Non-Duality, Presence, Spirit

Kelly Gordon Weeks, modified 3 Years ago at 11/2/20 2:42 PM
Created 3 Years ago at 11/2/20 2:42 PM

Non-Duality, Presence, Spirit

Posts: 191 Join Date: 8/9/20 Recent Posts
Lately, I've been reading Tolle's book "The Power of Now." He speaks about presence as our inner being. He says that one can find presence by paying attention to energy (piti) in the body. Doesn't this idea of presence contradict non-duality/no self? Not that I grasp non-duality, but the idea of it is that there is no separation between the mind and the body, correct? The mind is the systems of the body working together and there is no inner spirit, self or "being" that is controlling the mind.

The more that I explore these topics the less understanding I seem to have. lol. To contradict further, I was raised Catholic which teaches that we are possessed by a soul, which after death ascends or descends to heaven or hell. In my case, it would be hell (oh well) since I no longer believe that Jesus is/was the son of god, at least in the sense that the church teaches. 

I also would like something meaningful to teach my children when they ask about god and what happens after we die. 

Thanks for your help!
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Chris M, modified 3 Years ago at 11/2/20 3:03 PM
Created 3 Years ago at 11/2/20 2:56 PM

RE: Non-Duality, Presence, Spirit

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Buddhists don't have souls  emoticon

But seriously, the deal with being in touch with sensations in the body is usually to get one's attention away from the babbling mind. I'm sure you can appreciate this - the mind tells stories about what's gonna hurt us, help us, be our enemy or our friend. The body is more obvious and direct, and focusing on sensations there is usually calming and brings us that much closer to being right here, right now, and that's being awake.

Hope this helps.
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Chris M, modified 3 Years ago at 11/2/20 3:02 PM
Created 3 Years ago at 11/2/20 3:01 PM

RE: Non-Duality, Presence, Spirit

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By the way, you're right about the fact that there's no actual duality between the mind and the body. What can happen, and this becomes our operating habit, is that the busy, pre-occupied, and selfishly motivated mind creates an artificial separation that we buy into and start to believe. So after years and years of buying into that artificial separation, we have to focus, pay close attention, sit and be quiet and observe the truth of what's really going on (in other words meditate), in order to re-establish the non-separation.

I'm trying to say too much in too few words, but I hope it makes sense to you.
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Jade Lee, modified 3 Years ago at 11/2/20 7:39 PM
Created 3 Years ago at 11/2/20 7:39 PM

RE: Non-Duality, Presence, Spirit

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I too have trouble understanding non duality. Can someone elaborate please and thanks.
An Eternal Now, modified 3 Years ago at 11/3/20 8:32 AM
Created 3 Years ago at 11/3/20 8:29 AM

RE: Non-Duality, Presence, Spirit

Posts: 638 Join Date: 9/15/09 Recent Posts
Kelly Gordon Weeks:
Lately, I've been reading Tolle's book "The Power of Now." He speaks about presence as our inner being. He says that one can find presence by paying attention to energy (piti) in the body. Doesn't this idea of presence contradict non-duality/no self? Not that I grasp non-duality, but the idea of it is that there is no separation between the mind and the body, correct? The mind is the systems of the body working together and there is no inner spirit, self or "being" that is controlling the mind.

The more that I explore these topics the less understanding I seem to have. lol. To contradict further, I was raised Catholic which teaches that we are possessed by a soul, which after death ascends or descends to heaven or hell. In my case, it would be hell (oh well) since I no longer believe that Jesus is/was the son of god, at least in the sense that the church teaches. 

I also would like something meaningful to teach my children when they ask about god and what happens after we die. 

Thanks for your help!


Eckhart Tolle is at Stage 1 and 2 of this map: http://awakeningtoreality.blogspot.sg/2007/03/thusnesss-six-stages-of-experience.html

Also see: https://awakeningtoreality.blogspot.com/2007/03/mistaken-reality-of-amness.html

A valuable and precious realization, but not the end of the path in Buddhism.

There are further realisations to go.
An Eternal Now, modified 3 Years ago at 11/3/20 9:02 AM
Created 3 Years ago at 11/3/20 9:02 AM

RE: Non-Duality, Presence, Spirit

Posts: 638 Join Date: 9/15/09 Recent Posts
Kelly Gordon Weeks:

I also would like something meaningful to teach my children when they ask about god and what happens after we die.


