Meditation people roll call!

that's called being human! i wouldn't want to be a robot who smiled perpetually and was just as content walking on a pile of broken glass as they were hugging their loved ones. trees are nice to look at, but i wouldn't want to be one.

-- Granny Dainger, Friday, July 20, 2007 9:03 PM

Up to this point I've been trying to clarify misconceptions about what zazen, my meditation form of choice, is intended to accomplish. I've done my best to do that and it now seems clear that we have more fundamental philosophical differences. That's fine. I'm not here to evangelize for Zen Buddhism and one doesn't change one's fundamental beliefs about the nature of human suffering due to arguments on an internet message board.

Thank you again for allowing me the opportunity to clarify how I believe zazen works, and for the stimulating exchange. This is where I bow out, if you will, of the conversation.

Gassho.

To a certain extent, I'm with Granny on this subject. Dean says, "If you make the decision you like some things and not other things, you create dissatisfaction." Liking something or not isn't normally considered to be a "decision" - it's an emotional reaction. The only decision involved is whether you're just going to let this emotional reaction go or not, following the Eastern premise of not reacting or that doing nothing is preferable.

Again, I'm looking for a way to live where I can, actually, enjoy the fact I like something. Or that I want to do something. I believe that I am here, precisely, TO do things. I know that there are ramifications involved in doing so, but the idea that these ramifications will always end up involving some degree of dissatisfaction or displeasure or pain is, I believe, extremely pessimistic.

I think you should look somewhere else besides eastern traditions, Tim.

Maybe sufism.

altho honestly I don't believe there is any way to really enjoy anything without fundamentally accepting that it isn't gonna last forever and that you will, therefore, eventually miss it (and thus suffer, be disatisfied, etc.)

I mean, time is unceasing and only flows in one direction, everything changes or dies, and therefore if you become attached to something, you will suffer whenever it does eventually change/die.

totally agree w/tim's 2nd paragraph there. more well said than i've been able to manage.
shakey, i didn't necessarily mean that without suffering one isn't human (though it the idea of someone never suffering is creepy in a brave new world sort of way), but more that being detached from emotional ups and downs (and plateaus!) seems like it would result in a less than complete human being experience, or at the very least make the sacrifice the full pleasure of the eyes in order to eliminate the full pain of the lows. I don't think it's a fair trade. Obv I am not nor have I ever been free of desire/judgment/whatever you want to call it, so maybe that trade isn't even a necessary one!

xpost
altho honestly I don't believe there is any way to really enjoy anything without fundamentally accepting that it isn't gonna last forever and that you will, therefore, eventually miss it (and thus suffer, be disatisfied, etc.)
see this is exactly the tradeoff i mean. missing something isn't all that bad! there is still a sweetness in bittersweet.

I don't believe there is any way to really enjoy anything without fundamentally accepting that it isn't gonna last forever and that you will, therefore, eventually miss it

If you're talking about emotional relationships with people, that's one thing. But if I listen to a record because I like it and then someone comes and steals it, will I "suffer" as a result? Does my "dissatisfaction" with the theft cause me to think that I shouldn't have "formed an attachment" with the record?

Talking about the Vision is like dancing about architecture.

:-D

Just kidding. I only wanted to use a fave cliche that annoys people.

But, seriously, talking about the Vision is fine and good. The reason it is generally translated as the "Vision", rather than the "View", however, is because "view" tends to imply a philosophical understanding (ie. "view" or "viewpoint") while Vision implies sight and experience a little more.

Most experts on meditation can argue logically and philosophically up and down about reality and the mind without becoming unsound in their arguments, but that doesn't give anyone else the actual experience of meditation or the result of extended practice. It might cause a cynic to reconsider or have him off to the library to see if he can prove you wrong, but unless a person has the inclination and determination to practice honestly, the fruit of the path can never be experienced or understood (or enjoyed!).

Liking something or not isn't normally considered to be a "decision" - it's an emotional reaction. The only decision involved is whether you're just going to let this emotional reaction go or not, following the Eastern premise of not reacting or that doing nothing is preferable.

