Meditation people roll call!

> There are, however, many forms of meditation that merely require that a person pay extraordinarily close attention to the flow of his experience. There is nothing irrational about doing this. In fact, it constitutes the only rational basis upon which to make detailed claims about the nature of one's own experience."

OTM!

It was actually an article Harris wrote about Buddhism that made me go back to it.

Assuming that's Sam Harris.

By "pay(ing) extraordinarily close to attention to the flow of (one's) experience," aren't you actually altering the flow of your experience to focus on details that one would normally ignore?

Yes. You're paying closer attention to what you are actually experiencing, whether it be physical reality or thoughts that arise in response to physical reality.

Alternatively: Our mental lives are not "experience" per se. By extricating ourselves from our noisy inner dialogues we are in fact coming into closer accord with our own experiences.

Base! how low can you go?

I wish I was a robot.

-- Abbott, Wednesday, July 18, 2007 5:01 PM (4 hours ago) Bookmark Link

this is the only thing on this thread that i can get behind

isn't thinking you've extricated yourself from the noisy inner dialogue of the mind a trick your mind plays on itself?

I know a guy who said pain is the same exact sensation as pleasure, just more of it and more concentrated. He claims to have undergone a root canal without any sort of anesthesia as an experiment with the help of a dentist friend of his.

-- dean ge, Wednesday, July 18, 2007 11:58 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Link

this sounds cool but i don't buy it (the basic idea). the most intense pleasure i have felt was nothing like the very faintest pain.

I guess you're not one of them S&M dudes.

i drove by a truck that said "S&M Trucking" on it today!!

Can we just agree that these people have gifts through which they have access to the spiritual realm?

-- Tim Ellison, Wednesday, July 18, 2007 11:10 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Link

No.

Also, w/r/t this "pleasure" and "pain" business: are you trying to conflate the two (or put them on the same gradient or whatever) in the psychological/emotional sense, or in a purely physiological way, or both?

I was just addressing that question to Shakey, actually.

As to the pleasure and pain question, my experience in meditation is that pain is, as that person was describing, just this concentrated energy and when it is released you experience the energy in a pleasing way. From what I understand about energies associated with emotions, they are thought to vary in frequency. Someone that does reiki explained that to me once.

Sorry for being so antagonistic, Tim, I'm just a bit of a skeptic by nature.

Per your response to the pain question: I assume, then, you're talking about psychic/emotional pain as opposed to, say, the pain of getting hitting by a truck.

meditation definitely helps in dealing with physical pain (at least for me) - it helps to kind of divorce yourself psychologically from the physical sensations. Instead of focusing on how much pain you're in, you think about the nature of pain, how it will pass, that it is simply a temporary sensation, etc.

I assume, then, you're talking about psychic/emotional pain as opposed to, say, the pain of getting hitting by a truck.

Actually, both types of pain can be meditated upon and released, but like I was saying with the tooth extraction thing, there's only so much a person might be able to weather.

Consider the monks who quietly set themselves on fire and burned to death.

isn't thinking you've extricated yourself from the noisy inner dialogue of the mind a trick your mind plays on itself?

-- Granny Dainger, Thursday, 19 July 2007 04:26

As though the mind is really waiting around the corner chortling at me?

my fuckin mind, always playin tricks on me, I mean itself, I mean it, I mean... oh fuck it...

you could say that reality is a trick the mind plays on itself

I don't see what the problem is. You either are thinking thoughts or you are not, and are completely focused on the present moment. That simple. If focusing on the present moment is defined as "playing a trick on" oneself, then I guess that's what you're doing.

HOOS OTM tho - where is this dominant part of the mind that is fooling all the other parts

Experiencing the mind in it's basic state is the base. The nature of mind is spontaneous arising. Extricating your mind from noisy inner dialog is the opposite of your mind playing a trick on itself. It's experiencing the mind for what it really is (pure awareness) before it becomes distracted by thought. The mind is likened to a mirror. Reflections arise in the mirror and are part of the mirror, but are not the mirror itself. The color of the mirror is impossible to decipher because it is totally clear and limpid, but this is also why it is part of the reflection, though it is not the reflection itself. The two are inextricably linked and are only separated for purposes of examination. The most advanced meditation is everyday existence without losing this state of presence. The practice of "self-liberation" means to allow everything to spontaneously exist for its moment and spontaneously liberate itself into the next, without clinging or aversion to conceptual hankerings. So, one would be able to notice the arising of a desire without becoming overtaken with a fantasy or lust, remaining completely in control at all times, simply being aware and fully present in every moment, not continually forgetting oneself, as most people do about 99% of every day.

or something

And by the way when I first started meditating, it took me almost a year of almost nightly meditation to find that clarity for a prolonged period of time. But it is quite amazing.