Buddhism, and I have little use for the word 'God'. Buddhism don't use that term or accept the idea of a creator.

That being said if insisted to use the term 'God', this is how I would use it:


“What is presence now? Everything... Taste saliva, smell, think, what is that? Snap of a finger, sing.  All ordinary activity, zero effort therefore nothing attained. Yet is full accomplishment. In esoteric terms, eat God, taste God, see God, hear God...lol. That is the first thing I told Mr. J few years back when he first messaged me emoticonIf a mirror is there, this is not possible. If clarity isn't empty, this isn't possible. Not even slightest effort is needed. Do you feel it? Grabbing of my legs as if I am grabbing presence! Do you have this experience already? When there is no mirror, then entire existence is just lights-sounds-sensations as single presence. Presence is grabbing presence. The movement to grab legs is Presence.. the sensation of grabbing legs is Presence.. For me even typing or blinking my eyes. For fear that it is misunderstood, don't talk about it. Right understanding is no presence, for every single sense of knowingness is different. Otherwise Mr. J will say nonsense... lol. When there is a mirror, this is not possible. Think I wrote to longchen (Sim Pern Chong) about 10 years ago.” - John Tan

“An interesting comment Mr. J. After realization… Just eat God, breathe God, smell God and see God… Lastly be fully unestablished and liberate God.” - John Tan, 2012


Also, Daniel Ingram wrote: https://www.mctb.org/mctb2/table-of-contents/part-v-awakening/37-models-of-the-stages-of-awakening/the-god-models/


Buddhism teaches about rebirth in the 6 realms or 31 planes of existences. Buddha himself recalled past lives, so did many of his students, all the way up to today. My teacher John Tan/Thusness did, my friend Sim Pern Chong (who also awakened under pointers of John Tan) did, and recounted many past lives some of which were of great details due to the nature of 'reliving the experience' in deep samadhi. Daniel M. Ingram also recalled past lives: https://www.dharmaoverground.org/discussion/-/message_boards/view_message/5068881#_19_message_5075282

I can understand not everyone will believe it. But there are interesting scientific research that kind of backs it up: https://wisdomexperience.org/product/rebirth-early-buddhism-and-current-research/

As for how rebirth can happen without a soul:

http://awakeningtoreality.blogspot.com/2018/12/reincarnation-without-soul.html


http://awakeningtoreality.blogspot.com/.../emptiness-and...

Continuing consciousness after death is, in most religions, a matter of revealed truth. In Buddhism, the evidence comes from the contemplative experience of people who are certainly not ordinary but who are sufficiently numerous that what they say about it is worth taking seriously into account. Indeed, such testimonies begin with those of the Buddha himself.

Nevertheless, it’s important to understand that what’s called reincarnation in Buddhism has nothing to do with the transmigration of some ‘entity’ or other. It’s not a process of metempsychosis because there is no ‘soul’. As long as one thinks in terms of entities rather than function and continuity, it’s impossible to understand the Buddhist concept of rebirth. As it’s said, ‘There is no thread passing through the beads of the necklace of rebirths.’ Over successive rebirths, what is maintained is not the identity of a ‘person’, but the conditioning of a stream of consciousness.

Additionally, Buddhism speaks of successive states of existence; in other words, everything isn’t limited to just one lifetime. We’ve experienced other states of existence before our birth in this lifetime, and we’ll experience others after death. This, of course, leads to a fundamental question: is there a nonmaterial consciousness distinct from the body? It would be virtually impossible to talk about reincarnation without first examining the relationship between body and mind. Moreover, since Buddhism denies the existence of any self that could be seen as a separate entity capable of transmigrating from one existence to another by passing from one body to another, one might well wonder what it could be that links those successive states of existence together.