This is dualistic thinking and if you're going to cling to dualism, you will not get very far. For example, a buddhist technique is to remove judgement from your experience and just let the experience be what it is. If you burn your hand on the stove, rather than jumping up and saying, "Ow, I burned my fucking hand on that goddamn stove!" and kicking it and then saying, "Ow, I hurt my fucking toe when I kicked that piece of shit!" just say (or scream), "HOT!" Thinking like this is part of the process of deconditioning conditioned thinking, which is considered dualistic ignorance. Beyond the stove analogy, all emotional responses are learned, conditioned dualism. So, you're right that you don't generally decide what you like or dislike, but you can essentially "learn" to by unlearning your "karmic pattern" (learned expectations). It starts with baby steps, that's for sure.

if you're going to cling to dualism, you will not get very far.

Get very far with what, exactly? With this deconditioning that you're apparently claiming to be the spiritually evolutionary path.

With what you said you're trying to do up above.

I am, actually, sympathetic to the idea of deconditioning conditioned thinking to the extent that your conditioned thinking is causing you pain. But as I've been arguing, if you feel that your conditioned thinking, as a part of your present identity, is serving a role in the decisions you make as far as what you want to do with your life, I believe that the rhetoric that you should let it go anyway because of the Buddhist principle that it's better to not indulge in dualistic thinking or that it's better to do nothing is restrictive.

Unless, of course, your true purpose in this life is to learn, specifically, those particular spiritual lessons.

My stated goal above was "to live where I can, actually, enjoy the fact I like something." Your assertion that I will not get far in the goal of actually enjoying something unless I decondition my emotional responses to things is inherently contradictory.

There are a lot of terms we're using that have multiple implications. Lower vehicle's "better to do nothing" implies asceticism. On the other hand, "nothing to do," which I have been discussing, does not mean it's better to do nothing. It means to recognize what you are doing while you are doing it and that is pretty much all there is to it. The problem is that a person generally does not. "Nothing to do" also does not mean, hey wowzers I'm enlightened already, think I'll go watch cartoons. It means that, technically, the nondual presence is ALWAYS there because that is reality, there actually isn't anything to "do". You do not accumulate "more energy" to achieve something or whatever. The realization is there to be discovered, called an "open secret."

I'm not a big fan of Ken Wilber for a few reasons, but this quote from wikipooja is good:

"Ken Wilber comments that nondual traditions:

"...are more interested in pointing out the Nondual state of Suchness, which is not a discreet state of awareness but the ground or empty condition of all states... They have an enormous number of these 'pointing out instructions', where they simply point out what is already happening in your awareness, anyway. Every experience you have is already nondual, whether you realize it or not. So it is not necessary for you to change your state of consciousness in order to discover this nonduality. Any state of consciousness you have will do just fine, because nonduality is fully present in each state... recognition is the point. Recognition of what always already is the case. Change of state is useless, a distraction... subject and object are actually one and you simply need to recognize this... you already have everything in consciousness that is required. You are looking right at the answer... but you don't recognize it. Someone comes along and points it out, and you slap your head and say, Yes I was looking right at it..."

Yeah, I'm with all of that until he gets to:

Change of state is useless, a distraction

This is the nihilism Shakey was referring to earlier. There's a difference between recognizing the spiritual principles being outlined there and to assert that the actions through which one lives one's life are "useless."

It's not nihilism. Changing state is good if you're trying to de-stress after a hard day's work. It's good for your general peace of mind if you do it every day. But, what is more nihilistic: the idea that you need to meditate in order to feel good or the idea that you can feel good while you're doing whatever it is that you're doing?

I'm not saying that either of those things are nihilistic. I'm saying that calling life "useless" reflects the inherent nihilism of a lot of Eastern dogma.

Does "All is Good" and "Great Perfection" sound nihilistic to you?

I didn't see where he called life useless, btw. I saw where he said change of state was useless.

