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Practice Logs

RE: Practice log

RE: How Sawfoot Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Enlightenment
Answer
3/17/14 9:08 PM as a reply to sawfoot _.
And when we disconnect the technique from the religious context (which Daniel and Kenneth, even more so, have done), and you are disavowed of the idea that meditation can give us insights into "Ultimate Reality", then what you are left with is a self-improvement hobby. And taking this perspective is often useful, as it is at least humbling, reminding us that practice is just a practice.
It a practice. It is simple. It is for me, leveling, humbling. I would say for myself, not we or you, that what happens in this hobby is insight into what is this massive "I am" via its own observation, investigation and awareness capacities. Over time, it has become often pleasant, like laying in the grass as a kid looking at the sky, and then the jolt after thinking, "What is all of this here/me anyway?" And is also helpful with developing, yes, more skillful habits. But if the only goal was self-improvement as you say (and here I can't be sure we understand the same idea, but I visualize a section in the book store labeled that), then I was way better at that a few years back: athletic, fair to high income, progressively technical learning for specific sectors--- all of which also are insightful into themselves. With the hobby of ananpanasati, breathing meditation ~ the "What is this 'I am' anyways?" being lulled into a very slow, quiet expression of awareness, then there is also insight into itself, like the other hobbies. What is this "I am", how does it begin; how does it arise subtly; does it understand its cessation; what does it affect, what affects it; learning about itself, does "I am" vantage change; how?

emoticon

Edit:
You:
and got stuck with the technique of no-technique. Still, experienced some periods of openness and expansion.
Me: I like this. Just sitting, breathing, mind at the breath in the body or at the upper-lip nose, whatever. Simmmmmple. friendly.

Repeat, voila: "concentration" develops.

Okay, best wishes =]

RE: Practice log
Answer
3/18/14 4:34 AM as a reply to sawfoot _.
# 2014-3-18 09:15
- 10 minutes sit! Went to bed late, so only time for a short time, was meant to be 20 minutes but got confused with a 10 minute bell thinking that was the end, so my sense of time had quite skewed
- Did Exercise 2 from "Roaring Silence: Discovering the Mind of Dzogchen" (same book as the working with emotions booked quoted above) - though they say to do it for 1-2 hours.
- Just sat and did nothing else than try to block the emergence of thoughts
- This blocking really consisted of obliterating, so whatever thoughts came up I crunched them down, split them into little shards and turned them inside out. This felt very "dark nighty". This whole state of mind feels very fractured. A buzzing confusion of "dark energy".
- Was pretty consistent with this (the instructions didn't get in the way)
- I didn't really find much space in the no-thinking, instead I did get a greater sense of presence and release of energy (that seemed to build), the sort of energy that feels unfathomable and unlimited.
- will try to get in a short sit later today

RE: How Sawfoot Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Enlightenment
Answer
3/18/14 6:45 AM as a reply to John Wilde.
Whatever "this" is, I don't want to "not" be it.

With the analogy used in "Roaring Silence", not being "this" is like free falling without a parachute.

Feeling the slipping of the sense of self is scary and disorientating.

Now, I am often perplexed by people on this forum and in Buddhism talking about a solid core sense of self, as it doesn't chime with my experience, and I always thought it was related to The Buddha's reaction to prevailing religious/spiritual beliefs of the day (atman). For me, the solid sense seems most linked to bodily sense (Damasio's core self) and my experience of being a centre of a visual field. So that is seeing myself as temporally ill-defined (in the midst of time and timelessness) but spatially defined (through body and vision). And as a practice, working to realise that I am not spatially defined (consciousness is beyond space) and spending more times in those states (e.g. such as higher jhanas that I don't have access to) is one of things I am striving for (though quite what I hope to gain from this I will return to in another post, i.e. the goal of the big "E").

