True Meditation

[Cameron]

True meditation has no direction, goals, or method. All methods aim at achieving a certain state of mind. All states are limited, impermanent, and conditioned. Fascination with states leads only to bondage and dependency. True meditation is abidance as primordial consciousness.

 

True meditation appears in consciousness spontaneously when awareness is not fixated on objects of perception. When you first start to meditate, you notice that awareness is always focused on some object: on thoughts, bodily sensations, emotions, memories, sounds, etc. This is because the mind is conditioned to focus and contract upon objects. Then the mind compulsively interprets what it is aware of(the object) in a mechanical and distorted way. It begins to draw conclusions and make assumptions according to past conditioning.

 

In true meditation all objects are left to their natural functioning. This means that no effort should be made to manipulate or suppress any object of awareness. In true meditation the emphasis is on being awareness; not of being aware of objects but of resting as primordial awareness itself. Primordial awareness(conscioiusness) is the source in which all objects arise and subside. As you gently relax into awareness, into listening, the minds's compulsive attraction around objects will fade. Silence of being will come more clearly into consciousness as a welcoming to rest and abide. An attitude of open receptivity, free of any goal or anticipation, will facilitate the presence of silence and stillness to be revealed as your natural condition.

 

Silence and stillness are not states and therefore cannot be produced or created. Silence is the non-state in which all states arise and subside. Silence, stillness, and awareness are not states and can never be percieved in their totality as objects. Silence is itself the eternall witness without form or attributes. As you rest more profoundly as the witness, all objects take on their natural functionality, and awareness becomes free of the mind's compulsive contractions and identifications, and returns to it's natural non-state of Presence.

 

The simple yet profound question " Who am I?" can then reveal one's self not to be the endless tyranny of the ego-personality, but objectless Freedom of Being-Primordial Consciousness in which all states and all objects come and go as manifestations of the Eternal Unborn Self that YOU ARE.

 

- Adyashanti

[thelerner]

Not bad, but kind of wordy. My definition; when you really get into True Meditation you only do it once a day, for 24 hours.

 

Michael

[sean]

Good one.

 

"A great Indian sage, Ramana Maharishi, said that the intellect has

only one useful purpose, and that is to continually ask the

question, "Who am I?" Oddly enough, though Ramana was considered a

very high jnani (one enlightened via the intellect), his perpetual

question, "Who am I?" is a pure form of bhakti. If one is only

interested in answering that question, life becomes pure

bhakti/desire for truth. So, if the intellect is used in the right

way, it merges with the heart's deepest longing for divine truth.

That is how the intellect can help us make spiritual progress.

 

If the intellect is not brought beyond reason to the stage of simple

divine inquiry ("Who am I? Is there more than this?"), then it is

little more than a machine that is prone to build too many castles in

the air. The intellect can be very seductive that way. From our inner

silence the intellect can be channeled usefully. When it is, it

merges with bhakti.

 

The guru is in you."

--- Yogani

[affenbrot]

Not bad, but kind of wordy.  My definition; when you really get into True Meditation you only do it once a day, for 24 hours.

 

Michael

9479[/snapback]

 

high demands. I often found people use this concept as the ultimate excuse to not practice at all!!!

Like when I would tell them I am currently striving to do one hour every day, they would look at me

like I was the stupid naive beginner who has not yet understood what it's all about. When I ask them

how much they practice, they tell "oh, I'm practicing the whole day, everything is practice". I believe they just are

lying to themselves. When they needed to do formal sitting practice for 15 minutes they could not.

 

Don't want to impute that to you, but your comment triggered my ranting!

 

affenbrot

[thelerner]

Affenbrot

 

actually thats a good point. I stole the quote from a yogi who said it in Anna Wise's book.

 

But even if we're not meditating 24/7, there is certainly the hope that it (the calmnestestinous ) finds a way into our lives.

