markern

Perhaps a combination of meditations that aim to take you directly to the form of awareness where everything seems to be ok as they are, such as Loch Kellys Mahamudra glimpses or Shinzen Youngs Do Nothing meditation coupled with the inner smile. The inner smile provides self love and love for your body. The Mahamudra/Do nothing adresses the feeling of lack.

I am very interested in this topic. In what changes after awakening and what does not. Where can I read more about how these distinctions are though of in the yogic tradition/Vedanta?

I have no idea. All I can say is that when I learnt to do both ways from Chia back in the day it felt like the energy sort of got more solidly locked in. I stopped doing it after a while though and usually gather in simpler ways.

Very interesting

Thanks. This makes sense. I could add that the by far most enlightened person I have ever meet does not have any such issues.

Thank you Jenn for a truly excellent, insightful and supremely useful answer:)

I should perhaps add that Martin says that it is primarily the memory connected to daily life that is effected not so much long term learning, knowledge from books etc. It is especially things like what was I supposed to do today, what was I planning to do after this thing I am doing today and what happened earlier today etc.

Jeffrey Martins research on people who have had some sort of awakening found that severe memory issues was very common. It is also reported by numerous public teachers. It seems like it may be partially explained by many not feeling emotions strongly, or at all, anymore. Memory is very linked to the emotional charge one feels towards a memory. It seems it may also be partially explained by the loss of the ego structure that puts importance on what happens to oneself and sees oneself as an actor in a linear timeline. This blogpost covers this issues in more depth: https://thegloriousbothand.substack.com/p/more-on-memory-impairment-in-non I am wondering what the Daoist take on this is. I am almost certain I recall Freeform writing that this was well known in his tradition and seen as an imbalance they had practices to counteract. I would love to know more about that. I think Freeform has mainly practiced within the Longmen Pai lineage. I also think maybe a memory exercise that is in one of Damos books may be one of the practices used to counteract this issue. The exercise involves trying to remember everything one did throughout the day from the moment one stood up. One is instructed to try to remember more from the bodily sensations rather than emotions or cognitive memory because the bodily memory is supposedly more precise and less likely to be distorted than the emotional memory. If loss of emotions due to awakening is an important cause of these memory issues than maybe training oneself to remember despite feeling little emotions may be part of how this is dealt with within the Longmen Pai. Any information or perspective on this issue is highly welcome.

I have read about a memory exercise supposedly described in one of Wang Lipings books where one tries to remember everything one did throughout the day from the moment one got out of bed. Can anyone tell me in which of his books he writes about this?

Yes, I remember Mo Pai. That was back in my day. Also Kunlun/max and a few other things around that time. Haven't spent enough time here the last 10 pr so years to keep up with the battles/scandals much. I did briefly catch the cult thing. SongoftheGods or something made some sort of online cult with recruits from here or something along those lines. I also heard there was some sort of politics blow out but am not up to date on that.

Now I want to know what the one which is Not To Be Talked About is about:(

I once talked to a woman from Thailand that had spent three months in a monastery on retreat. She said she had been skeptical of all claims of anything supernatural. But once in meditation she felt like some benign spirit that was watching over her was trying to get her attention and notify her of something dangerous approaching and she opened her eyes and saw a dangerous snake approaching. So maybe they stay safe by having spirits take the role as lookouts:)

I want to start blogging a bit about meditation, qigong and related topics and I need a name for the blog. The blog will be on Substack. It will have a quite technical focus. I like the mechanics of meditation, the maps and the techniques and understanding how different styles and traditions work. There will be a fair bit of material for beginners A lot of it will be advice but quite a bit will be me exploring topics I am uncertain of or just started learning about and hopefully engaging with readers and other bloggers about those topics. Some of it will be commentary on things I've observed in the spiritual scene/the alternative spirituality culture/new age culture. Some of it will be looking at scientific research about meditation. A big topic will be negative side effects of meditation, the research that has been done on that topic and how to avoid those kinds of side effects. A big topic for me in my own life is grounding and becoming engaged with earthly life and that will be an important topic on the blog as well. I've always been sort of aloof and distant towards the world and preferred my own mind to the material world and have worked for a long time to change that because it created severe negative side effects in my meditation practice. I asked ChatGPT about name ideas and it came up with a ton. Things like: Inner Mechanics, the Stillpoint, Practical Awakening, Dan Tien Diaries (lol), Beyond the Cushion and a ton of others. One name I came up with myself, and which I am considering, is Up and Down the Mountain. I do like all sorts of topics related to awakening and advanced meditation practice and am highly interested in "ascent" so to speak. But I also have a huge focus on grounding, nature, being part of normal life and everything you can connect to the descending and down the mountain part of spiritual life. The most awakened teacher I have met also told me that almost all of my path will be about going down. She said I am naturally so light and have such an easy time going upwards that I almost only need to focus on going down and the ascendance part will mostly take care of itself. So, I like a name that holds both those parts of the path in it. Any views on and suggestions for a good name is very welcome:)

Thanks. This all makes a lot of sense. I have pretty severe inflammation issues but can do quite a lot of exercise so wouldn't need to be this careful. But could probably benefit from standing practice anyway.

Why do you emphasize standing meditation?