But seems pretty fucking weird being an energy field. And to echo some of my comments about fear above, I have a better appreciation now of how much fear blocks the understanding of not-self. I realise I don't want to be not-self. It is terrifying. I am aware of all the talk of its liberating properties, but still, it is such a fundamentally different reference point for life living that it would be massively disorientating. I guess the point about paths that it doesn't come all at once (and even without paths), so you get time to integrate this into your life.

But yeah, fear as an obstacle. Both in the sense in not wanting to enter the void and the sparkling through (of being "enlightenment"), and in the avoidance strategies that block the seeing of it.

But wherever kindness is, fear struggles to co-exist.

edit:
This is over-dramatising. I probably am not going to get sucked into some black hole of nothingness and go insane.

(from Spectrum of Ectasy) "The discovery of intrinsic space enables us to let go of anxieties [...] This realisation is the dawn of the clear knowledge that , and the vicious cycle of intellect, are just ways of trying to prevent ourselves from vanishing. When we gain some degree of clarity through the practice of shi-ne ("calm abiding"), we start to view vanishing as an occupational hazard of being. We continually vanish and continually reappear. We are continually leaping out of sheer emptiness into the present instant"
.

I am starting to get a better understanding (intellectually, and experientially?) of what people like Nikolai are always going on about, but I should work on getting sufficient insight to put into my own words.

RE: How Sawfoot Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Enlightenment
Answer
3/18/14 9:32 AM as a reply to sawfoot _.
Fear is a very real obstacle. I was somewhat surprised that I didn't really have to sit with it much in the DN. Went by in minutes. Well, that was the first time through the DN as I'm back and fear has been a very real part of this one. The stress of facing things as they are have driven my blood pressure to dangerously high levels. Woke up Sunday morning with a BP of 160/100 and a broken blood vessel in my eye. The ride gets crazier and crazier.

RE: How Sawfoot Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Enlightenment
Answer
3/18/14 11:04 AM as a reply to Zendo Calrissian.
Zendo Calrissian:
Fear is a very real obstacle. I was somewhat surprised that I didn't really have to sit with it much in the DN. Went by in minutes. Well, that was the first time through the DN as I'm back and fear has been a very real part of this one. The stress of facing things as they are have driven my blood pressure to dangerously high levels. Woke up Sunday morning with a BP of 160/100 and a broken blood vessel in my eye. The ride gets crazier and crazier.


I am not sure how these experiences of DN at different temporal scales (e.g. nanas in a sit, across days of heavy practice/immediately after A&P, or across months or more...) are related to each other. Quite possibly not, in my view, but I am still figuring it out (being inherently skeptical of everything as I am).

But I can empathise. I remember getting day long tension headaches for the first time in my life (energy blockages anyone?!) which freaked me out (is this permanent?!). They went away as my sleep got back to normal. The fall out of A&P can potentially be very emotionally, physically and psychologically destablishing. Of course, it doesn't have to be that way, but it was for me. And my way of dealing of it in the end (if it is getting too crazy) was to take the foot of the accelerator (by stopping meditating) and just trying (with difficulty!) to indulge as best as possible in everyday life. Lots of exercise, talking to friends, eating ice cream. Of course, some might say this the worst thing to do and you should power through with even more meditation. But hey, who doesn't like ice cream.

RE: Practice log
Answer
3/21/14 1:47 PM as a reply to sawfoot _.
# 2014-3-19
- 20 minutes, log not reported, just mainly resting in awareness

# 2014-3-20
- no meditation in morning, travelling
- later in day did some relaxation/ just resting in what "is" and had some headgasms - not quite jhana but close (lacking one pointedness). Lot of energy about.

# 2014-3-21 09:00
- 40 minute morning sit
- started off with a lot of discursive thought
- got caught up in what practice to do, again, which I think relates to lack of clear intentions and having too many simultaneous goals. Need to go back to clearly articulating intent at start of sit.
- after about 25 minutes switched to outloud noting, which petered out towards end. Had a few moments of "quickenings" - what I call momentary rapid switches or drops in awareness to a heighted sense relatively early on. There was a pattern for nicer states early on and distraction/irritation later, but always wary of reading too much into this

Note in response to John's comment about method - the primary problem is not a particular method (though I will try your suggestion, thanks!)- but a tendency to switch methods (like many times within a minute). As discussed in "Unlearning meditation" - often the instructions get in the way. Out loud noting is the best method I have found for instructions not getting in the way. For concentration I should probably just keep doing what was worked in the past - breath counting, working on developing the "continuous breath".