 

Michael

[tumoessence]

Cameron,

 

I think your thesis that "practices" have the aim of producing altered states, states of mind etc. may be limited or that they are some form of seeking. I do practices because I enjoy doing them. Whatever comes up in the meantime is an added bonus. In the sense that anything can be done to achieve a state of mind we could put in there watching movies, sports or any kind of hobby. Or maybe workaholism, something I definitely don't suffer from, or sex for that matter.

It all comes down to whether we can do what we are doing and be in that moment completely. If you're doing a practice for an experience that is not happening in that session, whats the use. And if you don't like it for its own sake, why do it?

[freeform]

.

Edited October 23, 2019 by freeform

[Cameron]

Do what works for you. I didn't write this it is the writing of Adyashanti. A teacher from Northern California who people are calling an enlightened being.

 

If you think you know better by all means stick to what works.

Edited December 3, 2005 by Cameron

[Yoda]

Hey I'm 100% enlightened as any other mofo on the planet and I'll kick your ass if you think otherwise. You pay shipping.

[Jeremiah]

[Cameron]

Edited December 3, 2005 by Cameron

[freeform]

.

Edited October 23, 2019 by freeform

[Yoda]

two years ago my brother and I were in the Japanese garden in the San Fransisco Golden Gate Park and there was an area that had a rock with a small hole (4"?) in it full of water. My brother was at least 20 ft away and took out a nickle and said, "If I can toss this into the hole, then that means I'm fully enlightened." He threw the nickle, missed then it bounced perfectly into the center with a tiny splash.

 

I usually try to one up him, but this time I just bowed.

[Cameron]

He does get into detail. This is one small excerpt from a 7 1/2 hour, 6 CD retreat. He covers his own path to awakening and the different " A to B" processes that came up for him.

 

Along with many, many helpful instructions for a beginner.

Edited December 4, 2005 by Cameron

[freeform]

.

Edited October 23, 2019 by freeform

[Cameron]

Cant wait to read what happens with little YES and big old GO!

 

Huh?

Edited December 4, 2005 by Cameron

[freeform]

.

Edited October 23, 2019 by freeform

[Cameron]

I blame the pain meds.

[Cameron]

People..

 

I get the impression from some of you that you think this is my complete beleif of what spiritual practice is..the end all be all.

 

I don't. I put up the writings of a teacher. I never said this is my beleif and I don't think you should ever do active meditations or use intention ever.

 

If you read my other stuff you would know I do Qigong which is mostly about using intent, special postures or visualizations to get things going with your qi. I personally think both are great and do both.

 

Jesus, from now on I'll put a disclaimer whenever I post something someone wrote saying the following may not be the opinion of Cameron.

 

This is not directed at eveyone but noticed some were saying your definition of meditation as not using intent or having goals ever..it's Adyashanti's definition not mine.

 

I am not at the level of experience to really say I have an opnion of what meditation should be for the rest of humanity and doubt I ever will be.

Edited December 5, 2005 by Cameron

[sean]

The whole modern Advaita Vedanta stream of teachers/teachings is really big on emphasizing the absolute and relatively refusing to address the particulars of form. In some ways they are even more extreme proponents of emptiness than Zen. It's interesting work. I just listened to this great discussion between Ken Wilber and David Deida that wonderfully addresses the continuum between the witnessing/being emphasis found in, ie: Advaita and Zen and the flowing/riding/doing emphasis of say Tantra and Taoist Alchemy. Anyone still having some confusion over the supposed Bodri vs. Winn dichotomy should definitely listen as it's a very coherent nail in this entirely illusional coffin.

[Cameron]

Cool. Ken Cohen breaks this down perfectly IMO in his book.

 

He writes there are two types of meditation in Qigong. Basically ru jing(Sitting and forgetting) and cun si(visualization and concentration).

 

He does say ru jing is more important but both are aspects of cultivation and energy work.

