Essay on the hindrance of teachings - Discussion
I'm not sure taking the neurobiology approach is helpful in this most recent essay by Jody, but his core statements about "the folk theorys of enlightenment" is right on. If people identify with one side of the spectrum of "enlighented identity" they fall into a big trap. Many people will talk about non-duality, but often you can hear in their language that actually they have fallen into the "I am everything" or the "I am nothing" identity. So Terry, Jody is actually _agreeing_ with you that "...no magic trick or sleight of hand can make the spirit in which grasping takes place into a dualistic subject of analysis and reductionism."
And Malcom, can you see that your view expressed in this quote ---- " Once you realise that and live it on an ongoing basis, it becomes bizarre to define some of those sensations as 'self' and some and 'other', or to believe some are harmful and some are good. It all just is the experience of being, of self/universe." ---- is the "I am nothing" view? The buddha was very good at pointing out that the wish to not-exist is still a form of clinging. It's really important to see that. It's perfectly fine to have concepts of self and other. Concepts were never the problem. The problem is clinging to views, including self and other, in a fixed an unchanging way. "No self and no other" is a view which is perfectly appropriate at times, but it isn't one to cling to.
I think this article lays out his views more clearly:
https://medium.com/@kalieezchild/the-folk-theory-of-nondual-enlightenment-explained-e48083283077.
And while it's very easy to justify the "idea" of a guru or to pick and choose a few examples that worked well as teachers for specific people -- wow, be careful. It so rarely turns out well.
For what it's worth, here is the conclusion at the end of the article I linked to:
"Concepts of nondual enlightenment may work against us in much the same way. If we don’t know what we’re looking at, it’s easy to mistake the counterfeit for the real. This is exacerbated by the fact that there is no point of comparison from which we can discriminate nondual awareness against that which we know as our everyday awareness. Throw in the idea that we need to get somewhere else (the top of the mountain,) or become someone else (a powerful, perfected divine being) in order to know nondual truth, and we’ve just displaced our perception of nondual awareness topographically, temporally and qualitatively.
I’m not suggesting that occlusion is the only reason that folks don’t appear to be noticing their own nondual awareness in an experientially authentic way, but I’m convinced it may bear at least some of the responsibility in some, if not most cases.
So, I just told you that by thinking of an elephant, you’re not likely to see the elephant. How do you go about not thinking of the elephant? There aren’t many options here, but there are a few approaches one can take.
One is to give up the search. Please note: this isn’t saying give up meditation or whatever spiritual practices you might be engaged in. But it is saying to forget the goal of your practice. The Bhagavad Gita says, “those who are motivated only by desire for the fruits of action are miserable, for they are constantly anxious about the results of what they do.” If you have the goal of nondual enlightenment, you’ve just precluded the recognition of your immediate nondual awareness as it exists within the moment you are considering it as a goal. You can still enjoy all the benefits of meditation without that goal in your day-to-day life, and by not having your enlightenment as a goal, you might bring its ever-present reality that much more into your field of understanding.
Another potential avenue is mindfulness. This is primarily a Buddhist practice, although Vedanta provides something similar, albeit in the form of negation. Mindfulness is simply watching the mind without attachment or reaction. That’s the hard part, not reacting. But if you do it enough you’ll get pretty good at it. That’s going to foster a certain clarity of insight. The more you know about yourself, the more you’ll know about yourself, and since nondual enlightenment is the ultimate knowing yourself, it makes sense that there’s a viable path to be trod in knowing yourself as much as you are able. Mindfulness is a simple (although initially difficult) way to arrive at self-knowledge of any kind.
Finally, there is the application of attention to imaginal ideas of God. In this, the goal is a state of surrender to whatever idea of God one might hold dear. Ramakrishna said, “bhakti (devotional yoga) is the easiest path,” for just this reason. For a sincere devotee, the will of God is paramount, and a surrendered devotee isn’t going to be asking for enlightenment, they are going to keep asking for more surrender to the will of God. In this way, you aren’t searching for anything, you are striving to be in ever more complete states of surrender. What those are will be completely self-determined, but since your mind is off nondual enlightenment, it might just sneak up on you and present itself unexpectedly. It’s certainly happened before."