One could possibly understand it better by considering it as a continuum, a stream of consciousness that continues to flow without there being any fixed or autonomous entity running through it… Rather it could be likened to a river without a boat, or to a lamp flame that lights a second lamp, which in-turn lights a third lamp, and so on and so forth; the flame at the end of the process is neither the same flame as at the outset, nor a completely different one…
George S, modified 3 Years ago at 11/3/20 10:24 AM
Created 3 Years ago at 11/3/20 10:21 AM

RE: Non-Duality, Presence, Spirit

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Kelly Gordon Weeks:
 

I also would like something meaningful to teach my children when they ask about god and what happens after we die. 



I struggle with that one. My wife's family is catholic and they teach my kids to pray while I sit on the sidelines. I'm kind of dreading the question "why don't you pray Daddy?".

When I was 5 my Mum was sitting on the side of my bed and we were talking about the universe and I sort of fell into this huge expanse of endless space which was simultaneously my awareness of it. It was so mind-blowing I thought to myself there's no way this can just turn off when I die. So I asked her "what happens to the universe when I die?". She replied: "nothing, it just goes on without you". At that moment the whole thing came crashing down and that was probably the starting point of a dark night which lasted about 40 years and almost brought me to the brink of suicide (not directly, I did plenty of stuff to make things worse for myself). Looking back now I am grateful she was honest, but yeah it's a tough one ...
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Ni Nurta, modified 3 Years ago at 11/3/20 5:01 PM
Created 3 Years ago at 11/3/20 5:01 PM

RE: Non-Duality, Presence, Spirit

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You are body, true mind is from body and it "clicks". Spiritual energy is not your true self, it is just something that can be useful. If needed you should gather it from environment, prepare, use, and then excrete. Just like food. Do not make houses from spiritual poop. When your energy is stale you should do some spiritual fasting. Also do not put your hopes in immortality in its qualities whatever these qualities might be as it does not work and if anything this is not the way to do it. The universe is a beautiful place but if your glasses are full all the damn time how can you fill them?

BTW. Some people (quite a lot actually...) are confused about this whole thing. They think proper way to resolve mind vs mind issue is to subdue physical mind. This exactly generates the kind of experiences described as "non-duality". Proper enlightenment is momentary experience of Vajra Samadhi - experience of all experiences at all times (supermundane experience - used to connect) and physical mind state of Vajra-like Samadhi - body empty of spirit. There is also experience of Nibbana (also supermundane experience, though it has different utilities - it can be used to destroy stuff) - experience of non-experience and its related physical mind state - cessation of mind - again, no spiritual poop. The difference between vajra-like samadhi and cessation of mind is how neurons are tuned. Normally they are tuned for your spiritual mind, also called mind. This makes it impossible to experience all the interesting stuff. Between Vajra Samadhi and Nibbana there is pretty much any experience, including all pure abodes from more interesting ones, and it can be experienced as a momentary experience from withing related samadhi. All these momentary experiences are on-demand. On physical body/mind demand that is. It is the one who is the master over spiritual world, not the other way around.

If you can experience these experiences then you do not need to wonder about architecture of reality because you can just look and see, reach and feel, etc.

ps. Do not ask for references. I have no human master. My only master is Buddha Vajradhara.
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Jim Smith, modified 3 Years ago at 11/3/20 10:13 PM
Created 3 Years ago at 11/3/20 9:27 PM

RE: Non-Duality, Presence, Spirit

Posts: 1633 Join Date: 1/17/15 Recent Posts
Kelly Gordon Weeks:
Lately, I've been reading Tolle's book "The Power of Now." He speaks about presence as our inner being. He says that one can find presence by paying attention to energy (piti) in the body. Doesn't this idea of presence contradict non-duality/no self? Not that I grasp non-duality, but the idea of it is that there is no separation between the mind and the body, correct? The mind is the systems of the body working together and there is no inner spirit, self or "being" that is controlling the mind.

The more that I explore these topics the less understanding I seem to have. lol. To contradict further, I was raised Catholic which teaches that we are possessed by a soul, which after death ascends or descends to heaven or hell. In my case, it would be hell (oh well) since I no longer believe that Jesus is/was the son of god, at least in the sense that the church teaches. 

I also would like something meaningful to teach my children when they ask about god and what happens after we die. 

Thanks for your help!


