Maddie

My ex-wife is from Siberia where there is a lot of Shamanism. She is a super devout Christian so when she tells this story its in a negative context but interesting nevertheless. So she was telling me once upon a time in Siberia that she knew of and/or saw this one native Siberian Shaman woman turn into an animal of some sort, and then her brother who was also there confirmed that he saw it too. Pretty weird stuff, but as Siberia is so vast there are large portions of it that not too much westernization has affected the local natives. Apparently their cousins on our side of the Bering Straight in Alaska have similar stories of such happenings, that I heard of when I lived there.

I've noticed after meditating a lot one day my urge to investigate and study the next day is much greater.

Interesting. You know as I was reading that it made me wonder something. If someone became a stream-enterer in their past life or a couple lives ago, how would they know it this time around? I also recon that the more monk-ish you live the further you'll go? Also if you meditate a lot and you feel it do something, is it common to feel very tired the next day?

Hmmm interesting. Yea that website might have not been the best but I did about 5 hours of Vipassana and Samatha yesterday and I feel .... um .... "different" today, like my mind is blown and I have all these questions lol.

So then is it more like no-self is the clinging to a false idea of self?

Ah that's wise advice. I felt myself settling down as I read it haha. That website did have me confused lol.

How would someone know if they became a stream enterer? So I was reading this website http://www.no-self.com/ and it blew my mind away and helped me to realize that there is no "YOU/ME". Totally blew my mind, and yet was fascinating. Though as fascinating as it was and I realized that all desire and suffering comes from this false notion of think of myself as a separate self, I realize that I still feel the pull and effect and workings of this false separate self that I came to realize does not really exist. So why is that?

Found this to be interesting I've noticed that for what ever reason it seems like the deeper insight I get into the "no-self" I have a corresponding emotional protest from my subconscious. weird. Also found this fascinating http://www.no-self.com/

haha, I was just getting ready to say something about that. Yea the whole idea behind acupuncture is that channels do get blocked up, that the qi does stagnate, and that they way that an acupuncture needle works is by unblocking the qi along the course of the meridian. Its interesting cause in the clinic I'll have a patient that has absolutely no understanding of the theory what so ever, and frequently once I put a needle in they will say "oh I feel that going all the way down to my ______ ". The interesting thing is, is that with out knowing it they just described the course of that particular meridian that I had just needled.

Yea if you think about it there are a lot of similarities. Both talk about reaching stillness, lessening desire, going with in. Buddhists call the ultimate goal obtaining Nirvana, Taoists call it obtaining the Tao. In the end whats the real difference?

I don't know why, but I love that!!

I was reading the original post and found it very interesting. So yesterday what started off as doing a Vipassana session to deal with desire led to the contemplation of what self really is or isn't. This happened several times yesterday and this morning when I originally did meditation to look into desire, craving, and stuff like that. Each time it eventually kept coming back to "but what is this self"? I also read that when Seth got to this point things got very intense for a while, and that also seems to be how my day feels today. So I'm trying to sort this out, but since I'm in the midst of it, its a little confusing.

I guess the answer to not be affected by anything is to not cling to it, but rather to let it go. :-)

Welcome :-)

I started off with mostly Taoist practices. Then I gave the Buddhist approach a try. But I am in TCM school which is primarily built on a Taoist foundation so it gives me a good opportunity to compare and contrast the similarities and differences between the two. These are some of the things I've noticed from a personal experience point of view. So I began with the Taoist approach which focuses a lot on the five elements, yin and yang, the organs and meridians, qi and all those Taoist sort of things. So for example I would do a heart meditation using the healing sound and the inner smile. I would gain insight into what was in my heart/shen/mind and alternate between reaching a degree of stillness in the practice alternating with becoming aware of unpleasant feelings, thoughts and tendencies. Then I began to consider the Buddhist approach. They do not focus so much on form in the Taoist sense. You don't work on all those aspects that I listed above. Their approach is more "abstract" as you focus on what is in the mind, and what is the mind but with out all the "form" aspects. So in doing this I'd also reach a degree of stillness as well as becoming aware of the less than pleasant things with in the mind. So I don't claim to be an expert and perhaps someone does have a very good explanation for this, but what I'm wondering is if by using these two different techniques yet achieving similar results and sensations what is the real difference?