Yanas
Answer
3/21/14 2:01 PM as a reply to John Wilde.
So a couple of thoughts (which partly address John's comments about goals above, and partly me talking aloud). I have been reading more David Chapman, and he has been articulating a lot my issues I have had in my experience with Buddhism (much better than I could).

"Realistically, in future, most people will approach Western Vajrayana with a Consensus Buddhist background. After a few years of vipassana, they realize that it’s pointing in the wrong direction for them, and they want a path of vivid, full-blooded, creative engagement. Yet, the vipassana they’ve done will be excellent preparation—because emptiness is the base for tantra. The only difficulty is in deprogramming all their Consensus ideology."
http://meaningness.wordpress.com/2012/09/11/pure-land/


One of the issues I have been dealing with (though in a pretty rapid timescale, from programming to deprogramming), which started in a big way since A&P, has been working on my deprogramming. And at times the emotional fall out of that has ended up on these shores.

A compounded issue is yana confusion (which has also has caused me confusion/problems here). Chapman suggests that yanas are primarily about goals rather than methods. I have historically been more drawn to Mahayana approaches (happiness for all beings) than Hinayana (happiness for yourself), but theoretically rather than emotionally. Emotionally (and sun-consciously) there is a "removal of suffering" draw, and could never fully rationally get behind Mahayana, despite trying hard. And the more I learn about Vajrayana, or at least about what a naturalised Vajrayana might look like, then the more it articulates what I think I am looking for as a goal, and explains why I have been so dissatisfied with other forms (e.g. Zen, Theravada).

And with regard to methods?

[quote= Daniel m Ingram (from another thread] "I would seriously consider starting Theravada, getting stream entry and perhaps second path from the Mahasi kids first and then a good sense of what really strong concentration is from the Pau Auk kids, and then take that into the Vajrayana, and you will already have what you need to visualize really well as well as having established a direct understanding of ultimate bodhichitta, which is essential to that path, and be able to see that the endless fascination with ritual and the rest of the hyper-abundant trappings and politics and personality stuff may, at best, be skillful means, as Attachment to Rites and Rituals will be profoundly lessened if not eliminated, and so you will be able to have the wide, vibrant acceptance that the Vajrayana offers without its obvious initial traps that so confuse most people who get into it before they were really ready for it. Dzogchen and its related perspectives really help with 3rd path territory. "

(note for a former giant alien space monster, he can be quite wise). I already do have this perspective, roughly speaking, but posting about it is just a way of reminding myself and articulating more clearly.

My enthusiasm for "enlightenment" waxes and wanes, partly because I don't believe in "it". And to get "stream entry" for the goal of self-benefit seems lame in the grand scheme of things, and self-defeating in setting up the system of belief that there is something wrong that I need to fix (from a Mahayana/Zen perspective, e.g. I am perfect as I am etc…).

But my conscious rationalising is that it is a stepping stone. John mentioned the
Mahamudra Meditation Center guide which he is working with. I found it ages ago, and it looks super cool. I can't wait to get the easy access to jhanas and increased concentration that is supposed to come with SE to use as a platform to explore that territory.

Often the idea of stream entry seems nice, but then I think, everything is just fine as it, if it happens then great, no big deal (I guess this is an equanimity trap). I almost have the expectation that it will just happen naturally without trying. And this is where MCTB and the Theravada comes in saying, get your arse in gear, and do the work! Discipline, perseverance, determination etc..