 

I like this approach best. People like Nan Hua Chin and Adyashanti just stress emptiness practice to the point that more active meditations are basically a waste of time. Nan Hua and Bodri are most critiical of the those practices Adya just sort of nicely implies it is a waste of time but if you want to do it it's cool.

 

Cohen says niether is a waste of time both are awesome and both are good to do.

 

I think the problem that arose is because some of the HT crowd seem to emphasize the active stuff more(which is not any problem IMO) but when you look deeper even Winn and Chia say the inner smile is the most important practice . The smile it seems to me is just a slightly more active version of ru jing.

 

though i do find Adyashanti's view that people think they can control the process to enlightenment are in error to be interesting. And I am not discrediting this view just not ready to jump ship on qigong.

[sean]

That's a decent split, I've never heard those terms, pretty cool. I think it's really good to be aware that obviously there is not a single teaching/teacher that represents the whole picture. There is that saying, something like "seek not to be like the Master, seek what the Master sought". Gurus are just promoting what has worked in their experience, hopefully with some humility to avoid creating annoying cultish behavior. It's up to each of us to take what we are being told with some degree of critical thinking, testing the work and seeing how it fits with our unique situation. I really dug that Ken Wilber and Dave Deida mp3 I posted for that reason. It points to the possibility of a unified spiritual community of teachers who each have their own strong points and who call on other teachers to help fill in the gaps. Then the "one supreme Guru" vs. the "only ultimate Avatar" ego battles are not necessary. A big sigh of relief for mature seekers everywhere. I really hope I see this type of deep spiritual community building in my lifetime.

 

Adyashanti is very aware of this concept, btw. I remember once I was in satsang with him and a woman began asking more and more specific questions about how to deal with her boss. Adyashanti kept pointing to the Ultimate. Finally he addressed her specificness head on and said something to the effect of, "I'm sorry, this stuff isn't my area of specialty. I am not much of a psychologist. I'm really only good at repeatedly pointing to the Absolute in creative ways." I was really touched by his response because it wasn't dismissive of psychology or the need for other skillsets at all. He was just being frank about what he is and is not good at. If you are trying to learn how to cook Indian food, get a reliable herbal diagnosis, communicate better in your relationships, receiving healing energy transmissions, learn how to fight, and develop a witness to the Unchanging Tao in each moment, you may need as many different teachers. And that's fine IMO. Choices are what Western civilization is all about.

 

On TTB I find myself promoting the more connected, form-based practices a little more ... I think because from the perspective of my particular life ie: my relationships, financial abundance, career fulfillment, etc. I could use more felt connection to the physical/sensual/detail-rich world of physicality, my relationships, my body, etc... IMO I already have a great deal of the stoic witness-to-emptiness going on naturally, perhaps even to an unhealthy extreme ... Also I tend to root for the underdog and this obsession with being-dry-male-absolutist-monotheism to the exclusion and repression of doing-wet-female-relative-panpsychism has been going on for so long I'm just doing my little part to tip the scales for a generation.

 

Sean

[Cameron]

Cool. I really want you to check out these retreat DVD's so send me your address pm and I will hook you up as a Christmas gift. They are really good.

 

One of things he says is I hope you didn't come here to solve problems. This is not a good place to solve problems. You may realize there isn't any problem to begin with and that may solve the problem though.

 

Liked that alot.

Edited December 6, 2005 by Cameron

[sean]

One of things he says is I hope you didn't come here to solve problems. This is not a good place to solve problems. You may realize there isn't any problem to begin with and that may solve the problem though.

 

Liked that alot.

9625[/snapback]

Ahhh yes, he says that often in satsang. It's equally depressing/enlightening.

 

Can't believe I'm still up. Must sleep ....

 

(PS - Just pm'd you, thanks for the offer!)

[Cameron]

Yeah only reason I am so late is no work this week.

 

I'll get it out to you closer to Christmas I am sending you some other stuff too(I told you about on the phone).

 

Keep representin' pedecures for the ladies..