Consciousness exists (or you wouldn't be aware of reading this).  The question of the existence of a spirit or soul is about whether consciousness is a physical phenomenon or a non-physical phenomena. Not-self can be true even if consciousness is not a physical phenomenon. Not-self means that we are fooled into believing in a false conception of self by impersonal phenomena. We might be fooled by impersonal physical phenomena or impersonal non-physical phenomena it doesn't matter which to the doctrine of not-self. And when I write "false conception of self" I don't mean there isn't a self but we think there is. I mean our conception of what self is is based on a misunderstanding. Self is always going to be an opinion, an abstract idea. 


My overall view is that consciousness is fundamental, it is not part of the physical universe, and that matter is derived from consciousness.

I believe this because I agree with the Nobel Prize winning scientists who formed the same opinion after examining scientific evidence:
Nobel Prize winners Max Planck, Erwin Schrödinger, Brian Josephson, Sir John Eccles, Eugene Wigner, George Wald and other great scientists and philosophers such as John von Neumann, Kurt Gödel, Wernher von Braun, Karl Popper, and Carl Jung believed consciousness is non-physical because of the evidence:
http://sites.google.com/site/chs4o8pt/eminent_researchers

I also believe that unity and individuality do not exclude each other.  I believe this because people from many different cultures have had various types of transendent experiences and say they the same thing. It has been described as two sides to a coin, or tines on a comb.
http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2015/03/realizing-ultimate.html

So I  believe we are all one consciousness and individuals at the same time. I don't know how that works. Things like time and distance are physical attributes and don't pertain to non-physical phenomena like consciousness so everything we understand about how the universe works is not really pertinent to the question of non-duality. We are all conscious so we understand consciousness to some extent but we are overwhelmed by our physical experience and that biases our ability to conceive and understand the true nature of consciousness.


My views are that the universe was created by intelligence. I believe this because I agree with the Nobel Prize winning scientists who came to that conclusion from examining scientific evidence.
Many scientists believed the evidence that the universe was designed. These scientists include Nobel prize winners such as Albert Einstein, Werner Heisenberg, Guglielmo Marconi, Brian Josephson, William Phillips, Richard Smalley, Arno Penzias, Charles Townes, Arthur Compton, Antony Hewish, Christian Anfinsen, Walter Kohn, Arthur Schawlow, and other scientists, Charles Darwin, Sir Fred Hoyle, John von Neumann, Wernher von Braun, and Louis Pasteur.
http://sites.google.com/site/chs4o8pt/eminent_researchers

I also believe that the origin of life on earth and macro-evolution were accomplished through the action of intelligence.
http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/p/articles-and-links-arranged-by-subject.html#articles_by_subject_id

(I don't dispute that natural selection can explain micro-evolution.)


I am a Spiritualist. I believe in a civilization of spirits that we come from before we are born and return to after death. I believe this because of the empirical evidence...

http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/p/articles-and-links-arranged-by-subject.html#articles_by_subject_afterlife

... and because of my own experiences

http://sites.google.com/site/chs4o8pt/psi_experience


What it is like in the afterlife:
http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2013/07/what-is-it-like-in-afterlife.html

My views on the creator are somewhat vague. I don't believe in the father like God who will unfailingly protect us from harm and misfortune if we are good. There is too much suffering on earth for that to be true. But I do believe spiritual entities can in certain circumstances help us within limits and in proportion to our own effort. In general I believe we incarnate with a life plan to help us develop spiritually. The plan is not a preordained script, it is like a syllabus and we are left to decide how hard to work on the lessons.

I don't believe in eternal damnation or vicarious atonement or vindictive punishment in the afterlife. There are karmic consequence to bad actions but they exist for the purpose of education (development) not "revenge". Ultimately every soul develops to the highest levels of goodness in the afterlife.

What I would tell a child would depend on the child, ie their age, etc.
Kelly Gordon Weeks, modified 3 Years ago at 11/3/20 10:22 PM
Created 3 Years ago at 11/3/20 10:22 PM

RE: Non-Duality, Presence, Spirit

Posts: 191 Join Date: 8/9/20 Recent Posts
There's a lot to digest here. Thank you to those that responded. I have some work to do!

