Meditation people roll call!

Now now, Abbott. The guy is a bozo, of course, but going for a run spends energy.

It creates energy via the krebs cycle & vellular respiration, ie the energy which you then burn. Potential--->kinetic. Or I could be totally wrong.

I am imagining this guy as the New Age Retro Hippie from Earthbound:

http://www.rpgclassics.com/shrines/snes/eb/images/clay/newageretrohippie.gif

contemporize maaaaaaan

Hmmm - okay, I was thinking about caloric energy.

Do you guys really have experience with a lot of new age-oriented people ("you may find yourself in a class with a lot of annoying new age-ish "seeker" types") or is this just...stereotyping?

Experience with a lot of people who fall into this negative stereotype, I mean.

dude I live in San Francisco. My mom took me to Harmonic Convergence as a child. I went to school in UC Santa Cruz.

in = at

duh

Yeah. I just bristle a little at the stereotype because the only really progressive things going on spiritually in this country do still fall under the "new age" umbrella.

He also made the interesting point that if you get places a few minutes early, you have time to relax & never have the stress of rushing or being late, which is basically as good as meditating. Awesome.

this is major words of wisdom
i am always running late :/ and i try to breathe it out but what i'm really thinking is 'why didn't you just not run late in the first place?' rrgh

what book is this, abbott? it sounds like my kind of book

xpost

somehow i have managed to avoid a lot of those types. but i have also managed to avoid going to meditation centres and yoga retreats and things.

I don't disagree with that - obviously my own interests veer heavily into what a majority of Americans would consider "new age" or "occult" or "hippie" or whatever. Still, as far as demographics go it attracts its share of irritating people (and conmen, and dilletantes, and ignoramuses) just like any other religious community)

x-post

> somehow i have managed to avoid a lot of those types. but i have also managed to avoid going to meditation centres and yoga retreats and things.

Yeah, by attending a taiji school with a sifu who likes to mix it up a bit we tend to weed out the guys who think that 'martial arts isn't about fighting, it's about peace.'

Uh, what part of 'martial' is confusing you, man?

Now, I'm a wierdo who thinks that if you use violence for recreation, you'll be less inclined to use violence as a way of solving problems (except the problem of violence) but that's a whole other thing.

that is a rather odd idea

Allow me to elaborate then:

A few things about sparring -

It teaches first hand that might doesn't make right.
It teaches first hand that anybody can lose.
It teaches first hand that you never know what's going to happen.
It teaches first hand that what is unknown is especially dangerous and unpredictable.

Nobody values peace as much as an old soldier, right?

seems like a different thread, this idea that to practice violence is to learn not to practice it.

True enough. Sorry about the drift.

Do you guys really have experience with a lot of new age-oriented people ("you may find yourself in a class with a lot of annoying new age-ish "seeker" types") or is this just...stereotyping?

-- Tim Ellison, Tuesday, July 17, 2007 11:01 PM (34 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

Yes, I has experience. Most recently, a friend and classmate of mine gave me this to read, and very earnestly seemed to think that it would, like, blow my mind, man.

http://www.erowid.org/library/books/images/cosmic_serpent.jpg

Some insightful journalism, some truly laughable "science."

...anyway, point is: yeah, I run into/interact regularly with nuts like this all the time. And I live in MT, of all places!

What are the premises of that book that you thought were laughable?

Do you guys really have experience with a lot of new age-oriented people ("you may find yourself in a class with a lot of annoying new age-ish "seeker" types") or is this just...stereotyping?

-- Tim Ellison, Tuesday, 17 July 2007 23:01

For the record I was describing an actual guy I encountered on my first visit to my local Zen Center.

Also I have been one of these people.

Not in a past life, like five years ago.

My wife works at a metaphysical book shop and I find the other people that work there and those that come in regularly to be, on the whole, very cool and extremely interesting.

You're 21, Hoos. 5 years ago is a past life.

lol for real

I don't believe in reincarnation, but I totally get 'death and rebirth.'

I've been doing - of and on, with a lapse of some weeks in between - basic "sit then follow your breath" meditation for about 3 years now. It's funny how much I miss it once I get back into it. I find that the end results affect me on more of a personal level so I can't get into eventual "benefits" or anything like that. Only that it personally makes me feel mentally much lighter than I would had I not done it. That's it. That's what I get from it. And I love it for that reason.

Why don't you believe in reincarnation, hoos? I'm not going to proselytize to you; I'm just curious why someone would definitively say, "I don't believe in it."

Didn't mean to sound definitive "it does not exist," but I don't think it could; the population explosion of the last century seems to rule it out.

Well, that's an interesting statement, but there isn't necessarily more life on the planet now than there was in prior centuries. Also, I don't know as that souls always necessarily reincarnate immediately.

Also, it's a big universe. : D

Tim, what to you indicates that reincarnation is at all likely?

Being close to spiritual adepts whom I trust and who have knowledge in this area. I don't personally have any conscious knowledge of my own past lives, but I have been given information about them and about why I chose this particular life now. The information made a great deal of sense to me and has helped me to focus a great deal on myself and on what I am doing.

i chant daimoku from time to time... i like the message behind it and it helps me refocus my energies (there's that word haha) to what matters in life, i.e. value creation, my place among the universe, etc.

i like "namu amida butsu" not because i believe at all in the tenets of amida buddhism but i love the way it repeats in my head. i guess that's what makes a good mantra.