And Malcom, can you see that your view expressed in this quote ---- " Once you realise that and live it on an ongoing basis, it becomes bizarre to define some of those sensations as 'self' and some and 'other', or to believe some are harmful and some are good. It all just is the experience of being, of self/universe." ---- is the "I am nothing" view? The buddha was very good at pointing out that the wish to not-exist is still a form of clinging. It's really important to see that. It's perfectly fine to have concepts of self and other. Concepts were never the problem. The problem is clinging to views, including self and other, in a fixed an unchanging way. "No self and no other" is a view which is perfectly appropriate at times, but it isn't one to cling to.
I think this article lays out his views more clearly:
https://medium.com/@kalieezchild/the-folk-theory-of-nondual-enlightenment-explained-e48083283077.
And while it's very easy to justify the "idea" of a guru or to pick and choose a few examples that worked well as teachers for specific people -- wow, be careful. It so rarely turns out well.
For what it's worth, here is the conclusion at the end of the article I linked to:
"Concepts of nondual enlightenment may work against us in much the same way. If we don’t know what we’re looking at, it’s easy to mistake the counterfeit for the real. This is exacerbated by the fact that there is no point of comparison from which we can discriminate nondual awareness against that which we know as our everyday awareness. Throw in the idea that we need to get somewhere else (the top of the mountain,) or become someone else (a powerful, perfected divine being) in order to know nondual truth, and we’ve just displaced our perception of nondual awareness topographically, temporally and qualitatively.
I’m not suggesting that occlusion is the only reason that folks don’t appear to be noticing their own nondual awareness in an experientially authentic way, but I’m convinced it may bear at least some of the responsibility in some, if not most cases.
So, I just told you that by thinking of an elephant, you’re not likely to see the elephant. How do you go about not thinking of the elephant? There aren’t many options here, but there are a few approaches one can take.
One is to give up the search. Please note: this isn’t saying give up meditation or whatever spiritual practices you might be engaged in. But it is saying to forget the goal of your practice. The Bhagavad Gita says, “those who are motivated only by desire for the fruits of action are miserable, for they are constantly anxious about the results of what they do.” If you have the goal of nondual enlightenment, you’ve just precluded the recognition of your immediate nondual awareness as it exists within the moment you are considering it as a goal. You can still enjoy all the benefits of meditation without that goal in your day-to-day life, and by not having your enlightenment as a goal, you might bring its ever-present reality that much more into your field of understanding.
Another potential avenue is mindfulness. This is primarily a Buddhist practice, although Vedanta provides something similar, albeit in the form of negation. Mindfulness is simply watching the mind without attachment or reaction. That’s the hard part, not reacting. But if you do it enough you’ll get pretty good at it. That’s going to foster a certain clarity of insight. The more you know about yourself, the more you’ll know about yourself, and since nondual enlightenment is the ultimate knowing yourself, it makes sense that there’s a viable path to be trod in knowing yourself as much as you are able. Mindfulness is a simple (although initially difficult) way to arrive at self-knowledge of any kind.
Finally, there is the application of attention to imaginal ideas of God. In this, the goal is a state of surrender to whatever idea of God one might hold dear. Ramakrishna said, “bhakti (devotional yoga) is the easiest path,” for just this reason. For a sincere devotee, the will of God is paramount, and a surrendered devotee isn’t going to be asking for enlightenment, they are going to keep asking for more surrender to the will of God. In this way, you aren’t searching for anything, you are striving to be in ever more complete states of surrender. What those are will be completely self-determined, but since your mind is off nondual enlightenment, it might just sneak up on you and present itself unexpectedly. It’s certainly happened before."
As for experience, bra, Experience requires an Experiencer. Nonduality, aka "the Truth," or "The Teaching" - dhamma - is not experienced because there is no one to experience it. Simple as this is, it is not obvious. Or, not obvious to most people; why is that?
Hello, terry.
Yours is a very literal interpretation of what the self might actually be. While there is indeed no permanent self, as the Buddha and those of us who practice the teachings know, it's simply not true that there is no self at all. The human array of senses still work to produce signals that are then interpreted by the human brain and mind to create the experiences we have. There is no denying that this process occurs, no way around it, and those experiences are not just the core and essence, but the literal reality we human beings experience.
We can argue about who experiences this 'til the cows come home and the sun sets in the east, but it's quite clear from my experience, and from what the Buddha taught, that there is a vast, uncrossable chasm between not-self and no-self at all.
The difference is between focusing on the impermanent "experiencer" part of this as opposed to the "experience" itself, which while impermanent is a real thing - we all have experiences.
