Meditation people roll call!

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."

That said, I do myself often enjoy letting things go and appreciating the joy of the sky, as it were.

hi dere everyone i am in boulder aka my least favorite place having just returned from shambhala mountain center aka a place trungpa rinpoche founded that ive been going to my entire life; now leaking into ilx. xo cheers.

Wow, that's great, jhøshea! I finally have a place like that myself where I can take classes and go on retreats, etc. Funny to think that at one point all I wanted to do was read books and not get involved with any community and now it's more like I wish I had more time to go to the center more.

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."

Of course, it's a little box you squeeze inside: it's just one tiny possibility out of infinite others. At the moment you grab on, you're lost. It pulls you away from who you really are into a concept or a feeling. You can still appreciate concepts and feelings without letting them become your whole reality. This is what living distractedly means, following a stream of consciousness without being fully present. Thoughts and emotions are the reflections in the mirror, the mirror is who you really are. The mirror gives rise to spontaneous reflections, but it is still the mirror. The reflections will constantly change, but the mirror will always remain the same. Becoming skilled at remaining present doesn't mean one sacrifices the benefits of instinct. "Flight or fight" gives a person at least two choices. If someone hurts "your" feelings, is it better to follow that train of thought and put on a suit of emotion, like the black Spiderman costume, that you will only have to extricate yourself from later or is it better to recognize that A and B are connected and self-liberate naturally?

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.

I don't think this is accurate. When Trungpa offered even a little piece of information, Krishnamurti saw it with blind-colored glasses. He didn't want to be engaged, he already made up his mind.

This must be pretty cool in person, eh jhøsea?
http://www.shambhalamountain.org/images/stubig-mahakala.jpg

Of course, it's a little box you squeeze inside: it's just one tiny possibility out of infinite others.

As I've said, I don't like the analogy. Thoughts often feel more liberating than box-like. Emotions are energies that can be cosmically grand in scope. But, yes, these things are personal - they are of YOU and not of God. I am sympathetic to the concept of living with some sense of detachment from thoughts and emtions and realizing their place within the non-dualistic reality. In fact, I practice this constantly. But I find your stance much too absolutist and judgemental.

If someone hurts "your" feelings, is it better to follow that train of thought and put on a suit of emotion, like the black Spiderman costume, that you will only have to extricate yourself from later or is it better to recognize that A and B are connected and self-liberate naturally?

This is what I mean. Can this question be answered absolutely? You seem to think so. I feel that "putting on a suit of emotion" (once again, I dislike the analogy) is, as I have said, often functional. Following the emotion rather than feeling you need to always let it go as a matter of spiritual discipline often helps you get where you wish to be.

put on a suit of emotion, like the black Spiderman costume, that you will only have to extricate yourself from later

This is rhetorical as well. One always has to "extricate oneself later" from a particular emotional response that one allows to inspire some course of action? I hardly think so. Emotional energy more often dissipates on its own.

When Trungpa offered even a little piece of information, Krishnamurti saw it with blind-colored glasses. He didn't want to be engaged, he already made up his mind.

Given that Trungpa spoke only about fifteen words total, this is kind of hard to judge.

Not really hard to judge when K interrupted him without hearing the rest of what he had to say... if he was interested in being engaged, he wouldn't have chopped the guy's sentence in half and asserted it as more important than the second half. Trungpa repeated the phrase, but at that precise moment the video ends. Why? Because Trungpa made his point in about 15 words total. Whether or not K wanted to hear it is a different story...

Thoughts often feel more liberating than box-like.

So you see the appeal of living distractedly. Now, you don't have to wonder why if everything was supposedly always perfect we ended up in a position where we are looking for ways to live contentedly.

if he was interested in being engaged, he wouldn't have chopped the guy's sentence in half

Don't remember the incident, but people do that all the time! You seem quick to me to judge it in this case. Do you really believe Krishnamurti had no interest in engaging in an actual conversation? That he was entirely closed-minded to what the other person had to say and was only interested in "winning" and proving the superiority of his wisdom?

From the excerpt I saw, I would not have rushed to this conclusion.

x-post: once again, I dislike the vocabulary. if one is engaged with one's own life, one is living "distractedly"

Try watching the video again. Maybe you judged too quickly.

So you see the appeal of living distractedly. Now, you don't have to wonder why if everything was supposedly always perfect we ended up in a position where we are looking for ways to live contentedly.

I'm afraid I don't follow this.

Or maybe you did. Maybe you put yourself in a box by having that thought and will have to extricate yourself.

if one is engaged with one's own life,

This perception is the distraction I am talking about: "Engage".

By disengaging you live less distractedly because you never forget what's really going on.

You can choose to focus on anything. Focusing on God is one choice - often a good one. But I do not live my life viewing other choices as "distractions."

Or maybe you did. Maybe you put yourself in a box by having that thought and will have to extricate yourself.

I didn't have the thought, I merely observed and pointed it out to you.

You can choose to focus on anything.

Best to focus on what's real, though, and not get caught up in distractions.

What? You've got to be kidding me. You did have a thought. And you made a judgement. "I merely observed and pointed it out to you" - talk about arrogance!