Emptying the Mind

[forestofsouls]

A lot of the guides claim that a key step on the path is achieving emptiness of mind, a state where no thoughts arise. I find it much easier to concentrate the mind than to empty it completely. Some say that it comes naturally, others say it can be achieved with discipline.

 

My questions for the group:

 

How important is it?

 

Can it be achieved?

 

How so?

[Spectrum]

Before I met my first Taoist mentor I cross paths in highschool with an ex-gympsy joker turned job couseler who trained chinese gung fu in the 70's in the bruce lee craze. His teacher was a real internalist and they were all focusing on breathing together while warming up, never loosing breath while doing everything through warmup, forms, sparring and cooldown, with an even flow, like a song he said.

 

He would always tell me stories and then be like hey if you make nun chucks in class you gotta hook them together with the rope like this... prob to maike sure we didn't seriously hurt ourselves... heh... but anyways he taught me this and it works. I remember two things he said vividly. He claimed he would always miss his offramps because he would "zone out" or kind of "tunnel vision" as in meditation; also he said it was like a daydream without dreaming, everything was still there, but the minds eye changes. I'm sitting there listening going man I wish he'd break out the magic gourd and we trek off over to the freeway overpass for some taoist tale bumfights... telling me these biker stories. He said the key was focusing on a single point without thinking. He said put a thumbtac in the wall, look at its center and don't move your eyes, observe what is happening when you move your eyes. You can even count at first but don't move your eyes; do this until the wall dissapears; simple enough. I try it a few times, it seems everything I think about moves my eyes. Ok, don't think. Ok... that didn't work. Ok... relax... breath ... o ... that tunnel. o O o O o O o

 

<insert random this one time story>

 

oooOOOooooOOOooKay... so there's something to this mind body stuff afterall. Where did the time go? What was that? Can I do that again? How did I do that? .. ..

 

Phil retired by selling his houseboat, buying a sail boat and sailed around the world at 54. I continued on in my studies to cross paths only a couple years later with another Taoist practitioner who would introduce me to being punched in the face, and the emotional attachments that come with that. <cough> Phil would have used a garratt though.

 

Spectrum

Edited March 23, 2007 by Spectrum

[freeform]

How important is it?

 

Very!

 

If your mind is busy and loud you miss the rest of the universe...

 

Can it be achieved?

 

most definately.

 

 

How so?

 

many different methods you can try. It's the simplest thing in the world, but also one of the hardest.

 

there are a few general approaches to it... the one spectrum mentioned is based on 'trance'... concentrate on one thing to the exclusion of everything else and relax your body, your mind will quiet and you'll enter a profound trance... if practiced regularly it has great benefits for relaxation - if you do your internal work in this state, things will happen faster, and you'l get more out of it...

 

another way of doing it is concentrating on everything and letting it all in... this is the yin version of the above method and is more difficult... you need to use your peripheral vision, your hearing and your kinesthetic sense. take in all of your visual field (not focusing on anything specific), then start listening to everything you can hear (dont seperate the sounds in your mind - you need to hear everything at once)... then put your physical attention (kinesthetic sense) to each of the 6 directions in turn and keep it there... then with each breath smell the air you breathe and taste it as it runs down into your belly.

 

obviously you learn to do this in stages... just the peripheral vision excersise has incredible benefits... also you'll notice that the only way you can keep your focus on all these different things is by moving all the energy out of your head and down to your belly... and it's important not to 'reach' with the senses, but be passive, let the universe come to you.

 

I, by no means, have perfected this, but every now and then everything aligns and I feel total emptiness/fullness and it feels as if I'm the universe... and the universe is experiencing itself through me.

 

the idea is after this state is mastered you stand up and start moving with all this awareness intact (you wouldn't be able to do set moves - it would have to be freeform, 'thoughtless' tai chi, otherwise the mind gets in the way).

 

Unlike the trance state, this one can be your general, day to day state once you master it.

 

 

 

There are some other 'mental' excersises I do which silence the mind directly and quite quicklyt... I've written about them before...

[Ian]

 

My questions for the group:

 

How important is it?

 

Can it be achieved?

 

How so?

 

IMO, very, yes, and only by getting into the body.

 

Thoughts are past and future and only the body is present.