Thank you for your very detailed reply
Further thoughts on the not-self vs. no-self issue:
This is a discussion that comes up over and over and over again on DhO. It's an easy leap into the "there is no self at all" mode of thinking. It's a simple construction from the confusion some dharma translators and dharna teachers create. "No-self" is bandied about and substituted for "not-self" on a regular basis, leading practitioners to adopt the language and the concept. Problem is, the concept doesn't square with what we find from pursuing a diligent practice. There we find how the mind processes information and creates our reality, and that reality includes the naturally arising notion of "I/me/mine." That naturally arising phenomenon is a chimera and we make the conceptual leap to conclude that there is a permanence to the self (I/me/mine) that simply does not exist. But... the processes that support its arising are real, and undeniable.
So if we're to address the fitness of dharna teachers, I see this as one very effective way to find out if a teacher knows what they're talking about from experience, or if they're just talking philosophy and metaphysics from reading stuff and thinking about it, or taking someone else's word for it.
And, just for the record, skepticism and doubt are really important parts of the path. The path is meant to be discovered by each of us, one by one, as we pursue it. It's not an exercise in belief. It's a "bottom up" process as opposed to a "top down" belief system.
This is a discussion that comes up over and over and over again on DhO. It's an easy leap into the "there is no self at all" mode of thinking. It's a simple construction from the confusion some dharma translators and dharna teachers create. "No-self" is bandied about and substituted for "not-self" on a regular basis, leading practitioners to adopt the language and the concept. Problem is, the concept doesn't square with what we find from pursuing a diligent practice. There we find how the mind processes information and creates our reality, and that reality includes the naturally arising notion of "I/me/mine." That naturally arising phenomenon is a chimera and we make the conceptual leap to conclude that there is a permanence to the self (I/me/mine) that simply does not exist. But... the processes that support its arising are real, and undeniable.
So if we're to address the fitness of dharna teachers, I see this as one very effective way to find out if a teacher knows what they're talking about from experience, or if they're just talking philosophy and metaphysics from reading stuff and thinking about it, or taking someone else's word for it.
And, just for the record, skepticism and doubt are really important parts of the path. The path is meant to be discovered by each of us, one by one, as we pursue it. It's not an exercise in belief. It's a "bottom up" process as opposed to a "top down" belief system.
Chris Marti:
Further thoughts on the not-self vs. no-self issue:
This is a discussion that comes up over and over and over again on DhO. It's an easy leap into the "there is no self at all" mode of thinking. It's a simple construction from the confusion some dharma translators and dharna teachers create. "No-self" is bandied about and substituted for "not-self" on a regular basis, leading practitioners to adopt the language and the concept. Problem is, the concept doesn't square with what we find from pursuing a diligent practice. There we find how the mind processes information and creates our reality, and that reality includes the naturally arising notion of "I/me/mine." That naturally arising phenomenon is a chimera and we make the conceptual leap to conclude that there is a permanence to the self (I/me/mine) that simply does not exist. But... the processes that support its arising are real, and undeniable.
So if we're to address the fitness of dharna teachers, I see this as one very effective way to find out if a teacher knows what they're talking about from experience, or if they're just talking philosophy and metaphysics from reading stuff and thinking about it, or taking someone else's word for it.
And, just for the record, skepticism and doubt are really important parts of the path. The path is meant to be discovered by each of us, one by one, as we pursue it. It's not an exercise in belief. It's a "bottom up" process as opposed to a "top down" belief system.
This is a discussion that comes up over and over and over again on DhO. It's an easy leap into the "there is no self at all" mode of thinking. It's a simple construction from the confusion some dharma translators and dharna teachers create. "No-self" is bandied about and substituted for "not-self" on a regular basis, leading practitioners to adopt the language and the concept. Problem is, the concept doesn't square with what we find from pursuing a diligent practice. There we find how the mind processes information and creates our reality, and that reality includes the naturally arising notion of "I/me/mine." That naturally arising phenomenon is a chimera and we make the conceptual leap to conclude that there is a permanence to the self (I/me/mine) that simply does not exist. But... the processes that support its arising are real, and undeniable.
So if we're to address the fitness of dharna teachers, I see this as one very effective way to find out if a teacher knows what they're talking about from experience, or if they're just talking philosophy and metaphysics from reading stuff and thinking about it, or taking someone else's word for it.
