it for me seems to be that I have to throw in the towel and acquiesce to the process. What it is is not a resignation, but rather a new mind dealing with it. They become issues, like pulling weeds, tasks to resolve and you become more calm and collected in dealing with them. They are "your" problems, but they do not define you and their impact becomes less of an emotional investment or drain upon you. They are your tasks, not you. I don't know about mediation per se but I can say that Wednesdays are, for various reasons, the most stressful day of the week for me and I was just able to lie down and shut my brain off and stare at a virtual brick wall for 10 minutes and I will admit, I feel more centered. That in and of itself seems insane to me. But what the hell. It's a start I suppose. :-) Beautiful. Yes, I was doing 10 minutes here and there and the effect was quite significant. Extend that to an hour and watch what happens. That of course is no guarantee for everyone, because it depends on many converging lines in ones life. It sounds to me like you just tasted it. And in the simplest terms it removes the debris on our windows to the world. We have new clarity, and the more clarity the more the illusions dissolve and we see them for what they are, as we see ourselves for who we really are. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deva Posted October 5, 2011 Share Posted October 5, 2011 I can fully appreciate that sitting meditation helps a lot of people, but I am really not great at it. I can sit there and focus for a few seconds then my mind is running at full speed and I am watching it. To be the witness and just see it run riot! It is not a quiet mind. Its been running amok plenty lately with my employment situation and worries about my elderly parents. It comes down to fear of change and fear of loss and death. My major error in life was as a teenager accepting what other people said or thought about me as having some validity. I also accepted other peoples explanation's for the world (like the Christian one). I now don't trust any explanation as a complete one. Its all concepts. Really its just a game. The "spiritual life" can be a game that you are not even aware you are playing- and I have seen many examples over at the Buddhist Dharma Center where I have attended the last four years. Its quite easy to put on a persona of being "spiritual". Be a vegetarian, wear a scarf or a robe, smile all the time, say nice things to everybody, slap a bumper sticker on your car, worship the guru, adopt foreign mannerisms...I could be very good at it. However..I know in my bones that isn't it. One of the Rishis of India said that the spiritual life was walking on a razor's edge. That would be the authentic spiritual life. For sure that isn't a description of something easy. If it were easy everyone would have peace and not suffering. We plainly see that isn't the case. I know that something about guided mediation helps me. It takes me out of where "I" am and makes me see the whole unbroken unity. I know all the objections - how is that different from drugs or music or art or whatever? But it seems that it is different somehow for me. By "guided meditation" I mean listening to the talks of masters or reading their writings. Its better. It makes my outlook on life and what I am dealing with better, the burden lighter. I don't think its the case that one process or one path fits all. Bruce Lee said it well in the context of the martial arts: “Don't get set into one form, adapt it and build your own, and let it grow, be like water.” Just ran across this site: http://stephenhwolinskyphdlibrary.com/downloads.html I have read many of the books listed. They have helped me. I am not sure they would help everybody. I would rather be doing a job but I am underemployed with time on my hands so I am just rambling. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rev R Posted October 5, 2011 Share Posted October 5, 2011 +10 for a Bruce Lee reference. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deva Posted October 5, 2011 Share Posted October 5, 2011 +10 for a Bruce Lee reference. Oh, I could have supplied quite a few more, but thought I would restrain myself. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Antlerman Posted October 5, 2011 Share Posted October 5, 2011 I can fully appreciate that sitting meditation helps a lot of people, but I am really not great at it. I can sit there and focus for a few seconds then my mind is running at full speed and I am watching it. To be the witness and just see it run riot! It is not a quiet mind. No one said it was easy! That's just the point. Actually something Rev R shared with me on mediation basics helps with other things I do. It's a learning process for me, and as you say it isn't a one size fits all thing. I can share a few things that I do that may or may not be helpful. For a long time before this I would, and still do, take at least a mile to two walk everyday after lunch. During that walk I would try to still my thoughts by simply focusing on the motion of walking itself. My mind would start racing and at first I would work to force it to stop, but soon found that to be kind and gentle just pulling it back with maybe a simple word like 'quite' rather than be anxious it was happening helped a great deal. It's normal and natural for that to happen since it's an organ after all and it's just going though its motions that we ask it to do all day. As you begin to do that, you