The Positive Effects of Wisdom

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Noah, modified 8 Years ago at 12/8/15 6:04 AM
Created 8 Years ago at 12/8/15 6:04 AM

The Positive Effects of Wisdom

Posts: 1467 Join Date: 7/6/13 Recent Posts
I have had some trouble reconciling my relief-seeking orientation with the wisdom orientations of many serious practitioners whom I respect.  I have been calling the freedom from suffering that I have experienced thus far a 'positive side effect' of permanent meditation shifts.  I have noticed certain habits of mind have automatically ceased, lessened or naturally balanced out.  It seems that this is just what happens to me after cessations, without any further explanation, which is why I have thought of them as some sort of side effect, independent of the main effect (whatever that is).  

From a naturalistic standpoint, I have just theorized a potentially better way of describing this.  Culadassa, and others, talk about the attention, as differentiated from the background awareness.  The way I understand these concepts is that the attention is the condensed mental energy which selects specific objects in the field and engages with them.  This is the ordinary mind in everyday life, as most people understand it.  The awareness then, would be everything else that is part of the field of experience yet is not consciously identified as part of the perceptual process.  The awareness, and the field of objects, are effectively one and the same.  

My theory is that moments of cessation cause an increasing portion of the conscious mind to automatically be synched up with the awareness, and not limited to the attention, in every day experience.  As I have found myself being less drawn into destructive habits and negative energies, I believe that it is because there is a piece of my conscious mind that is not being sucked into them, in that moment.  Instead, it is remaining with the greater field, which, in its self-corrective capacity, tends not to contract around specific objects.

Some caveats:
-Words are inherently dualistic.  Models even moreso.  I write this description with this understanding in mind.
-I am not interested in defending this idea.  But I did feel like it was good enough to start a thread about it.
-I am not positing that this is a reliable or consistent result of insight for myself, or anyone else.  It's just something that happens to me, some of the time.  I have heard others give similar descriptions regarding the benefit of post-cessation experience.  
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Noah, modified 8 Years ago at 12/8/15 6:20 AM
Created 8 Years ago at 12/8/15 6:20 AM

RE: The Positive Effects of Wisdom

Posts: 1467 Join Date: 7/6/13 Recent Posts
Some more thoughts:

-It could be said that the transition from a consciousness fully occupying the attention to being released into the background awareness is related to the purification of karmic tendencies.  This makes sense as some memorized habits of mind will automatically be stop if different parts within the personality are allowed to stop fighting themselves.  I know this last sentence is a but muddied, but it definitely is my experience.

-There is obviously a limit to which this process will occur for a given person.  It will not necessarily fix everything, or even most things, or even one's 'big issue.'  Morality training is necessary to work within phenomena in this way.

-This process does not seem to particularly align with a linear or path-based model.  It makes sense that it would be a lifelong work.

-It seems to be related to ultimate compassion.  The more the field moves from personal to impersonal, the more different parts can recognize their inherent relatedness.  Related things (in the way that I mean) are less likely to clash.  It's like to a group of blindfolded people repeatedly bumping into one another in a room.  When they are allowed to see, they simply choose to stop walking into each other, and hurting themselves and each other.  They realize that their is enough space for all of them to move around freely.

(I may edit this post by adding things)
Stuie Charles Law, modified 8 Years ago at 12/8/15 9:47 AM
Created 8 Years ago at 12/8/15 9:44 AM

RE: The Positive Effects of Wisdom

Posts: 94 Join Date: 3/19/15 Recent Posts
Go...............make your way in this world.  Earn financual freedom.

Philosophy and religion have been the preserve of the elderly, free from the constraints of money and procreation.

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