And, just for the record, skepticism and doubt are really important parts of the path. The path is meant to be discovered by each of us, one by one, as we pursue it. It's not an exercise in belief. It's a "bottom up" process as opposed to a "top down" belief system.
That's not what we're doing here, and it wasn't even the focus of the Buddha of the suttas, who for the most part refused to go there.
Chris Marti:
As for experience, bra, Experience requires an Experiencer. Nonduality, aka "the Truth," or "The Teaching" - dhamma - is not experienced because there is no one to experience it. Simple as this is, it is not obvious. Or, not obvious to most people; why is that?
Hello, terry.
Yours is a very literal interpretation of what the self might actually be. While there is indeed no permanent self, as the Buddha and those of us who practice the teachings know, it's simply not true that there is no self at all. The human array of senses still work to produce signals that are then interpreted by the human brain and mind to create the experiences we have. There is no denying that this process occurs, no way around it, and those experiences are not just the core and essence, but the literal reality we human beings experience.
We can argue about who experiences this 'til the cows come home and the sun sets in the east, but it's quite clear from my experience, and from what the Buddha taught, that there is a vast, uncrossable chasm between not-self and no-self at all.
The difference is between focusing on the impermanent "experiencer" part of this as opposed to the "experience" itself, which while impermanent is a real thing - we all have experiences.
Thank you for your very detailed reply
aloha chris,
In duality denial is always there. The human mind in ignorance interprets sensual inputs as individual experience, or in enlightenment does not interpret - there being no one to interpret - and thus there is nibbana. This "whole mass of suffering" cut off at the root: "gate, gate, paragate, parasamgate, svaha bodi" as translated by alan ginsberg: "Gone gone totally gone totally gone over the top, wakened mind, So, ah!"
You will, of course, have it your way. May you always be happy.
You're welcome. Thanks for considering what I had to say.
terry
from seng tsan's hsinhsinming:
Words!
The Way is beyond language,
for in it there is
no today
no yesterday
no tomorrow
Aloha terry, your perspective seems like a bit of a riff on the abidharmic / burmese / MCTB approach. Do you mind if I ask how you practice? Or how you have practiced since your big non-dual experience in your youth (assuming you are no longer in your twenties ...) Asking for a friend. 
Seriously, I get the impression that while there are many doors to the dharma initially, things tend to converge at least a bit later on, and I would be really interested to hear more of the practicalities of your perspective. Chris has really generously shared his amazing practice logs elsewhere, so this question is not intended to be picking between perspectives. Just hoping to fill out the picture.
Seriously, I get the impression that while there are many doors to the dharma initially, things tend to converge at least a bit later on, and I would be really interested to hear more of the practicalities of your perspective. Chris has really generously shared his amazing practice logs elsewhere, so this question is not intended to be picking between perspectives. Just hoping to fill out the picture.
It's easy to read terry's comment that says "I don't" navigate the world as a negation of existence. I don't think that's what terry is actually saying. I think what terry means is that there is no permanent "terry" and that "terry" has no agency or control over his experience. In classic Zen fashion, terry is probably pointing. In classic vipassana/Theravada fashion, I'm describing the detail of the mind processes involved.
Language and terminology disconnect!
Language and terminology disconnect!
curious:
Aloha terry, your perspective seems like a bit of a riff on the abidharmic / burmese / MCTB approach. Do you mind if I ask how you practice? Or how you have practiced since your big non-dual experience in your youth (assuming you are no longer in your twenties ...) Asking for a friend.
Seriously, I get the impression that while there are many doors to the dharma initially, things tend to converge at least a bit later on, and I would be really interested to hear more of the practicalities of your perspective. Chris has really generously shared his amazing practice logs elsewhere, so this question is not intended to be picking between perspectives. Just hoping to fill out the picture.
Seriously, I get the impression that while there are many doors to the dharma initially, things tend to converge at least a bit later on, and I would be really interested to hear more of the practicalities of your perspective. Chris has really generously shared his amazing practice logs elsewhere, so this question is not intended to be picking between perspectives. Just hoping to fill out the picture.
aloha curious,
You are asking about nearly fifty years of practice, and I have led an eventful life, the whole of which was practice.