1. Reality exists.
2. Every moment we make decisions to ignore and escape from reality (that which is physically in front of us) and run into a little world in our heads. Rather than "he raised his voice at me," in our little imaginary world "he hates me and I keep doing this thing wrong, why oh why etc"
3. Zazen (that is, sitting on your ass and simply Sitting On Your Goddamn Ass, allowing thoughts to arise and disappear without following their Byzantine pathways) is a way of training the mind to focus on the present moment rather than scurrying away into safe and familiar imaginary corners. It's called "practice" because it's practice for applying that kind of focus and non-judgment to every moment in our daily lives.

i like this, it reminds me of what i've read of cognitive behavioral therapy, where you can learn to change your impulse to feel all that self-doubt, second guessing, paranoia, etc. -- which is escapism in a way, because you're retreating into the familiar rather than just letting the moment stand and moving forward. our minds are full of these rabbit holes we constantly crawl into as a way of just "dealing" with the everyday, but too much of that isn't healthy and can lead to some fucked-up falling down level shit.

What 'get bent' just referred to and what Granny was referring to there is the 'change of state' Ken Wilber called "useless."

OK, I misread it.

"wherever you go, there you are," basically?

Anyway, I'm going to go get drunk now, which shows how ascetic my lifestyle is... ;-) There's a cool practice, btw, where you drink and remain mindful. Oddly, you don't get drunk. This is common in Vajra schools, so much so that alcoholics have a hard time with it. Chögyam Trungpa was an amazing example of this. He chose to live his life as a drunk, both to teach about clinging and dependency and to teach about mastery of the mind. He would be drunk off his ass, literally falling down drunk, but his mind would be sharp as a pointy thing. He was literally drunk all the time. Think about that if you ever hear him speak or read one of his books. His students used to carry him onto the stage, sit him in a chair and then he would give a profound lecture and answer questions, etc. There is a good video on YouTube where Krishnamurti is basically calling him a fraud and he just sits there calmly reflecting. Krishnamurti gets more and more adamant in asserting his opinions and Trungpa just lets him yakk on and on. Then, he offers a different way of thinking about the topic and Krishnamurti will cut him off and disregard his point. This is a televised interaction and Trungpa just sits there and says, "Hmmm" and frequently offers indication that he understands where the guy is coming from, but he clearly has no burning desire to correct him. It's quite wonderful.

To be fair, though, that's what a lot drunks do when you try to expound on anything.

getbent, yeah that would apply, but as I briefly mentioned above, there are some differences between Zen and Dzogchen. I think they're both great! Anyone more interested in the topic should check out the wonderful forum over on e-sangha.com.

riverwolf, good point ;-)

Actually it's on Google video now and since it's all about meditation, some may be interested (Krishnamurti starts off bitching about transcendental meditation and then can't stop himself):
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5871006181947402801&q=Ch%C3%B6gyam+Trungpa&total=32&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=0

There are so many situations in life where a person's emotional reactions to things are functional. Even if they are negative, they help get you out of situations when you need to get out of them. They help resolve things. Eastern philosophy, it seems to me, looks at these reactions as an indulgence and a weakness.

And that video, actually, is a good example of where this function is not being allowed to take place. It's supposed to be impressive that the drunk guy is sitting there and not reacting while the other guy is rambling on? It was noble to have not shown the dreaded "burning desire" to act?

That eleven minutes could have been spent more constructively. I felt that I could have been doing something more constructive than watching that video during the eleven minutes in which it elapsed.

Before I became involved with Dzogchen, I spent about a decade sort of bumbling around the spiritual market (whatever you want to call it) and I came across quite a few Western pick-and-chooser types who regularly lumped everything from the East as "Eastern," as if it was basically all the same stuff. One woman in particular liked to talk about how "wrong" the "Eastern" method was because it "avoided reality" and it was unrealistic. She claimed the goal of Eastern spirituality was an impossibility: to exist in nonexistence or to shun the material world for the spiritual. "But, they are inseparable," she said, "The material plane is part of life. Whether or not you believe we were put here for a reason, we are here and our experience is here. The sum total of our experience can be described as a result of a physical organism," and words like this.