I think my whole involvement with meditation and metaphysics in general is coming from a place of wanting to find a way to exist here in the West in contemporary society. It seems to me that Eastern disciplines (perhaps like the ones referenced on this thread), though, are techniques that, in order to obtain real results, ultimately require the kind of seriously austere and disciplined lifestyle that is simply not possible if one is not interested in living a truly ascetic life.

That's why I think we need a "progressive" approach that goes beyond 1960s flirtations with the East. And, yes, that's what led me to interest in metaphysical practices and beliefs that fall under the "new age" umbrella.

whew. this thread. i only opened it to see if anyone else did TM :/

anyway. a lot of what jon lewis said is true for me too. i learned the technique more than 10 years ago now; i'm deeply sceptical about most of the trappings, but i have to admit the meditation aspect of it works for me. the mantra, from what i understand, is based on body size and shape more than anything else. hmm. whatever. maybe it's all balls. like i say: it works for me, on a basic level. that's all i need, or am interested in.

i let it slide for about three or four years and only got into it again recently when i got talking to someone else who practises it. i rarely do it twice a day; usually it's just mornings. today i got up late and didn't bother at all. but i genuinely feel it helps me keep a sense of perspective; sets me up well for the day in the morning, and can help me unwind at night.

YMMV, naturally. i'm no advocate; just a dude who's pleased he learned.

Tim, look into Dzogchen. It is seriously not ascetic. The whole point is that practice should not be separate from everyday life because what difference does it make if you can sit for a while calmly if you can't do it when it counts? There's a funny story before Dzogchen was recognized by everyone as authentic and ancient when a certain Tibetan buddhist accused a Dzogchen master by saying, "So you don't meditate, then?" and the Dzogchen master replied, "When am I ever distracted?"

Tim I assume yr at least marginally familiar with Jodorowsky but one of the big spiritual issues for him has been the rejection of various eastern traditions precisely because of their nihilism/asceticism. He doesn't accept that withdrawing from the world is a requirement for spiritual fulfillment.

x-post

...I thought many Buddhist sects (Zen, in particular) believed that withdrawal was not at all a requirement. That enlightment came from being fully engaged with the details of living.

Also: http://www.bozemanzengroup.org/

:D

I don't know how I didn't know about this!

Can I ask, though - is it a practice aimed at deflecting things? Is it a practice aimed at attaining a sense of detachment? Because I think those things are necessary, but only to a certain degree. I don't want a philosophy that's steeped only in a dogma of detachment. Ultimately, what I want is not to have to be detached or to be deflecting things that would otherwise hurt me. I want to progress into a mode of life where those necessities are much less of an issue - where the things that surround you and occupy your mind are positive and don't need to be deflected.

one of the big spiritual issues for him has been the rejection of various eastern traditions precisely because of their nihilism/asceticism. He doesn't accept that withdrawing from the world is a requirement for spiritual fulfillment.

Yes!

Was referring to dzogchen in my post.

I think if I was a monk I would find a very snowy, abandoner, freezing expanse and then like drink like crazy big bottle of chivas and die that way. You know, v. calmly burning to death. One-trick ponies.

Actually, Shakey, I listened to a Doreen Virtue recording about karma healing recently and she was talking about healing karma from past lives. Interestingly, one of the things she asked people to allow themselves to heal from was choosing lives of religious discipline involving celibacy in the past.

Tim, if you're asking me, Dzogchen is considered the Great Perfection. The ultimate teaching. Thereveda is slow and ascetic. Tantra is experiential and ascetic. Dzogchen is what you may be introduced to eventually, if you're lucky, by tradition, if you don't seek it out yourself. After years of asceticism, you may move onto tantric practices and deity yoga, mandalas and offerings, and then, if your master sees you have developed, but are becoming dependent on those things, will have you smash your mandala or whatever and move onto Dzogchen. There are all sorts of stories of realized practitioners who suddenly got up and shocked everyone by smashing their instruments and leaving or whatever. That's because they finally got past all those stages. If you start Dzogchen right from the beginning, you won't be asked to do 100,000 prostrations or anything. In fact, a lot of western Dzogchen students can be lazy and deluded about their development, because they're like "I'm above all that" without realizing they're not at all. All those preliminary practices of the lesser and greater vehicles are great tools for development. This is why people often warn against studying Dzogchen too soon. But, I say, if you've been reading about this stuff for a while, there's nothing better you could do than to read about Dzogchen. There are some classic works that just sort of split your mind open as you read them.