Cosmic Serpent is a great book

the fact that DNA emits light did kind of blow my mind

excessively literal interpretations of reincarnation strike me as fairly ridiculous - what is this "you" that keeps getting reborn? how to explain the exponential increase in population (does reincarnation require souls jumping some kind of species barrier)? what is the point of having "past lives" if you can't remember them and need to pay someone money to tell you about them?

however, I am down with the laws of thermodynamics, so if you think about consciousness as a kind of energy (which can therefore never be destroyed, only transformed from one state to another) I can accept the idea that there's this constant field of conscious energy that keeps manifesting itself physically in an infinite number of iterations - but the individual identity, I don't see how that would figure into it. People's personalities and identities are shaped by the interaction of genetics and the environment. The idea that someone in the past was "me" in any literal, meaningful sense is patently ridiculous.

its one of those issues where terminology needs to be clearly defined - what is the "I" that is supposedly reincarnated. One of the things that's become clear to me from meditation (and various readings of Buddhism) is that there is no "I", really.

Well that's what bothers me about modern Buddhism, and particularly branches that really dwell on reincarnation. The Buddhas message was one of letting go of the self in order to escape suffering, and yet here we are concerning ourselves almost non-stop with where our 'self' has been and where it is going. It seems contradictory.

> if you think about consciousness as a kind of energy

My (pop-sci level) understanding of current cognitive science developments is that thinking and consciousness and emotion and creativity and all that stuff that we consider the soul or self or whatever generally is about completely chemically explicable.

Or put another way - there is no body/mind divide. The mind is a product of the body, specifically the brain, and that's about all there is to it.

excessively literal interpretations of reincarnation strike me as fairly ridiculous

you know, you can say that, but then are you also saying that people who do have illuminations about the subject also strike you as fairly ridiculous?

not sure what a less "literal" interpretation of reincarnation might involve.

Just in terms of reasoning through it it simply doesn't make sense to me is all. Could be that it happens, but I have no rational model which tells me it is possible.

> not sure what a less "literal" interpretation of reincarnation might involve.

The whole "Lion King" circle of life returning to the environment as wormfood and nourishing future generations with your body (and if you're lucky) your genes and thoughts thang.

Yes. That's why I have babies.

Oilyrags I don't disagree about the mind/body divide, but that's pretty reductionist. Sure its all chemicals/biology at work, but don't kid yourself that modern science has any notion about HOW the mind actually works - we don't even have an explanation for how the mind processes visual signals from the eye.

altho OTM about what I meant by a less literal version of reincarnation (ie, one that doesn't emphasize discrete personalities and encourage "I was once Queen of Babylon!"-type wish-fulfillment baloney)

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But ... I WAS once the Queen of Babylon.

If you're just going to call all insight about past lives "baloney," it's silly for me to continue with the conversation.

Frankly, you seem hung up to me about demographics of people whom you deem to be idiotic and charlatans (i.e., "what is the point of having "past lives" if you need to pay someone money to tell you about them?").

well okay let's start at the beginning. What is the "I" that is purportedly reincarnated.

The soul. I don't have much insight for you beyond that.

let me put it another way, what unique characteristics do your current incarnation and whatever past incarnations you have had share, and in what way can they be defined as a consistent and, most importantly, unique personality/identity.

consider the classic zen excercise of discovering the impossibility of defining an object (ie, they show you a chair and ask you to describe it and then point out the deficiencies in each and every possible description)

holy shit this thread

I believe you mean "holy shit OHM this thread"

yeahhhhh i love all of this. love "the great allower".

i definitely have the startle reflex every once in a while when my phone goes off!

re-engaging with the world after doing it. i really enjoy nonbeing.

great news, you can enjoy nonbeing any time you want!

i started up twice a day again and i'm experiencing this thing that used to happen when i was doing twice a day a few months ago. i'll be driving around and everything about the experience in front of and around me - visually and sensually - has this staggering massiveness to it! all of the expressions of everyone in cars passing by. the trees become these endless seas of life. it's awesome! maybe even a little overwhemling. i feel stoned but i'm not stoned. and like my ability to handle "doing things", logistically speaking, is just smooth and humming along, so like if someone brakes suddenly or whatever i'm there, ready to respond. like feeling nonbeing as i glide through its fathomless depths also allows me to be present to "doing things" right now.

Just did a 10-day retreat ... over Zoom ... in an apartment building in the middle of a busy city ... in Albania. It was great! Would you believe I've been gorging on retreats for eight years now and only now am I learning to relax?

Think I've mentioned before feeling confused and somewhat discouraged about what was happening in my practice. Don't feel that way any more. Starting to understand some ways I got confused and made things harder than they need to be.

I also had a nice little experience in a 10-minute mini-sit during the retreat when I realized "hey, the 'you' that gets attacked by the inner critic ... that guy is made up!" Not sure if the nice lightness I've been feeling since the retreat will last but that felt important.

(Not the first cool experience I've had in a sort of tossed-off, informal "well this sit doesn't really count it's just for fun" - probably doesn't mean anything)

I also realized that I've never done metta using my own face as the, er, object. I use other people's faces because it helped stimulate metta. I guess I unconsciously avoided uisng my face because it brought up more complicated feelings. I think this will be a good practice for me.