Born in nyc, raised on long island, I went to college in upstate ny (where I met my wife; we were 19), majored in psychology. By my second semester I had figured out that none of the profs knew anything about psychology despite their talk; they were in fact the craziest people on campus. I dropped out of college knowing that the war would take me. I joined the navy initially in order to minimize the dangers of combat. I got a draft notice while in boot camp, but the navy kept me. I actually volunteered for viet nam, but being the military they sent me to hawaii. Shore duty; in two plus years in the navy I never set foot on a navy ship. My then girlfriend and wife of 49 years joined me on base at nrs lualualei. I was the base clerk - readers of catch 22 know that the base clerks actually run the military, and network to increase their power. I was also the only non-commissioned man on base with a live-in girlfriend. Among my hats was the designation of "petty officer in charge of new personnel indoctrination." Every new guy on base came over to my off-base apartment and smoked a joint for lunch on their first day (my roomate was their direct supervisor, how could they refuse?). After a couple of years the base was entirely radicalized. At one point the wearing of shaggy mustaches became a badge of rebellion. The mustang commander ordered all men on base to shave their mustaches. I alone refused. The commander told the bosun to write me up for refusal to obey a direct order. The commander did not know that the bosun was functionally illiterate and depended on me to write things up for him; no worries, boats, I'll take care of it for you. So I wrote myself up for "failing to obey a lawful order or regulation" which sounded ok to the local brass but actually meant a traffic ticket. I insisted, as was my right on any charge, not being at sea, to a court martial. Paperwork was sent to pearl harbor and the legal office declined to prosecute; this was 1969 and they weren't taking any more mustache and haircut cases to courts martial. When the paperwork came back to my base (to me) I asserted to all that the case was declined because the order had been illegal, and so I could keep my mustache. So for a year I grew out mustache and sideburns luxuriously and was the only one who dared. I was never inspected anyway, as it was my job to follow the commander during inspections and record his criticisms. I used to make faces at my friends to try to make them laugh as they were being inspected. I enjoyed my time in the navy for the most part, but felt guilty about my part in the war effort. I used to meet soldiers on r & r in honolulu and drop acid or mescaline with them. They were supposed to be meeting wives there but half the time the wives wouldn't show up or were a sham. Most of these guys were survivors - the good people were dead - and many relished talking about setting ambushes and taking trophies. Typically they would identify a moment of compassion as the time they got wounded.
There was a group of us sailors determined to make our way out of the navy before our time was up, so as to actualize our rejection of the war. By various methods we succeeded. I managed to get an honorable discharge - I was an exemplary base clerk - while finally being recognized as "psychologically unsuitable for military service."
Before my descent into meaninglessness and subsequent nondual nuking, I was part of a close group of friends, who never abandoned me. After three or six weeks in unconscious satori, I was with four or five guys hanging out, and one of them said to me - the first thing I remember - "That's ok for you but the rest of us don't feel that way." I woke up and asked him blankly what he was referring to, what had I been saying? They told me I had been saying everything was perfect and all our concerns were going to work out fine.
To make a long story short, we all got out of the navy and a half dozen or so of us and some other friends off of the uss coral sea (homeported in sf) formed a commune in california. In san rafael we rented a one bedroom apartment; carol and I slept in the bedroom and ten men slept in the living room. Soon we found a five bedroom farmhouse outside petaluma on the road to bodega bay, and settled in, joined with female counterparts, became vegetarians, took drugs, and studied eastern religions. Hung out wth the doobie brothers and other musicians, among many others.
500 or 1000 psychedelic trips later, we settled in oregon, called ourselves "the family" and had innumerable adventures, travelling for months at a time, going as far as oaxaca where we stayed for months, taking psilocybe mexicana, the best of the mushroom psychedelics, and smoking the finest sin semilla. I learned many skills and read many books. None of us worked more than a few months out of the year. Those who didn't work took loving care of those who did; wage workers had no other chores. We lived twelve to fifteen people in one house and because we really cared each for all we had very little trouble getting along. In this manner we could get by only making two or three thou a year each and live very well. We put all we earned into a sugar bowl, from whence whoever needed money took what they needed - this worked for fifteen years without an abuse. Eventually, my son blake was two and carol was pregnant with neal, and the numbers whittled down. Carol and I ended up on our own; I went back to school and graduated college (bs in bio) in denver as a medical technologist (clinical laboratory scientist). I worked in oregon and then we returned to hawaii in 1989, to kauai.
I studied meditation but did not seriously practice it, all those years. We called our group a "sane asylum" and I would study texts and expound on them at the big table (we used to put a ping pong top on the big table, use fluorescent balls under a black light, and play real stoned). Marijuana and coffee were our staples, but a friend would bring us thousands of dried mushrooms from the washington coast every season for some years and we liked those.