Well, "Eastern philosophy" is not all the same and I don't know why people got the idea that it was so anti-life. I do know that hinayana buddhists' aim for cessation, nirvana, which they think they have a pretty good idea of what it is from the sutras. Mahayana buddhists aim for not only personal liberation, but the liberation of every last sentient being. Vajrayana buddhists add tantra. Pure tantrists do not study the sutras and attempt to achieve cessation through direct experience. This is often similar to Zazen schools which may have a full library of the sutras and other buddhist texts... but the door is locked. Highest Yoga Tantra (Atiyoga, Mahamudra, Dzogchen) puts all the other schools of buddhist teaching into perspective and, though perfectly sensible, can be seriously disturbing to those who are practicing in the lower vehicles aiming for some cessation they can only fantasize about based on the description in the suttas about what it is NOT. The explanation of the higher vehicles might not seem to agree from that perspective or might simply be disappointing based on ignorance.

My point here is that there are 9 different vehicles of buddhism with many schools of instruction. They are different approaches created for different types of people. If there are different types of people who take to different schools of thought and understand the goal in different ways and use different approaches to attaining the goal, how can it be said "Eastern" methods do anything without being extremely vague and generalizing? This does not even take into account all the other practices found in the east, like Taoism, Jainism, Vedanta, etc. "Eastern" philosophy?

That point aside, I don't agree with your estimation that "eastern" philosophy looks at emotional reactions as indulgence and a weakness, necessarily. They seem to be mostly about being happy, which is certainly an emotion. There are also practices involving dark or negative emotions which are intentionally indulged in for the purposes of healing and learning. There is a fairly recent book about this practice published by Chogyam Trungpa's student (so it's Vajrayana) through Shambalah Books called "Healing Through The Dark Emotions."

Other than this, I'm not sure what else to say about it. Emotional reactions are functional, for sure. They can also be debilitating and ruinous. Without lumping all eastern schools together, I will say that the ones I am familiar with are only about learning to control emotions rather than letting emotions control you, not eliminating them completely and not pretending they don't exist and not "wadding it up into a ball in the pit of your gut and pushing it down, down, down deep into a concentrated ball" so that one day you will explode. Emotions are a sign that you're alive. In fact, in buddhism, the human being is seen as a precious opporunity because we have the 5 poisons inherent to our experience, all of which are emotions which cause suffering.

so many typos...

It was noble to have not shown the dreaded "burning desire" to act?

No, it was impressive that he didn't have such a desire. This isn't speculation. I'm certain he did not. When the negative emotions are overcome, they are overcome completely. Things that may have at one time infuriated you now will only evoke your sympathy and compassion. It was impressive to watch Trungpa assess this man and try to discover what it was that he needed to hear without arrogantly trying to win a debate.

I'd like to chime in here and point out that dean is speaking from one particular Buddhist perspective, and that I differ on a couple issues.

As Dean rightly points out, though, we can't lump together "Eastern philosophy" and make broad generalizations about it. It's like lumping the Analytics & the Continentals together as "Western." It doesn't really tell us anything and denies crucial differences. Even within Soto Zen Buddhism there is much variation, to say nothing of the differences between Zen Buddhists in general, the Buddhist population at large, and the rest of Eastern thought.

And I want to explain in no uncertain terms (maybe for the first time, really) that "great vehicle" and "highest yoga tantra" as Dzogchen is called DOES NOT mean it's "better" than the "lower vehicles." The historical Buddha taught the path of renunciation. Ain't a thing wrong with that. It may be slower theoretically, but if someone practices the shit out of that path vs. a guy who studies Dzogchen but doesn't realize its beyond his capacity and never bothers to practice, the Dzogchen path is about useless here because it may only reinforce ignorance and introduce arrogance.

I very much appreciate you clarifying that, Dean.

No, it was impressive that he didn't have such a desire. This isn't speculation. I'm certain he did not. When the negative emotions are overcome, they are overcome completely. Things that may have at one time infuriated you now will only evoke your sympathy and compassion. It was impressive to watch Trungpa assess this man and try to discover what it was that he needed to hear without arrogantly trying to win a debate.