...I thought many Buddhist sects (Zen, in particular) believed that withdrawal was not at all a requirement. That enlightment came from being fully engaged with the details of living.

qft, viz various koans ala

MONK: What is enlightenment?
ROSHI: Have you finished your meal?
MONK: Yes.
ROSHI: Then go wash your bowl.

That's exactly what I was thinking of.

I want to progress into a mode of life where those necessities are much less of an issue - where the things that surround you and occupy your mind are positive and don't need to be deflected.

I neglected to answer this, didn't I? Yes, Dzogchen is exactly that. It is specifically NOT about deflecting things, actually. Everything "self-liberates".

From wikipedia:

In Dzogchen, self-liberation is achieved by discovering or recognizing one's own primordial mindstream and remaining in that natural state of primordial awareness in which all phenomena are experienced without creating karma through reaction, attachment, or conceptual labelling.

This is the kind of austerity I'm talking about - Don't create karma. Don't react. Don't become "attached." Don't label things.

Having come to believe in past lives and the idea that we chose the current lives we are living in order that we may fulfill particular purposes, I reject the idea that a lot of us should DETACH from these plans and desires.

I've been practicing for a while and I can tell you it's about as un-austere as buddhism gets.

HOOS OTM tho - where is this dominant part of the mind that is fooling all the other parts

the cerebral cortex.

Extricating your mind from noisy inner dialog is the opposite of your mind playing a trick on itself. It's experiencing the mind for what it really is (pure awareness) before it becomes distracted by thought.

are you really "experiencing the mind for what it really is" (let's disregard the tangled mess that "what it really is" is), or are you just *thinking* you are?

That wikipedia entry is misleading. In Dzogchen, the pervading feeling is that there is nothing to do. In all other forms of buddhism, the pervading feeling is that there is something to do. That simple shift in perspective makes a world of difference.

Whatever the position of the body is the correct one for integration with rigpa. Wherever the eyes are looking is where they are looking. Wherever the eyes focus is where their focus is found. Whatever arises in the Mind is already integrated with rigpa. The implicit instruction is that there is nothing either to change or to alter. There is nothing to do, nowhere to go, no practice to follow. If this is not immediately understood, questions are useless. There is nothing to ask because there is nothing to do beyond recognizing that you have never been anywhere other than the state of rigpa. If the practitioner is in the non-dual state, then of course there is nothing to do, and nowhere else to go.

Probably makes no sense, which is why I initially just said to check it out for yourself. ;-)

or are you just *thinking* you are?

As soon as you are thinking, you are not. But, if thoughts arise in the state of rigpa, you are.

"the pervading feeling that there is nothing to do" - in meditation or in life in general as a philosophy of detachment, not creating karma, etc.?

Dzogchen teachings go beyond conventional moral codes - including the principle of karma. The idea is that karma is not a mechanistic system of cause and effect but in reality an illusory manifestation of perception and response. This was very threatening to the religious hierarchy - and it still is. The sense in which karma was the 'form aspect' of pattern that played in relation to the 'emptiness aspect' of chaos was not judged to be conducive to maintaining social order. These teachings were therefore given in secret, as they were seen to be too dangerous for the general population.

Tim, in Dzogchen, the only thing you try to do is remain present. If you fuck up, big deal. Keep trying. Hard to explain, you know what I mean? Best to read about it because I can't do it justice.

And you can do all the other practices you want. It's not like you're supposed to stop ngondro or chod or kriya yoga or mantra or anything else that is working for you. But, the most common practices in Dzogchen are as simple or as complicated as you want them to be. That's why it's so easy to screw up, I suppose. For me, the studying helps, but I still do mantra and kriya and ngondro because I like it.

are you really "experiencing the mind for what it really is" (let's disregard the tangled mess that "what it really is" is), or are you just *thinking* you are?

-- Granny Dainger, Thursday, July 19, 2007 11:50 PM

It seems to me that you're trying to get Humean on perception by interpreting perception itself as a mental process. Am I right?