-Kelly
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terry, modified 3 Years ago at 11/4/20 2:14 PM
Created 3 Years ago at 11/4/20 2:14 PM

RE: Non-Duality, Presence, Spirit

Posts: 2424 Join Date: 8/7/17 Recent Posts
Kelly Gordon Weeks:
Lately, I've been reading Tolle's book "The Power of Now." He speaks about presence as our inner being. He says that one can find presence by paying attention to energy (piti) in the body. Doesn't this idea of presence contradict non-duality/no self? Not that I grasp non-duality, but the idea of it is that there is no separation between the mind and the body, correct? The mind is the systems of the body working together and there is no inner spirit, self or "being" that is controlling the mind.

The more that I explore these topics the less understanding I seem to have. lol. To contradict further, I was raised Catholic which teaches that we are possessed by a soul, which after death ascends or descends to heaven or hell. In my case, it would be hell (oh well) since I no longer believe that Jesus is/was the son of god, at least in the sense that the church teaches. 

I also would like something meaningful to teach my children when they ask about god and what happens after we die. 

Thanks for your help!

aloha kgw,


    If your children ask about god you have already done well. There is nothing you can tell them, other to encourage them to keep asking.

   "Soul" in any meaningful sense refers to character, and virtue. Following one's conscience, or not. Doing the right thing even if it is uncomfortable. Or doing the comfortable thing even if it is not right.

   Death in spiritual terms is a metaphor for the end of egotism. The ego places us between the animals, who are innocent due to a lack of knowledge, and the angels, who are innocent because perfectly good. In hell, might makes right and anything goes for the sake of power. In paradise, good is supreme and lies are unthinkable. The red pill gets you steak, brandy and cigars. The blue pill, runny snot, threadbare clothes and damp cold iron. These are the tests of character. Indulge yourself and your indulgences become more pleasant. Deny yourself and the things you deny lose their appeal.

   As for jesus, ask yourself if you would rather spend three days in a jail cell with christ, or three days playing golf with pharaoh at mar-a-lago. And figure your ascent/descent accordingly. According to nonduality, god has no offspring, no rivals, and no peers.

   The more I explore the less I understand too. The Great Mystery will always be a mystery. You can't bite your teeth, you can't know the knower, the sword of discrimination cannot cut itself. The bright, diverse, distinct world of phenomena is actually a dark cloud concealing a mysterious reality vastly greater and more connected than any consciousness can ever perceive.

   Mind and body most lately have seemed to me to be related to the individual and the collective minds. Our bodies are the focus of individual consciousness, and our minds are the focus of social, interactive consciousness. The body feels and reacts, the mind thinks and verbalizes. Due to conditioning, the contents of the mind too are obsessed with individuality and dominated by the priorities of the physical organism. We find this hellish and try through adopting virtues to achieve a paradisical state of well-being, more or less in line with our social conditioning. (Aka "growing up.")

   It is the conditioning that you are struggling with, I think. Virtues are really independent of the groups, such as established commercial religions, who attempt to monopolize it "in the name of...". Souls become a kind of currency for the legalists and fundamentalists, and believers are added to lists and expected to conform. "If you meet the buddha, kill the buddha. If you meet the ptriarchs, kill the patriarchs. If you meet your parents, kill your parents." (rinzai) This is no time to conform to authority. You have to find your own way in the integrity of your own soul, with the help of the mystery.

   As for the metaphysics of nonduality, I've been there and done that. Suffice it to say that when you have gone beyond thought, the mystery is awake.


terry


ps I read tolle's book too and was very surprised to learn that it is all quite sound material...





from "the marriage of heaven and hell" by william blake




All Bibles or sacred codes have been the cause of the following errors:—

1. That man has two real existing principles, viz., a Body and a Soul.

2. That Energy, called Evil, is alone from the Body; and that Reason, called Good, is alone from the Soul.

3. That God will torment man in Eternity for following his Energies.

But the following contraries to these are true:—

1. Man has no Body distinct from his Soul. For that called Body is a portion of Soul discerned by the five senses, the chief inlets of Soul in this age.

2. Energy is the only life, and is from the Body; and Reason is the bound or outward circumference of Energy.

3. Energy is Eternal Delight.

Those who restrain desire, do so because theirs is weak enough to be restrained; and the restrainer or reason usurps its place and governs the unwilling.