So, I am reminded myself that no matter how nice the bright lights of dzogchen and its ilk, I need to put in the cushion time and get that concentration strong. It is not an earth shattering realisation but I do need to be hit over the head with it regularly (which is part of the reason I am here).

p.s.
I have trying to figure out how "actual freedom" fits into yanas, and I don't think it fits well, but it feels like in methods and goals Vajrayana would be the best match.

RE: Practice log
Answer
3/22/14 5:56 AM as a reply to sawfoot _.
# 2014-3-22 10:23
- 40 minutes morning sit
- did just anapasanti, no noting. Decided that I should try for a while to get concentration better. Typically I do half anapasanti half noting, yet I am not putting in the practice time to really get very far with concentration and mind calming as a base for noting. And I am aware that when I do anapasanti it effectively is an insight practice - as to get good at it in the past involved watching very carefully (as a gatekeeper) the process of emergence (and falling away) of thoughts in the mind.
- just tried to count the breath (I do in and out breaths as (in-breath-1,out-breath-1)
- most of the time stayed around 1! But this gives me a good starting point from which to improve
- started to remember my old tricks. Important thing to remember is "stay with the physical sensations of the breath"!

RE: How Sawfoot Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Enlightenment
Answer
3/22/14 6:08 AM as a reply to John Wilde.
John Wilde:
What I meant by a basic existential clarity, experiential clarity, is something perfectly ordinary but quite wonderful: a way of being right here in this world with all faculties working without obstruction, and without any basic existential confusion or distress.


So I was talking above about that dual sense of attraction and revulsion, bliss and fear.

And in recent days, what I have been experiencing when trying to experience the here and now is that dual sense. So it a mix of a feeling that is probably best described as anxiety, but an anxiety that is full of potentiality and possibility. Alternatively, you could call it "awe" in existence.

And partially influenced by some stuff by David Chapman, I feel a better sense of what feels like a realistic sense of what I want from practice, which is to fully embrace the awe, and the prospects for what a greater embrace could hold.

Life is a terrible thing. One day I will grow old, sick and die. As will everyone else. I can't fathom the possibility of a state of mind in which that terror would be significantly diminished. But I don't really want to find a basic sense of existence which is free from distress. For me, to be existentially clear entails distress, and lacking distress is to be existentially confused, where desires to reduce distress and distort our emotional landscapes ultimately lead to escape from the conditions and facts of our existence. And yet life is a wonderful thing. It is an opportunity, a precious gift. This is Buddhism 101. And in everyday life, what I am trying to do (and reminding myself to do in writing this) is to not turn away in escape from that but towards it as a gift embedded in embodied presence in experience.


The student of Tantra should be in a constant state of panic. That panic is electric and should be regarded as worthwhile . . . . Panic is the source of open heart and open ground. Sudden panic creates an enormous sense of fresh air, and that quality of openness is exactly what Tantra should create. —Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche

RE: How Sawfoot Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Enlightenment
Answer
3/22/14 10:22 PM as a reply to sawfoot _.
sawfoot _:
(...) I don't really want to find a basic sense of existence which is free from distress. For me, to be existentially clear entails distress, and lacking distress is to be existentially confused, where desires to reduce distress and distort our emotional landscapes ultimately lead to escape from the conditions and facts of our existence. And yet life is a wonderful thing. It is an opportunity, a precious gift. This is Buddhism 101. And in everyday life, what I am trying to do (and reminding myself to do in writing this) is to not turn away in escape from that but towards it as a gift embedded in embodied presence in experience.


Yes, I get that. Being a thinking and feeling mortal being means there's going to be poignancy, sadness, beauty and terror in life, so it's a question of whether to embrace it fully with courage, compassion and humour, or renounce it one way or another and seek an alternative.

There can be existential clarity either way; but I'd rather find it within this human domain, as well as beyond it. I haven't given up on the intuition that they're not necessarily mutually exclusive: the flawed, fragile, beautiful and doomed, all suffered and celebrated within an overarching framework of perfection and freedom and ultimate okayness. (In fact, isn't that already the case somehow?)