From a TCM point of view likes or aversions to certain elements can be explained sometimes by and excess of deficiency of an element or pathogen with in the body. People with too much internal heat don't want more heat. If you have a wind invasion get inside you, you will tend to have an aversion to wind. People with Spleen qi deficiency tend to crave sweets. Now I've never heard of this particular example so I have a couple of seemingly contradictory theories but perhaps you can help narrow it down (like I said I've not heard of this one before) A. Excess dampness. Dampness makes the body feel sluggish and heavy, and the tongue tends to have a thick and greasy coat. Perhaps like with the other examples you have too much dampness and your body does not want more. B. Excess dryness. This is also a pathogenic factor in TCM and as dryness does not like moisture perhaps that is the primary motivating factor. This one you can tell by if your skin tends to be dry and flaky and if the tongue is pretty dry. I'd be interested to hear back on this one as I've not run into this before.

Ok so a couple Vipassana sessions later I think I got a little insight into the weird feeling. Just Samatha uncovering more layers of the subconscious. One of the biggies is desire, and/or aversion (which is just anti-desire). So I looked into this desire more but what I eventually got to that stumped me was not the desire but the desierer. With observation the desire settled down, and I was just left with the aspect of me (or what I call me) that does the desiring. The vague sense I got was that it was not really me, but this layer of wrong thinking (so yea I thought of the 8 fold path) that was covering up the real "me". This of course led me to then ponder what this thing I call "me" is, so I just looked at that for a while, but didn't have any major breakthroughs in that regard, So I'm still a bit stumped about that one.

Oh yea as far as an acupuncture patient is concerned HIPAA is very strict about their privacy. We have to have a refresher lecture each year at school lol. You can not mention the patients name AND what they are being treated for together to anyone that the patient has not given disclosure to. HIPAA stands for "Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act" just in case anyone was interested in another government acronym lol

I've only recently begun to do Samatha meditation for any significant length of time. Is it normal for it to make you feel "weird" at first?

I've noticed that after my exhale there is a very small pause, but between inhale and exhale there does not seem to be a pause. So is what Master Nan is saying is to focus on that pause? Also does anyone else notice all sorts of subconscious goo bubble up after doing Samatha?

I may not have a correct understanding of this, BUT this is what I've seemed to notice about meditation lately. With Samatha first of all its very hard to do. It seems like just about every second I have to bring my focus back to the present. Yet even if I do a relatively short amount of Samatha it seems like after that all sorts of stuff bubbles up from the depths and then I have to do quite a bit of Vipassana to deal with it. So today for example. I did 40 min of Zhunti mantra followed by 20 min of Samatha to make a nice even hour. After that I start feeling "fidgety" so a little later I go and do Vipassana. Well it was like my mind felt like this wild caged beast as I first sat to do Vipassana. When I closed my eyes I almost literally visualized this angry ape in a cage thrashing about wanting to be anywhere and doing anything other than sitting in meditation. It was very intense. It took a good 1 hour and 20 min for things to settle down. Is this a standard pattern?

Is there a difference between Anapana and Samantha? If so what is it?

where is this option? I'd really like to hear this :-)

After you mentioned that I realized that I have very little pause in between my breaths. I just finished doing Samantha before I got back online. What I find challenging is sometimes (like in the case of this session) I have to constantly keep bringing my mind back to the present, breath, ect... as in like every second. It's not always that way, but it is frequently. Does this get easier with time?

That's interesting since the heart houses the mind/shen/spirit/consciousness