Why do you characterize the desire to engage someone as always involving a negative emotion? Wanting to engage in a constructive dialogue should not be characterized as the mere desire to "arrogantly" "win" a debate.

I apologize for the generalization about Eastern philosophies, by the way.

Much appreciated, though no apology necessary.

Why do you characterize the desire to engage someone as always involving a negative emotion?
Do I always do that? I don't mean to. I just meant that in this case, he sat patiently while a guy browbeat him for 11 minutes. Krishnamurti is a guy who's put out a bunch of books of eastern philosophy (I have several) and here he is showing contempt for this man in front of him, satisfied with himself, dissatisfied with a fantasy he's created due to his own ignorance and over-generalizing. Krishnamurti is someone many people look up to as a real "master" of a sort. So, here, we have reason to discuss the engagement in terms of relative negativity. Krishnamurti set up a strawman and started beating away. Trungpa rightly saw all the truth being expressed and didn't bother to try to correct him.

Thought and emotion from a dualistic point of view are similar to creating a little box and squeezing inside it. In reality, and in rigpa, a thought or emotion is like a cloud in the sky. Your mind is as vast as the sky and the little arising emotion or thought drifts on through and dissipates. In the "squeezed in a box" perspective, one loses all sense of himself and is entirely wrapped up in the box of his emotions or thoughts. But, if he saw how the situation really was, he would realize that he himself was the box which had chosen to form around a passing cloud rather than simply letting it self-liberate into its ordinary nature. Engaging a person shouldn't be about comparing cloudy obscurations or boxes, but taking a step back and enjoying the view. This is what Trungpa did. He said, basically, "Yes, I see what you mean. Try to look at it this way." But, he was talking to someone who immediately jumped from one box into another while smiling victoriously at his own intellect. This could be likened to the fact that you don't make love through hate. You don't engage someone by browbeating them and you don't lead by bad example. Or, you shouldn't, anyway, if you have others' best interests in mind.

Who's familiar with that other Krishnamurti, U.G.?

http://www.ugkrishnamurti.org/

From Trungpa's perspective, Krishnamurti is a barrage of clouds and Trungpa is the sky. Trungpa is looking at all the clouds for what they are, but he also sees that Krishnamurti has encased them all in suspended animation and won't let them go. So, he is concerned. Notice him on the edge of his seat, with interest, looking at the older man (who is, in reality, a child student of Trungpa's) and suggesting things. He is handing tools to the sky, so that the sky might find a way to pick the lock and free the clouds, so that they might self-liberate and dissolve and Krishnamurti might enjoy his true nature as the sky once again.

(yes, I know, lizards smoking pot)

i smell that new meme smell

It smells like the glorious (pot) clouds in the sky!

btw, I'm drunk. How am I doing? Anywhere near as good as Trungpa? ;-)

Ha I guessed as much.

Awwww.... so, no good, then? I feel pretty good. Chemical problems but otherwise okay.

You were impressively lucid, but given that you'd just talked about lucidity while drunk and going to get drunk, I figured you were drunk.

I shouldn't have. I don't really like it anymore and today my head hurts. I think meditation is a good alternative to getting drunk, unless you're getting drunk while socializing.

Dean, I understand the premise of the box versus the sky but I see it as a bit of a loaded analogy - "Why put yourself in a 'box' when you can be the sky?" Well, because, like I said, emotional reactions are functional. Choosing to act on them doesn't always feel so much like you've chosen to merely "put yourself in a box," but often, in fact, feels that you are taking a position as a means of creating a sense of liberation out of a situation or acting to fulfill a particular purpose or obtain a significant outcome.

Krishnamurti was not looking for compassion and sympathy in that situation; he was looking to be engaged. And maybe if he had been engaged, he would have been less frustrated and less prone to making arrogant statements.

Thought and emotion from a dualistic point of view are similar to creating a little box and squeezing inside it.

This is what I mean about the analogy. It's not only a box, it's a "little box" and you have to "squeeze inside it."