RE: How Sawfoot Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Enlightenment
Answer
3/23/14 12:23 AM as a reply to John Wilde.
I haven't given up on the intuition that they're not necessarily mutually exclusive: the flawed, fragile, beautiful and doomed, all suffered and celebrated within an overarching framework of perfection and freedom and ultimate okayness.


If you see it that way, then how would the poignancy, sadness, beauty and terror be real? If you saw that utterly and fully in that way then how would they be there at all?

RE: How Sawfoot Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Enlightenment
Answer
3/23/14 5:42 AM as a reply to Adam . ..
Adam . .:
I haven't given up on the intuition that they're not necessarily mutually exclusive: the flawed, fragile, beautiful and doomed, all suffered and celebrated within an overarching framework of perfection and freedom and ultimate okayness.


If you see it that way, then how would the poignancy, sadness, beauty and terror be real? If you saw that utterly and fully in that way then how would they be there at all?


Right, if I saw things utterly and fully one way, I wouldn't see them both ways. But I do see life both those ways, not wholly one way or the other.

Part of me lives in a world of human identities and feelings. In that world, me and the people I have relationships with are real, the joys and the sorrows we experience are real... but not actual. And I don't want to dispel those real-but-not-actual aspects of my life, or cease to recognise them in other people's lives. But I also know that it's all taking place within something that's utterly untouched by any of this, and that what I ultimately am isn't excluded from that in any fundamental sense.

This being okay with the notion that everything is fucked and everything is fine at the same time might in part be a temperamental thing. I know some people can't relate to it at all, but others can relate perfectly well. I remember when I first started perusing the DhO I really couldn't relate well to the goal of ending all suffering that was in vogue at the time; it seemed so morbid and bloodless and anti-life to me. Even actualism, which is even more extreme, was not really about ending all suffering for me; it was about the ultimate happiness, the ultimate freedom. I guess I just can't relate to life or the universe being inherently fucked for sentient beings, without it also being, at the same time, inherently wonderful. Both at once, and much more besides... depending on how it's seen, by whom, with what conditioning factors, and to what end.

RE: How Sawfoot Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Enlightenment
Answer
3/23/14 4:01 PM as a reply to John Wilde.
John Wilde:
Adam . .:
I haven't given up on the intuition that they're not necessarily mutually exclusive: the flawed, fragile, beautiful and doomed, all suffered and celebrated within an overarching framework of perfection and freedom and ultimate okayness.


If you see it that way, then how would the poignancy, sadness, beauty and terror be real? If you saw that utterly and fully in that way then how would they be there at all?


Right, if I saw things utterly and fully one way, I wouldn't see them both ways. But I do see life both those ways, not wholly one way or the other.

Part of me lives in a world of human identities and feelings. In that world, me and the people I have relationships with are real, the joys and the sorrows we experience are real... but not actual. And I don't want to dispel those real-but-not-actual aspects of my life, or cease to recognise them in other people's lives. But I also know that it's all taking place within something that's utterly untouched by any of this, and that what I ultimately am isn't excluded from that in any fundamental sense.

This being okay with the notion that everything is fucked and everything is fine at the same time might in part be a temperamental thing. I know some people can't relate to it at all, but others can relate perfectly well. I remember when I first started perusing the DhO I really couldn't relate well to the goal of ending all suffering that was in vogue at the time; it seemed so morbid and bloodless and anti-life to me. Even actualism, which is even more extreme, was not really about ending all suffering for me; it was about the ultimate happiness, the ultimate freedom. I guess I just can't relate to life or the universe being inherently fucked for sentient beings, without it also being, at the same time, inherently wonderful. Both at once, and much more besides... depending on how it's seen, by whom, with what conditioning factors, and to what end.


David has two nice complementary posts relevant here. Life is shit (a charnel ground). Life is amazing (a pure land).

http://meaningness.wordpress.com/2012/08/22/charnel-ground/
http://meaningness.wordpress.com/2012/09/11/pure-land/

My way of relating to it (currently) is just back to Buddhism 101, non-duality, emptiness and form (actual is emptiness, real is form?) And emotionally, emotions can contain contradictory elements each other, e.g. awe, or the same emotion (in its physical manifestation) can be interpreted in different ways, with different results.