And being restrained, it by degrees becomes passive, till it is only the shadow of desire.

The history of this is written in Paradise Lost, and the Governor or Reason is called Messiah.

And the original Archangel or possessor of the command of the heavenly host is called the Devil, or Satan, and his children are called Sin and Death.

But in the book of Job, Milton’s Messiah is called Satan.

For this history has been adopted by both parties.

It indeed appeared to Reason as if desire was cast out, but the Devil’s account is, that the Messiah fell, and formed a heaven of what he stole from the abyss.

This is shown in the Gospel, where he prays to the Father to send the Comforter or desire that Reason may have ideas to build on, the Jehovah of the Bible being no other than he who dwells in flaming fire. Know that after Christ’s death he became Jehovah.

But in Milton, the Father is Destiny, the Son a ratio of the five senses, and the Holy Ghost vacuum!

Note.—The reason Milton wrote in fetters when he wrote of Angels and God, and at liberty when of Devils and Hell, is because he was a true poet, and of the Devil’s party without knowing it.
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Papa Che Dusko, modified 3 Years ago at 11/4/20 2:44 PM
Created 3 Years ago at 11/4/20 2:44 PM

RE: Non-Duality, Presence, Spirit

Posts: 2669 Join Date: 3/1/20 Recent Posts
Chris Marti:


But seriously, the deal with being in touch with sensations in the body is usually to get one's attention away from the babbling mind. I'm sure you can appreciate this - the mind tells stories about what's gonna hurt us, help us, be our enemy or our friend. The body is more obvious and direct, and focusing on sensations there is usually calming and brings us that much closer to being right here, right now, and that's being awake.

Hope this helps.
This is beautiful. Simple and clear. I like it emoticon 

Before I found meditation I would not even feel the body sensations as such. Most of the "waking" hours would be spent totally "inside the head" emoticon  I was blind but now I see emoticon 

A Dhamma Intermezzo would be in order I think; I now See the creation and dissolution unfolding in the only yoke I could ever have, and that is right THIS moment, always in flux, never the same, always anew, as if it never was and yet I Know it for the very first time
emoticon https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AtteRD5bBNQ
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terry, modified 3 Years ago at 11/4/20 4:43 PM
Created 3 Years ago at 11/4/20 4:43 PM

RE: Non-Duality, Presence, Spirit

Posts: 2424 Join Date: 8/7/17 Recent Posts
agnostic:
Kelly Gordon Weeks:
 

I also would like something meaningful to teach my children when they ask about god and what happens after we die. 



I struggle with that one. My wife's family is catholic and they teach my kids to pray while I sit on the sidelines. I'm kind of dreading the question "why don't you pray Daddy?".

When I was 5 my Mum was sitting on the side of my bed and we were talking about the universe and I sort of fell into this huge expanse of endless space which was simultaneously my awareness of it. It was so mind-blowing I thought to myself there's no way this can just turn off when I die. So I asked her "what happens to the universe when I die?". She replied: "nothing, it just goes on without you". At that moment the whole thing came crashing down and that was probably the starting point of a dark night which lasted about 40 years and almost brought me to the brink of suicide (not directly, I did plenty of stuff to make things worse for myself). Looking back now I am grateful she was honest, but yeah it's a tough one ...


   Your mum's answer, "nothing, it just goes on without you" sounds perfect, inspiring, elevating. But you were right too, that there was no way "this" could turn off when you die. The two statements really mean the same thing. Death changes nothing. "Life flows on within you and without you."

   Life flows on and doesn't die; only you die. 

t





from richard wilhelm, yi jing, commentary, hex 49 (the well)



Political structures change, as do nations, but the life of man with its needs remains eternally the same - this cannot be changed. Life is also inexhaustible. It grows neither less nor more; it exists for one and for all. The generations come and go, and all enjoy life in its inexhaustible abundance.
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Jim Smith, modified 3 Years ago at 11/4/20 11:53 PM
Created 3 Years ago at 11/4/20 6:05 PM

RE: Non-Duality, Presence, Spirit

Posts: 1633 Join Date: 1/17/15 Recent Posts
Chris Marti:
Buddhists don't have souls  emoticon

But seriously, the deal with being in touch with sensations in the body is usually to get one's attention away from the babbling mind. I'm sure you can appreciate this - the mind tells stories about what's gonna hurt us, help us, be our enemy or our friend. The body is more obvious and direct, and focusing on sensations there is usually calming and brings us that much closer to being right here, right now, and that's being awake.

