Home (12/19 - 12/31)

, modified 13 Years ago at 12/19/10 1:30 AM
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Home (12/19 - 12/31)

Posts: 385 Join Date: 8/11/10 Recent Posts
Starting the home-retreat now through Dec. 31, 2010
, modified 13 Years ago at 12/19/10 3:29 AM
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RE: Home (12/19 - 12/31)

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Moon lights small caravan of clouds, river ripples, mountains' silhouette; new can of El Pico.
__________
Exercise: 4:30 - 5:30
Sitting: 5:30 - 7 am
, modified 13 Years ago at 12/19/10 10:00 PM
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RE: Home (12/19 - 12/31)

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This is a 'moderate' training retreat - at home - during holidays, family, work; need to assess skills, challenge intention and not waste many fortunate opportunities in my life at the moment.

The retreat involves scripted exercise and extended sitting, and otherwise steep in sesshin-HA'I'ETMOBA. In addition to good fortune, the surroundings of inspiring people day-to-day, I am moved/motivated having read a few weeks ago about Ajahn Chah's application of 'dhamma medicine' to overcome an enduring plasmodium infection...and realize how out of shape I am if I want to apply similar 'medicine' at some point.

Notable metric from a sit today: in 90 minutes of buddho-breathing about 7 secs were in 'empty field', not bright, not dark.


Adding small challenges, but moderation is the key for this short retreat period.

Here is a poem by Alice Walker. If anyone knows how the author intended her work to be formatted, please let me know and I will correct.

[indent]
It is true--

I've always loved

the daring

ones

Like the black young

man

Who tried

to crash

All barriers

at once,

wanted to

swim

At a white

beach (in Alabama)

Nude.[/indent]
, modified 13 Years ago at 12/20/10 3:29 AM
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RE: Home (12/19 - 12/31)

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Checking in...
, modified 13 Years ago at 12/21/10 4:03 AM
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RE: Home (12/19 - 12/31)

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Starting in half hour later today, eclipse, chatting it up. singing bowl+yoga for exercise last night, lovely mind-softener.
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Pål S, modified 13 Years ago at 12/21/10 10:09 AM
Created 13 Years ago at 12/21/10 10:09 AM

RE: Home (12/19 - 12/31)

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sounds good. myself just watched 'into the wild' again last night, very EE inducing. I'm just gonna leave this here [from the movie]:

There is a pleasure in the pathless woods
There is a rapture on the lonely shore
There is society, where none intrudes
By the deep sea, and music in its roar
I love not man the less, but Nature more

- Lord Byron
, modified 13 Years ago at 12/21/10 11:06 PM
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RE: Home (12/19 - 12/31)

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Oh, McCandless, aka Alex Supertramp? I lived in the state when he was there. Such an admirable digging into his being, so exceptional too that he shared his death despite and including physical pain of starvation. So glad he could make amends with his parents. I am completely not free of any human condition, heavy hearted by suffering.

Tomorrow morning will come early. Thanks for dropping in, Paul.
, modified 13 Years ago at 12/21/10 11:14 PM
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RE: Home (12/19 - 12/31)

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Byron: I stuck my head in a castle toilet (situated over Lac Leman (Lake Geneva), perhaps Flor knows the castle, can send a photo to check my memory) before being aware that it was a toilet (plank of wood, two round platter-sized holes, over the lake...children understand its function right away, mais pas moi)...anyway, in the cellar (dungeon with some high wall windows) many prisoners had elegantly carved their initials into the pillars--clearly they were prisoners-in-residence, tho not Byron. No, he scrawled his name like he knew he was actually free and was rushed to note his stay in absurdly uneven dug-out letters.
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Florian, modified 13 Years ago at 12/21/10 11:59 PM
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RE: Home (12/19 - 12/31)

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Hi Katy,

Castle: this one?

Freedom: neat observation on home-decoration of one's prison. Thanks!

Cheers,
Florian
, modified 13 Years ago at 12/22/10 3:56 AM
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RE: Home (12/19 - 12/31)

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Including sleepiness, late, unwilling, nervous

Thank goodness for the moon.
, modified 13 Years ago at 12/22/10 3:57 AM
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RE: Home (12/19 - 12/31)

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Chillon. Yes. There are toilets on the second floor, over the lac. Not horizontal, round open windows.
, modified 13 Years ago at 12/22/10 6:53 PM
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RE: Home (12/19 - 12/31)

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Evening sitting: pouring tea for Rengetsu.