One thing that has been on my mind is this assumption, well expressed in vajrayana but really the cornerstone of all spiritual traditions is that our experience of "emptiness" or aliveness (or God or whatever), if we strip away what obscures it, is intrinsically good and amazing. That our enlightened state is our natural state. I struggle to accept all this talk of naturalness (when it can take a lifetime of meditation practice to fully experience this "naturalness"). And then, so what? We can engineer a state of being through messing around with our self-referencing circuitry and disrupting our spatial perception and release lots of nice neurotransmitters. I don't think it tells that the "universe is love" and so on. But the promise is that this is a suitable ground for living an excellent life, a means to an end.

RE: How Sawfoot Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Enlightenment
Answer
3/23/14 11:03 PM as a reply to sawfoot _.
sawfoot _:

One thing that has been on my mind is this assumption, well expressed in vajrayana but really the cornerstone of all spiritual traditions is that our experience of "emptiness" or aliveness (or God or whatever), if we strip away what obscures it, is intrinsically good and amazing. That our enlightened state is our natural state. I struggle to accept all this talk of naturalness (when it can take a lifetime of meditation practice to fully experience this "naturalness"). And then, so what? We can engineer a state of being through messing around with our self-referencing circuitry and disrupting our spatial perception and release lots of nice neurotransmitters. I don't think it tells that the "universe is love" and so on. But the promise is that this is a suitable ground for living an excellent life, a means to an end.


That is an OK way of looking at it. Just some thoughts...

The truth that we talking about in meditation / spirituality is more closely related to philosophical truth than to the empirical truths of science and technology.

Scientific knowledge is a posteriori. It is made possible by experience and reasoning.

The bar for ultimate truth in spirituality is higher. From this perspective reasoning is just an experience. And the nature of conscious experience itself has to be considered. We don't experience the neurotransmitters in our brains. We experience bliss. We experience despair.

Neuroscience is cool, but isn't directly relevant to spiritual practice.

Ideas about the natural state don't refer to a sort of default evolutionary state of mind. But rather the most uncontrived mental state possible.

The natural state doesn't have any characteristics of its own. The positive characteristics are associated with the discernment of the 'natural state'.

Attachment and craving are possible because we associate our experience of reality as having some inherently existing characteristics. Discerning that all experience is ultimately void of essence means that craving and aversion are dropped. At least to the extent that you can maintain discernment.

Doesn't mean that you wont have preferences on how to live life, or how much sugar you want in your coffee. Or that science will somehow stop working.

RE: How Sawfoot Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Enlightenment
Answer
3/24/14 4:36 AM as a reply to (D Z) Dhru Val.
[quote=(D Z) Dhru Val]
sawfoot _:

One thing that has been on my mind is this assumption, well expressed in vajrayana but really the cornerstone of all spiritual traditions is that our experience of "emptiness" or aliveness (or God or whatever), if we strip away what obscures it, is intrinsically good and amazing. That our enlightened state is our natural state. I struggle to accept all this talk of naturalness (when it can take a lifetime of meditation practice to fully experience this "naturalness"). And then, so what? We can engineer a state of being through messing around with our self-referencing circuitry and disrupting our spatial perception and release lots of nice neurotransmitters. I don't think it tells that the "universe is love" and so on. But the promise is that this is a suitable ground for living an excellent life, a means to an end.


That is an OK way of looking at it. Just some thoughts...

The truth that we talking about in meditation / spirituality is more closely related to philosophical truth than to the empirical truths of science and technology.

Scientific knowledge is a posteriori. It is made possible by experience and reasoning.

The bar for ultimate truth in spirituality is higher. From this perspective reasoning is just an experience. And the nature of conscious experience itself has to be considered. We don't experience the neurotransmitters in our brains. We experience bliss. We experience despair.

Neuroscience is cool, but isn't directly relevant to spiritual practice.