Once back in hawaii my life slows down and I work in hospitals for fifteen years. I had long since memorized the yi jing and I used to jingle coins in my pocket all the time, take out a 18 coins and rapidly construct a hexagram in my head, with its changes. I kept the world in this (confucian, family-oriented) perspective and myself essentially separate from the social construct. After working in lihue kauai for a couple of years and for kaiser in kona for a year, plus another couple of years in waimea and honokaa, I ended up at kohala hospital and carol and I bought a house in hawi (1995) and raised our two boys, the house we still are in today, though I spend half of my time in my shop in ocean view. Besides my shop/studio apartment I built a "meditation hall" whose sole appurtenance is a regulation pool table. It gets a lot of use: observing the tendency to be elated at a good shot and deflated at a bad one makes for a useful practice. Idries shah points out that, if you want to know if you are deluded, just ask within if you feel good about yourself.
You asked about practice and I give you my autobiography. This is because my life is my practice, and my art. Meditation is a remedy. Our real practice is 24/7 living the life.
Truth is, the whole raising of a family thing is more or less extraneous to practice. I was willing to sacrifice for my family, both my health and my life. There is a story about the life of milarepa, how he was a highwayman to support his family, with their tacit approval. When milarepa told marpa that he robbed and killed for the sake of his family, marpa took him to them and asked his family if they approved of milrepa's depredations, and they all expressed horror and disavowed any complicity in his acts. This opened milarepa's eyes. The family claimed they never asked him to sacrifice for them or do anyone harm, that everything he did was on his own head. This is the householder's situation: a beast of burden. Making a living is just maintaining, reproducing. There is no dignity or self respect involved. It is not the same as real work. My big impact as paterfamilias - attachment to which was abetted by the yi jing's profoundly confucian orienttion - 'did slowly go by.' The adjustment has given me a lot of time to meditate. This is very very much as it should be. Everything works out perfectly fine, as I knew when I was 20, if unconsciously.
I had back surgery, retired at 55 on disability, while carol continued to teach, 20 years in the same classroom, kohala elementary kindergarten. Years go by, the back doesn't improve, for ten years I take narcotics and continue to work at crafts (silver jewelry) and study, this time western philosophy and psychology, from an eastern perspective. And grew top grade medical marijuana. Then I find myself in atrial fibrillation and tachycardia and get short of breath, thus having to stay on the couch for extended periods. I had to take powerful heart drugs which helped little and caused years of continuous nausea and frequent vomiting. Carol is a wonderful cook and enjoys it, but I would encourage her to cook and then refuse to eat, getting upset with her for not understanding that being unpredictably nauseous was not my fault. Tachycardia with a fib made me cranky and prone to exaggerated reactions to minor annoyances. I didn't like myself, either, and despite my illnesses bought some land in ocean view and with the help of my nephew built the cabin I am staying in now (I alternate with my home in hawi, more or less weekly). The time on the couch and the measured efforts of building healed my back and built it back into good shape. I had an operation in palo alto by the best guy in america for cardiac catheter ablations and am now in sinus rhythm and my a fib/tachycardia is presumably cured. I have been able to give up entirely both the narcotics and the heart drugs and now have good digestion and an appetite, which pleases my wife. A normal heart rate enables me to be my normal sweet self, to the relief of those who know me. A new lease on life.
The above is to explain about my meditation. I only seriously got into meditation when I found myself getting red in the face and nearly apoplectic at major annoyances and reacting in an exaggerated manner to minor ones. Then I actually did have a stroke that fortunately did little damage (I think). It was clear major changes were called for if I was to survive. I built the cabin and took up meditation. I was already very familiar with buddhism, advaita, you name it; I just hadn't practiced more than occasionally. Now I really needed some equanimity and peace, in fact I needed it desperately.
I started with fifteen minutes, staring out the window, trying to stay awake. I did this for months, generally doing a lot of nodding off. Eventuall I was able to stay awake and extend the time to an half hour, using a meditation object, such as a sitting buddha, and closing my eyes. I started to read a couple of suttas from the majjhima nikaya before each meditation and went through the fat valume 2 and 1/2 times. It is easy for me to "drop off the body" while thinking; I do it all the time. The second jhana, dropping the body while the mind is thoughtless, I can sometimes do frequently, and sometimes I have periods where no trance occurs and thoughts arise and pass away. I found thirty minutes insufficient, as I knew too readily when thirty monutes would end. I have done forty five the last year or two, twice a day most days. I credit this meditation practice with saving my life, as it made me far less cranky and potentially apoplectic. It was far more effective than the drugs: if I never took a single drug for my heart I would have been better off and had a much better quality of life for those years. If it weren't for my heart I might not have taken up meditation, but once having gotten used to it - a long process - I have found great benefits from the practice in clear mindedness and the feeling of a direct connection with Reality unmodified by consciousness.