Autumn Moon
Fearing my past is exposed
to the moon,
I keep looking down
this evening.
, modified 13 Years ago at 12/23/10 3:30 AM
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RE: Home (12/19 - 12/31)

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Checking in...
, modified 13 Years ago at 12/23/10 6:18 AM
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RE: Home (12/19 - 12/31)

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Bored. No will to apply concentration after 20m. Could apply hunger/cold, but still bored. Otherwise 20m was sweet, mind-quiet. With jittery-candle, in moon light. Cannot see a point in doing intense sesshin in the Spring. Nothing bothering me, then. Today, cooking!
, modified 13 Years ago at 12/24/10 3:31 AM
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RE: Home (12/19 - 12/31)

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Favorite time of the day.
, modified 13 Years ago at 12/24/10 7:55 AM
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RE: Home (12/19 - 12/31)

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a few sprays of thoughts, sometimes a little thinking

otherwise, sitting near the window. breathing. hearing vehicles on highway, furnace.

light static in the mind. low-ripple very slight delight
, modified 13 Years ago at 12/25/10 4:45 AM
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RE: Home (12/19 - 12/31)

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Including Slivovitz.


Bleh.
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Bruno Loff, modified 13 Years ago at 12/25/10 5:58 AM
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RE: Home (12/19 - 12/31)

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k a steger:
Many have referred to Tarin's expression of 'not wanting to be here' in this summer's Hurricane Ranch talks. Indeed.


I'm with you there :-) I was very surprised to find this in myself also. Have a good time in your retreat.
, modified 13 Years ago at 12/26/10 9:54 PM
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RE: Home (12/19 - 12/31)

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Thanks, Bruno. You have many hilarious posts, appreciate your checking in here.

Belated thanks for "HIBOKWSSIYF" koan from July : )
, modified 13 Years ago at 12/27/10 3:32 AM
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RE: Home (12/19 - 12/31)

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Checking in. Starting with sit.
, modified 13 Years ago at 12/27/10 8:17 PM
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RE: Home (12/19 - 12/31)

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Huge headache at dinner, wanted to go sit with it. Something clicked (du calme: not AF, not enlightened), zero headache: feels like something nervous/excessive/uselessly discursive got extruded. Now, sitting.

Thanks to two persons today for going through the paces with me.
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Pål S, modified 13 Years ago at 12/28/10 3:30 AM
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RE: Home (12/19 - 12/31)

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Interesting, I also get similar head pressure when practicing. Most noticeable either as a tiara shaped area between the temples (triangle area as you described) or as a front to back pulse that seem to follow the gap (but wider) between the brain hemispheres and down the stem. I rarely get any pain though, do you experience it as painful? To me it feels more like a neutral wobbling sensation. The one thing that makes this different from ordinary 'brain sensations' is that (using music for comparison) AF-practice brain-sensations are very 'bass' like; soft, deep, wide, rounded, etc. Can you relate? Might just be my subjective experience.
, modified 13 Years ago at 12/29/10 3:45 AM
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RE: Home (12/19 - 12/31)

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Hi Paul S.

Yes, I can relate to this: "brain-sensations are very 'bass' like; soft, deep, wide, rounded" though, unless I was listening to bass music, I may not know these in the context of "AF-practice" - do you want to say more on that? Perhaps in your moment to moment existence this is awareness of your body's physiological mechanisms and you are hearing them?

At present, I stay clear of the ideological framework, and do not see a significant difference between zen and actualism; you can drive a car with either. In zen day-to-day one does, also eroding an "Awareness", but using intermittent/initial awareness to get to that erosion. In zen meditation, one is also mediation. If meditation is your hobby or chore, then it can be done with actualist/zen instruction. Then even as you get into the ideologies of either 'camp', all roads lead to self and its generation of states of mind/feelings/perceptions. I don't get into the ideologies; i like "both" zen and actualist how-to's (and they use different words, come with different attractors/pollen) and this community of practitioners from both/numerous traditions is ideal.

___

Checking in...
, modified 13 Years ago at 12/30/10 2:38 AM
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RE: Home (12/19 - 12/31)

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Early check in.

Stomach and spleen massage.

Bought a book online just now.
Amazon proposed the following payphrase:
"Katy's Autocratic Thesis"
!
, modified 13 Years ago at 12/31/10 3:46 AM
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RE: Home (12/19 - 12/31)

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Not sitting this morning.
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tarin greco, modified 13 Years ago at 12/31/10 7:06 PM
Created 13 Years ago at 12/31/10 7:06 PM

RE: Home (12/19 - 12/31)

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all sounds like meaningful practice. nothing to add; thanks for sharing.
, modified 13 Years ago at 1/2/11 11:47 AM
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RE: Home (12/19 - 12/31)

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Thank you, Tarin.


Here is a poem by Howard Nemerov


The Blue Swallows

Across the millstream below the bridge
Seven blue swallows divide the air
In shapes invisible and evanescent,
Kaleidoscopic beyond the mind’s
Or memory’s power to keep them there.