Ideas about the natural state don't refer to a sort of default evolutionary state of mind. But rather the most uncontrived mental state possible.

The natural state doesn't have any characteristics of its own. The positive characteristics are associated with the discernment of the 'natural state'.

Attachment and craving are possible because we associate our experience of reality as having some inherently existing characteristics. Discerning that all experience is ultimately void of essence means that craving and aversion are dropped. At least to the extent that you can maintain discernment.

Doesn't mean that you wont have preferences on how to live life, or how much sugar you want in your coffee. Or that science will somehow stop working.

Thanks for offering your thoughts D Z. I think I disagree in a number of ways, but it is useful to have a different way of seeing things.
I agree that scientific truth and experience-dependent "truth" are different, but I see experience as beyond notions of truth and false (which partly why I hate that term "ultimate truth"). And I agree that we should see science and spirituality as different kinds of enterprises, with spirituality akin to the old school notion of philosophy as addressing the question of "ought" rather that "is".

My point about the naturalness of the "natural state" still applies to an "uncontrived mental state", as if you have to spend 10 years on a retreat in a cave in the Himalayas to achieve it, then it seems pretty contrived to me! And I disagree about the relevance of neuroscience to spiritual practice (though it might depend on how far you would push "directly relevant"), as if neuroscience isn't relevant, then would count as being relevant?

We don't experience bliss in the mind, we experience an experience, which in our conceptual-socio-linguistic matrix we label as "bliss". It is a word that is part of our shared conceptual apparatus, an apparatus has an important role in shaping experience. In another conceptual framework we might call it experience of divine union. In another, we might describe it as set of neurotransmitters for firing. In that framework, we can see the experience of craving as a consequence of reward circuitry of the brain, and certain states of mind are possible which disrupt that. Buddhist psychology gives another way of framing it. In a pragmatic sense, these different frameworks have different utilities, and I happen to think the neuroscience perspective is a pretty good one. A perspective that I am probably too attached to, and one that is possibly more of a hindrance than a help on a spiritual path. But really exploring the relevance of that framework to spirituality is of great interest to me.

RE: Practice log
Answer
3/24/14 4:37 AM as a reply to sawfoot _.
# 2014-3-23 09:11
- 40 minutes morning sit
- just tried to do anapasanti. Time passed quickly, though buttocks starting to get annoying towards end. Got lots in quite a lot of thought trains especially later on. Made it to 10 at one point (a weak 10) and counted back down
- another old trick to remember: Need to make the breath the most interesting thing in the world. And making it as pleasurable as possible really helps with that.

# 2014-3-24 08:57
- 40 minute morning sit
- hard to stick with anapasanti. Did get a greater sense of stillness, deepening and relaxation as sit went on, but still a lot of conceptual thought trains. And need to be wary of tricks of the minds. Towards end decided that anapasanti wasn't really working and I should bathe in the nice sukkha filled state I was in and try deepening it through letting go, but my practice goal was breath counting with intent. Still feeling this tension in wanting to explore open awareness at the same time as thinking I need a more disciplined, stable and still mind (which is the point of breath counting).

RE: How Sawfoot Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Enlightenment
Answer
3/24/14 9:56 AM as a reply to sawfoot _.
sawfoot _:

. In a pragmatic sense, these different frameworks have different utilities, and I happen to think the neuroscience perspective is a pretty good one. A perspective that I am probably too attached to, and one that is possibly more of a hindrance than a help on a spiritual path. But really exploring the relevance of that framework to spirituality is of great interest to me.


I think it's potentially really useful too, but in very early stages. The advantage of being able to take on pragmatically a more traditional framework is that it's an operating system for those experiences that's out of the beta-testing stage so to speak. Or maybe more precisely, the traditional frameworks are comprehensive in that they are likely to cover a broad spectrum of experiences and the cause-and-effect within experience of how these various states tend to arise and the side effects, etc that may or may not come with them. The neuroscience perspective is as yet pretty rough and incomplete from what I can tell, but still is full of fascinating and pragmatically relevant nuggets.