I took lsd for the first time in forty odd years a few weeks ago, to celebrate being in sinus rhythm - nothing like the return of health to embolden a man. It was very peaceful, not like I remember; no great insights, just peace and slow time, and the pool balls glowed in bright colors.
The very first thing about buddhism is the insight that individual life involves suffering, as in birth, sickness, old age, and death. In our culture we shuffle the dead, the sick, and the old off into institutions so that no one has to look at them, and can ignore the inevitabilities of life. I talk to people about the 4NT's and they generally tell me, yeah, I'll get old, but not for a long time, so I don't need to worry about that now. But the life of a busy householder goes by in the blink of an eye. For the meditator who practices mindfulness, aka being awake, time hardly seems to pass at all. And for us older types, sickness, old age and death seem far more tangible. Never too late to get right with life.
So, I have only actually practiced meditation with some constancy for a few years. But I have been thinking and talking about these things for a half century.
That's my story, bra. You can pass it on to your friend if you like. I'm actually very forthcoming about my life, having no shame, so if you read my previous posts there is lots of personal detail.
terry
in my life
(lennon mccartney)
There are places I'll remember
All my life, though some have changed
Some forever, not for better
Some have gone and some remain
All these places have their moments
With lovers and friends I still can recall
Some are dead and some are living
In my life, I've loved them all
But of all these friends and lovers
There is no one compares with you
And these memories lose their meaning
When I think of love as something new
Though I know I'll never lose affection
For people and things that went before
I know I'll often stop and think about them
In my life, I love you more
Though I know I'll never lose affection
For people and things that went before
I know I'll often stop and think about them
In my life, I love you more
In my life-- I love you more
Chris Marti:
It's easy to read terry's comment that says "I don't" navigate the world as a negation of existence. I don't think that's what terry is actually saying. I think what terry means is that there is no permanent "terry" and that "terry" has no agency or control over his experience. In classic Zen fashion, terry is probably pointing. In classic vipassana/Theravada fashion, I'm describing the detail of the mind processes involved.
Language and terminology disconnect!
Language and terminology disconnect!
aloha chris,
My way amounts to such pointing, yes, thank you for the kind observation. I feel no disconnect with "vipassana/Theravada fashion." One turn of the wheel is the same as another. As monkey (of the eponymous classic chinese tale) used to say, "It's all one to me." We monkeys sing and dance in delight at any evidence of Truth; as the trees sway and the grass bends, all in Delight. All buddhas reside in nibbana/nirvana. Same same (as the filipinos say). The Tao. Allah. YHWH. The Kingdom of God.
I'm glad you are still seeking an accommodation between our views. All men of good will can eventually come to agreement if they keep trying, I have always been convinced.
The contrast and exchange of views in dialogue - sincere dialogue betrween persons of good will - is more instructive than monologue. Dialogue necessarily takes place in the present.
terry
from the gospel of thomas:
These are the secret sayings which the living Jesus spoke and which Didymos Judas Thomas wrote down.
(1) And he said, "Whoever finds the interpretation of these sayings will not experience death."
(2) Jesus said, "Let him who seeks continue seeking until he finds. When he finds, he will become troubled. When he becomes troubled, he will be astonished, and he will rule over the All."
(3) Jesus said, "If those who lead you say to you, 'See, the kingdom is in the sky,' then the birds of the sky will precede you. If they say to you, 'It is in the sea,' then the fish will precede you. Rather, the kingdom is inside of you, and it is outside of you. When you come to know yourselves, then you will become known, and you will realize that it is you who are the sons of the living father. But if you will not know yourselves, you dwell in poverty and it is you who are that poverty."
(4) Jesus said, "The man old in days will not hesitate to ask a small child seven days old about the place of life, and he will live. For many who are first will become last, and they will become one and the same."
(5) Jesus said, "Recognize what is in your sight, and that which is hidden from you will become plain to you. For there is nothing hidden which will not become manifest."