“History is where tensions were,”
“Form is the diagram of forces.”
Thus, helplessly, there on the bridge,
While gazing down upon those birds—
How strange, to be above the birds!—
Thus helplessly the mind in its brain
Weaves up relation’s spindrift web,
Seeing the swallows’ tails as nibs
Dipped in invisible ink, writing…

Poor mind, what would you have them write?
Some cabalistic history
Whose authorship you might ascribe
To God? to Nature? Ah, poor ghost,
You’ve capitalized your Self enough.
That villainous William of Occam
Cut out the feet from under that dream
Some seven centuries ago.
It’s taken that long for the mind
To waken, yawn and stretch, to see
With opened eyes emptied of speech
The real world where the spelling mind
Imposes with its grammar book
Unreal relations on the blue
Swallows. Perhaps when you will have
Fully awakened, I shall show you
A new thing: even the water
Flowing away beneath those birds
Will fail to reflect their flying forms,
And the eyes that see become as stones
Whence never tears shall fall again.

O swallows, swallows, poems are not
The point. Finding again the world,
That is the point, where loveliness
Adorns intelligible things
Because the mind’s eye lit the sun.
, modified 13 Years ago at 1/5/11 9:09 PM
Created 13 Years ago at 1/4/11 5:37 AM

RE: Home (12/19 - 12/31)

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Jason L's recent post about no/PCE: useful. In "thirty days in the Unborn", Bankei* advises not 'taking in' fixedly/with fixed notion (i.e., listen first time like enfant). In my opinion, this advice mirrors same concepts from other teachings, i.e., PCE:AF, 5-sensateness, with different words. (Referring to one of Florian's recent posts about the efficacy of any tradition leading to enlightenment, I agree and cannot not see that any selfless tradition with complete dedication would render a person to the condition of selfless, now. I.e., this is absolute faith in christianity monotheisms). Anyway, this is my continuing focus. I only experience this is very brief moments.


A new moon (0%full), here is a poem by Po Chu-I:

Night on the West River

No moon
To light my way upon the stair,
Cold comfort
In the wine I drink alone.

Black clouds,
Rain,
The hurried flight of birds,
Water flowing grayly
In the dusk.

A rising storm,
Boats tugging at their mooring ropes.
Or sails full-spread
To take advantage of the wind.

A moving point of fire
In the dark,
The distant lantern
Of a passing boat.



[translation Henry Hart]

_______

*Bankei Zen, Translations from the Record of Bankei, Peter Haskel, ed. Yoshito Hakeda, Grove Weidenfeld, NY, 1984

**Hakuin. I opened a new book (massage) Saturday morning and, voila, another chancing upon a story from Hakuin's life (not entirely chance as the book concerns shiatsu, itself Japanese). I had to look him up. Apparently, Hakuin used koans extensively as a way to exhaust discursive thinkers (hello, me). His predecessor, Bankei, used plain language and daily practical experience to guide people to waking up. Bankei was deemed a bit of a zen heretic for many reasons, one of which was the conviction that gender is irrelevant to waking up. It is so silly that he is an exception in this regard.

[Edit: absolute faith in monotheisms]
, modified 13 Years ago at 1/5/11 9:07 PM
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RE: Home (12/19 - 12/31)

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[last post, too many words, deleted]

I had the funny thought, "Oh, this is my Vacation Self-loathing", must come from the memory of Daniel describing his PCE experience in the July HRT ("[this is my vacation job, this is my vacation house...]")

Anyway, so that passed too, object of mind exposed, then meaningless. It did take a few days; "why the hell was that there?" Maybe like a man going to sesshin to overcome desire, then seeing he's been taking viagra every hour, for years.

From Lucien Stryk's collected translations of Shinkichi Takahashi*, Triumph of the sparrow, 1987, Grove Press, interview with Takahasi: page 171, Takahashi notes, that he always meditates, though

"not necessarily in lotus...I've seen the world with eyes reborn, result of meditation."

Stryk replies,

"Hui-neng said one should not look at, but as things. That's something you do more fully than anyone else."


Why is something so simple, so challenging to stick?


______
Hui-neng - deemed founder of 'sudden enlightenment', chan monk (638-713)

*Initially, Stryk's translation of "Burning Oneself to Death" (from the book cited above) was posted, but I can find none of Stryk's work freely online, so I think he must intend for it to be shared through traditional means (purchases). Takahasi's poem concerns a monk's self-immolation during the war in Viet Nam.
, modified 13 Years ago at 1/9/11 8:32 PM
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RE: Home (12/19 - 12/31)

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Late night ping pong with Scott, chat with ManZ A.
Not much left to say:
good luck and thanks for such a community.

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