see your thoughts are not 'you' but part of you. Eventually things slow and you begin to be much more aware of things around you and less involved in your head. The effect could be quite relaxing moving to a space of greater awareness. That said, personally I find there is a different depth of that which happens in silent sitting. I follow what Rev R shared about basic posture, room lighting, eyes slightly open, etc. For me I found that the inclusion of Tibetian Singing Bowls is a tremendous aide for medition for me. The sounds resonate pulling my thoughts into them fading back into silent emptiness. I have three of them in various sizes, 5", 7", and 11". Being an expressive musician who looses himself in music, the deeply ethereal sounds of the bells draws my whole being into them. After some time of the mind relaxing and going deeper in them, I move into silent spaces of breathing and experiencing energy flowing through and around me. As the mind eventually comes back into thought patterns, I strike a bowl to refocus and move back. As a half hour or longer passes, I have a gentle alarm sound to tell me I have to move to prepare to go to work. I then find myself coming up and bringing down into me what I have just experienced in a grounding that moves through my breathing from the crown of my head to my feet and back up and through me, then back in and out again. Most all of this is what I have just come to with what is happening naturally, and what I find works. And each time is slightly different. It's just going with what you feel needs to be touched on each time in the practice. The interesting thing is, is that at first it was as if I were seeking an experience in the meditation, but surprisingly what I found is that that is not the point! It was what happens afterward. The entire world is different! The sky smiles on me, I move with lightness and mindfulness in every motions, observing the world as it moves around me and through me. It really has taken me to the opening of what I experience 30 years ago in a pure nondual awakening as some young man in existential crisis. It is not some state induced in meditation, but meditation is a way to open ourselves to what truly is through creating a clearing through the everyday world. Funny thing, at first I thought I should just sit and look at the clouds and smile back, so to speak, but what I found was the pull to do just ordinary tasks - to pick up sticks in the yard. Every action was a fulfillment of life. P.S. Loved the Bruce Lee quote. It truly resonates. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deva Posted October 6, 2011 Share Posted October 6, 2011 AM, thank you for sharing your experience of meditation. One of the problems I have with just sitting is my cat. She sees me doing it and then starts messing around, scratching the furniture, and being a general pest. I can go three miles down the road and sit with the group at the Dharma Center, and that works better for me but they don't do this every day. Its seems there are all kinds of obstacles for me with something seemingly so simple. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Antlerman Posted October 6, 2011 Share Posted October 6, 2011 AM, thank you for sharing your experience of meditation. One of the problems I have with just sitting is my cat. She sees me doing it and then starts messing around, scratching the furniture, and being a general pest. I can go three miles down the road and sit with the group at the Dharma Center, and that works better for me but they don't do this every day. Its seems there are all kinds of obstacles for me with something seemingly so simple. I do have to say that not all environments are conducive to that sort of practice. I find outside that, I can move myself into that state in pockets of space I create around me mentally, such as riding on the bus, sitting in a room with others, walking down the street, but to have a quite space without all the commotion is definitely more conducive for that. If your cat could just go and do its own thing then you could ignore it. Nowhere else you can isolate the animal to? Maybe train it to do cat meditation, teach it how to sit in silence? BTW, there is a Tibetan Buddhist temple very close by me and I know a couple people from there from the store where I bought my singing bowls. They meet twice a week to do this, but I'm hesitant to go as I know they have a different approach to things, the whole notion of worshiping a guru and whatnot, would not work at all for me. Expose myself to a system like that doesn't work for me. Call it my holdover from the church. It's still prone to those issues, regardless of the methods. Perhaps I'm wrong in that assumption. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Noggy Posted October 6, 2011 Share Posted October 6, 2011 You don't need to sit around with your eyes closed. Do something. Invest your entire heart mind and soul into it for the moment. Same result. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DesertBob Posted October 6, 2011 Share Posted October 6, 2011 You don't need to sit around with your eyes closed. Do something. Invest your entire heart mind and soul into it for the moment. Same result. Yes, it's not like my life is meditation-less, if not in the classic sense. Writing software or a post like this can be meditation. A walk in the park can be meditation. Rubbing my fiancee's feet can be meditation. I usually end up behind the wheel of the car on long drives because it is meditative for me. Many things quiet the mind. I still maintain that nothing beats just not being harried, harassed and hectored all the time though. For me, personal centeredness is all about pacing myself. I structure my life for as much elbow-room as possible. I just moved my weekly piano lesson to a different day, a day where work demands tend to be lighter. I do stuff like that all the time. --Bob Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Antlerman Posted October 6, 2011 Share Posted October 6, 2011 You don't need to sit around with your eyes closed. Do something. Invest your entire heart mind and soul into it for the moment. Same result. Yes and no. It is a different taste, a different fruit, some more subtle, some more robust, but a fruit nonetheless. As has been said, there is no one single way, but there is a single One. Many faces. BTW: Note to self. Do not swig down a cup of coffee immediately before going to meditate. You will find monkey brain calling his entire extended family out of the forest to create a living zoo in your mind! Bad monkey! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Antlerman Posted October 6, 2011 Share Posted October 6, 2011 I wanted to share this study I found today that shows how different approaches has different effects. It's sort along these lines of mindfulness that I've been finding great shifts happening for me in: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1361002/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Noggy Posted October 6, 2011 Share Posted October 6, 2011 Meditation doesn't work for me as well because I have a severe case of ADHD. My mind runs around with a billion other monkeys clanging things at all time. Unless I have something that I am doing. However, once I'm doing something that is repetitive, such as washing the dishes, I can lose my self. In relation to the thread topic, I think that in hinduism it is called "karma yoga", which is the yoga of action. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deva Posted October 6, 2011 Share Posted October 6, 2011 BTW, there is a Tibetan Buddhist temple very close by me and I know a couple people from there from the store where I bought my singing bowls. They meet twice a week to do this, but I'm hesitant to go as I know they have a different approach to things, the whole notion of worshiping a guru and whatnot, would not work at all for me. Expose myself to a system like that doesn't work for me. Call it my holdover from the church. It's still prone to those issues, regardless of the methods. Perhaps I'm wrong in that assumption. The cat can't be confined to another room, because she would spend the entire time scratching at the door, trying to get out--even more noise and distraction. She is the real boss of this house. The Dharma Center I attend is also Tibetan and I have to stay on the periphery, because I also have a problem with the same thing you mention and, after all, it is a system. I learn things and take what I want from it if it is inspiring or useful (some ritual I like, some practices), but of course some of the members want to get me more involved and I am not going to do it. Sometimes I get moods where I think it would be so great and easy if I could go all the way into it -- but I know it wouldn't work in the long term. There certainly are different forms of meditation. The sitting meditation helps me see the ephemeral nature of thought and helps me not to grasp thoughts. If you go back to a point of focus again and again you do become better at not letting repetitive thought patterns take over. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DKretch Posted November 4, 2012 Share Posted November 4, 2012 Great thread, everyone! I thought I'd resurrect it with a suggestion for your cat problem, Deva. Does catnip work on your cat? If so, it wouldn't necessarily make her silent, but least too buzzed too scratch at doors or furniture. Drugging is about the only way I can imagine being able to train a cat to respect meditation time, so I suppose you could try DMT but that's pushing it as far as ethical considerations go. Maybe the guy from My Cat From Hell would have a better idea. I know what you mean about all the obstacles coming up against something that should be so simple. I blame it on an extension of the monkey mind into our daily lives. For me, I'm such a night owl, so I often end up sleeping too late to allow a morning hour of sitting meditation, and I'm resigned to taking advantage of my 15 minute walk to work. That has been helpful, no doubt, with helping to keep me balanced, focused, and less anxiety-ridden. However, during periods when I actually get to bed at a decent hour and rise early enough to get in a good sitting session, I notice a dramatic difference. So far I'm up to maybe 7 consecutive days until an obstacle comes up and derails it. Last time it was a family trip for a wedding over the weekend. Unfortunately that meant I wasn't getting my walking meditation to work either, and no one had any tea so I was back to drinking coffee in the morning. Ugh. Plus everyone in my family is Christian so I had to sit through a lot of religious stuff, including the wedding itself. Suffice to say, I was in rough shape and pretty bummed out when I got back, but I got grounded again fairly quickly, before I finished the workweek. I like referring to meditation as practice, because it does seem to get easier and easier the more one does it. Well I suppose I should honor the Self and turn in, or else I will end up saying "Bad monkey!" to myself when I wake up too late to meditate before my plans tomorrow. Everything just seems so interesting after midnight though.. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deva Posted November 4, 2012 Share Posted November 4, 2012 Dkretch: Thanks for reviving this interesting topic. My cat likes catnip. I have only tried the dried kind, and I sprinkled in on this cardboard scratching board she likes. She rolled around in it and scratched the thing more than before. But it only lasted a few days and then she was off to her other antics. She is a very intelligent cat and I think she knows perfectly well she isn't supposed to scratch the couch. She does it when I am in that room and I don't think very much of the time otherwise. It is a bid for attention, I think. I have lately been reading a lot of Nisargadatta Maharaj - this is a nice page on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Consciousness-and-the-Absolute/306170576157812 It has a calming effect on me - I can't really explain it. I have gone through some very tough stuff lately and it has helped A LOT. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DKretch Posted November 5, 2012 Share Posted November 5, 2012 Thanks for the link, I'll definitely use that as a inspirational resource. As far as catnip goes, I have a pagan friend who recognized it growing around the house and picked some for the cat. Let me tell you, the effects were immediate and dramatic with fresh leaves like that. Of course, I've heard that can vary depending on the cat, and not everyone has flower beds with just the right kind of weeds in them Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Antlerman Posted November 11, 2012 Share Posted November 11, 2012 I know what you mean about all the obstacles coming up against something that should be so simple. I blame it on an extension of the monkey mind into our daily lives. For me, I'm such a night owl, so I often end up sleeping too late to allow a morning hour of sitting meditation, and I'm resigned to taking advantage of my 15 minute walk to work. That has been helpful, no doubt, with helping to keep me balanced, focused, and less anxiety-ridden. However, during periods when I actually get to bed at a decent hour and rise early enough to get in a good sitting session, I notice a dramatic difference. So far I'm up to maybe 7 consecutive days until an obstacle comes up and derails it. Last time it was a family trip for a wedding over the weekend. Unfortunately that meant I wasn't getting my walking meditation to work either, and no one had any tea so I was back to drinking coffee in the morning. Ugh. Plus everyone in my family is Christian so I had to sit through a lot of religious stuff, including the wedding itself. Suffice to say, I was in rough shape and pretty bummed out when I got back, but I got grounded again fairly quickly, before I finished the workweek. I like referring to meditation as practice, because it does seem to get easier and easier the more one does it. This is so good to hear all of this! It's working for you. It's funny reading this thread and my comments from a year ago. I had actually only been doing a sitting meditation for just over a month at the time. You're right, it does get much easier to just enter into meditation once you're used to doing it. It's hard to describe, but that space you move into in meditation will continue to deepen and grow. And as you said with practice, you just become able to simple move into that space at will, during the day, in a moment. You'll start to begin to catch yourself during the day in old mind habits. You soon become acutely aware of the distracted mind throughout the day, and meditation will become part of everything you do. In a nutshell, everything is affected. Hard to describe, but the best I can offer is that your seat of you self-identity shifts to Awareness itself. You still function with your personality, likes, dislikes, etc, but you're not tossed about like before where you were embedded in all those 'mind objects' we identified with. Responses that arise you begin to see as 'habits', that you used to do coming from the egoic center, rather than where you really are at now. In other words, the bad bits tend to drop off more. Now that, is where regular practice, repeatedly opening yourself to that higher self or deeper self-knowledge will begin to integrate and transform you. I am not the same person in this regard. Say it's more taking the positive qualities and deepening them while trimming off the fat, so to speak. Rather, what happens is we leave behind the things that are no longer necessary, but were in that previous stage of our growth. "Transcend and include", negates the now unneeded parts, building instead on top of the needed parts. Sounds like you're getting the benefit of it straight off, and that's great. You'll go through periods of adjustment, like backing off of meditation, or finding excuses, feeling stuck in a rut, etc, but the bottom line is it will all come down to a commitment to yourself. Open yourself to what arises and go with that, keeping your intentions set. That is the part you do, present yourself with intention, but without expectation. You do it for a reason, and it needs to be as much a priority as eating breakfast. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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