Hope this helps.

I experience emotions as sensations in my body. When the sensations are from nice emotions focusing on them can trigger bliss. When the sensations are from unpleasant emotions it can trigger a "jhana of badness".   I suspect this happens to people who have a bad reaction on retreat or who experience dark nights. Maybe this is why there are so many bad reactions on Goenka retreats where they teach body scanning?

I find focusing on what I see to be a good way to get my mind out of emotional states. Daniel's video where he discussed how this deactivates the default mode network explains why this works well. I had noticed that opening my eyes during meditation could trigger piti, and I also knew that noticing what I see as I went about daily life was doing ... uh ... something nice, and Daniels's video explains all that too. I doubled down on the practice after seeing Daniels video.

It's interesting how clearly it shows that emotions are just a lot of illusions when you can turn them down by deactivating the default mode network (and activating the parasympathetic nervous system with relaxation exercises), or when you can turn them on when practicing jhanas.  It's like mind is a trickster and you have to watch out or you will be fooled by his practical jokes.

(I'm not saying I can turn emotions on and off instantly - I'm not walking around in nirvana all the time, but the effect is pronounced enough so that I don't "believe in the reality" the emotions seem to be trying to paint when they catch me by surprise. It's one thing to read that "the mind produces illusions", it's another to believe it while it's happening to you.)
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terry, modified 3 Years ago at 11/4/20 10:04 PM
Created 3 Years ago at 11/4/20 10:04 PM

RE: Non-Duality, Presence, Spirit

Posts: 2424 Join Date: 8/7/17 Recent Posts
Jim Smith:
Chris Marti:
Buddhists don't have souls  emoticon

But seriously, the deal with being in touch with sensations in the body is usually to get one's attention away from the babbling mind. I'm sure you can appreciate this - the mind tells stories about what's gonna hurt us, help us, be our enemy or our friend. The body is more obvious and direct, and focusing on sensations there is usually calming and brings us that much closer to being right here, right now, and that's being awake.

Hope this helps.

I experience emotions as sensations in my body. When the sensations are from nice emotions focusing on them can trigger bliss. When the sensations are from unpleasant emotions it can trigger a "jhana of badness".   I suspect this happens to people who have a bad reaction on retreat or who experience dark nights. Maybe this is why there are so many bad reactions on Goenka retreats where they teach body scanning?

I find focusing on what I see to be a good way to get my mind out of emotional states. Daniel's video where he discussed how this deactivates the default mode network explains why this works well. I had noticed that opening my eyes during meditation could trigger piti, and I also knew that noticing what I see as I went about daily life was doing ... uh ... something nice, and Daniels's video explains all that too. I doubled down on the practice after seeing Daniels video.

It's interesting how clearly it shows that emotions are just a lot of illusions when you can turn them down by deactivating the default mode network (and activating the parasympathetic nervous system with relaxation exercises), or when you can turn them on when practicing jhanas.  It's like mind is a trickster and you have to watch out or you will be fooled by his practical jokes.

(I'm not saying I can turn emotions and off instantly - I'm not walking around in nirvana all the time, but the effect is pronounced enough so that I don't "believe in the reality" the emotions seem to be trying to paint when they catch me by surprise. It's one thing to read that "the mind produces illusions", it's another to believe it while it's happening to you.)

   
    kindness makes my heart soar, lies make it sore...

love and heartbreak, and mostly the latter because kindness is rare...

it takes time to relieve a sore heart, and patience...


nirvana is not a matter of turning off emotions, emotions are not cravings - they are feelings, prismatic, a palette of love...

soar & sore

not two
 
Kelly Gordon Weeks, modified 3 Years ago at 11/4/20 10:49 PM
Created 3 Years ago at 11/4/20 10:49 PM

RE: Non-Duality, Presence, Spirit

Posts: 191 Join Date: 8/9/20 Recent Posts
Interesting! I'm reading the links now. Thank you for sharing your take!

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