RE: How Sawfoot Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Enlightenment
Answer
3/24/14 5:39 PM as a reply to . Jake ..
. Jake .:
sawfoot _:

. In a pragmatic sense, these different frameworks have different utilities, and I happen to think the neuroscience perspective is a pretty good one. A perspective that I am probably too attached to, and one that is possibly more of a hindrance than a help on a spiritual path. But really exploring the relevance of that framework to spirituality is of great interest to me.


I think it's potentially really useful too, but in very early stages. The advantage of being able to take on pragmatically a more traditional framework is that it's an operating system for those experiences that's out of the beta-testing stage so to speak. Or maybe more precisely, the traditional frameworks are comprehensive in that they are likely to cover a broad spectrum of experiences and the cause-and-effect within experience of how these various states tend to arise and the side effects, etc that may or may not come with them. The neuroscience perspective is as yet pretty rough and incomplete from what I can tell, but still is full of fascinating and pragmatically relevant nuggets.


Yeah, all true. I am just curious to see how far those nuggets can go.

So an important point (for me) is to remember that Buddhism is a practice (and probably the "Buddha" would agree), and not a belief system. So I don't have to believe in anything to practice as a Buddhist (or pragmatic dharmist/whatever), other than faith that the practice will have positive effects for me and the world.

btw, sent you a message. And you too, Zendo, if you are reading this.

RE: How Sawfoot Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Enlightenment
Answer
3/25/14 12:00 PM as a reply to sawfoot _.
Cool, that makes a ton of sense. Personally I've always been a bad 'believer' in life in general-- too skeptical-- except that when i was younger and (even more) hot headed I believed pretty strongly in my skepticism ;) However I've always been a good pragmatist and enjoyed 'make believe' ever since childhood so...

Hey have you ever read James Austin's "Zen and the Brain"? If not I think you might like it. He's a pretty good neuroscientist from what I can tell and has an interesting method in the book. basically he takes some interesting experiences-- both of the concentrative and awakening variety if I recall correctly-- and then does informed speculation about brain mechanisms that could be implicated in the various experiences. Pretty fascinating stuff.

A lot of the newer brain/meditation crossover stuff I am familiar with looks more at neuroplasticity and possible long term results in brain structure and function from regular practice.

For some reason my gmail doesn't work at work anymore as of the past few days so i will get back to you this evening when I return home, thanks for the note emoticon

RE: How Sawfoot Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Enlightenment
Answer
3/25/14 3:10 PM as a reply to sawfoot _.
sawfoot _:

One thing that has been on my mind is this assumption, well expressed in vajrayana but really the cornerstone of all spiritual traditions is that our experience of "emptiness" or aliveness (or God or whatever), if we strip away what obscures it, is intrinsically good and amazing. That our enlightened state is our natural state. I struggle to accept all this talk of naturalness (when it can take a lifetime of meditation practice to fully experience this "naturalness"). And then, so what? We can engineer a state of being through messing around with our self-referencing circuitry and disrupting our spatial perception and release lots of nice neurotransmitters. I don't think it tells that the "universe is love" and so on. But the promise is that this is a suitable ground for living an excellent life, a means to an end.


That there's something intrinsically good and amazing underneath all the suffering and strife that exists in minds and hearts is something that makes complete sense to me. I know it. It was the initial inspiration for all this .... and it's the reason why true cynicism will never be an option here.

And although I get your point about the paradox of calling something a "natural state" when nobody's in it and people work years to attain it, it still seems spot on to me.... because it's what's left when all the crap is gone, and it's clear that the crap is not intrinsic.

What exactly this is, in anyone's language, or in any tradition, I've given up caring. There are aspects of so many teachings that point in that general direction but also veer off into stuff that doesn't fit my experiences or aims at all, and the same goes for actual freedom. So be it. Nowadays, I'm looking at practice not as a means to a specific end but as a way of making all the crap increasingly transparent.