 

My opinion is that Freeform's technique, even the yin one, is too active and involves a very subtle level of thought, and will only take you so far. But I think we've agreed to differ on that...

[Yen Hui]

I continued on in my studies to cross paths only a couple years later with another Taoist practitioner who

would introduce me to being punched in the face, and the emotional attachments that come with that.

 

This reminds me of a past kung-fu master of mine, who was also a Taoist practioner. In fact, it was he who

introduced me to the I Ching, and inspired my journey down the Taoist path. At any rate, the way he set-up

the Program, the Principle of Striking was not formally studied until Blue Belt. At that level, you studied only

Hand and Leg Strikes; one weapon, and one Pattern (or Kata). Now, he believed that the main lesson to be

learned at this level, if I may summarize, was that of emotional acceptance for hitting and being hit. Fear of

stiking hard and being struck hard, he use to stay, is the greatest obstacle to successfully completing that

belt level. Learning the technical aspects of when and how to deliver an effective strike, or flurry of strikes

was the easy part, he said. Overcoming one's fear of being hit was the difficult part. Consequently, he use

to say that he'd readily award the Blue Belt to any student who could stand still and willingly take a strike,

without either moving or flinching an eye-lid, delivered with full speed and power. He was an interesting guy,

to say the least! Needless to say, not too many students took him up on the offer. They almost always

chose the long route.

[rex]

Apart from the possibility of trance states, of which I know nothing, I'm not sure if the mind can be emptied. It can be left to settle and take on a non-stick quality with awareness integrated with the risings, so that there is stillness in the movement and movement in the stillness.

Edited March 26, 2007 by rex

[fatherpaul]

it is said that an empty mind is a ready mind

[freeform]

IMO, very, yes, and only by getting into the body.

 

Thoughts are past and future and only the body is present.

 

My opinion is that Freeform's technique, even the yin one, is too active and involves a very subtle level of thought, and will only take you so far. But I think we've agreed to differ on that...

 

I dont disagree wildly from you, Ian... I think getting deeply into your body is the biggest component of silencing thought. I do, however, differentiate thought into two categories - thought as 'content' and thought as 'process'...

 

What I mean by thought as 'process' is 'awareness'...

 

what I mean by thought as content is 'what you are aware of'

 

Thought as content is the inner dialogue, internal visualization (eg think of your mother's eye colour)... Thought as process is simply 'sensory awareness'.

 

It's possible to lose 'thought as content' - and the first step in that is realising that all content is illusion - especially the content that you hold on to dearly (such as your self image - the beliefs about yourself). and the way most of us have to do it si to bring our full bodies into awareness, a huge task in and of itself. Imagine your mother balancing a cake on her head... if you don't get it, you're missing out on the biggest joke in the universe...

 

Thought as process is a different matter... us 'modern humans' can use thought as process to get into deeper contact with our 'true selves'. The mind (when it is free of content) can be used on itself - being aware of awareness. You can't lose your upper dan tien, and you cant lose 'thought as process', but you can become more aware of it... and once you're aware of how your awareness tends to function (its active process - the habitual patterns of awareness and attention) you can start to play... you can start to shift the process so that your thinking includes your body (and emotions)... when this is achieved, what we call 'intuition' starts to manifest.

 

Eventually everything you do can be guided by intuition rather than content... you might choose to become rich - not because it would make you happier because of the glorified image of 'richness' in your head, but because it's what you have to do - it's part of your 'destiny'...

 

Enlightenment requires you to be aware from all of you - not just the body, or just the mind, or just the heart - but all of you, balanced between the three centres... you can use your belly to take action and make decisions, your heart to connect to people and the human universe around you and your head to create new things or entertain yourself - now imagine how you would like others to see you... now imagine the same thing, but put a cake on your head

[spyrelx]

Great post Spectrum (I kind of lost you in the last two paragraphs but still thought it was great). Thanks.

 

For any of you who haven't seen it, take a look at the recent thread I started on Winn's latest musings about the monkey mind. It fits in with this discussion a bit.

[fatherpaul]

I dont disagree wildly from you, Ian... I think getting deeply into your body is the biggest component of silencing thought.

 

 

i have a question

 

who is getting into whos body?

 

is this not a state of fragmentation?

 

peace,

paul

[freeform]

i have a question

 

who is getting into whos body?

 

is this not a state of fragmentation?

 

peace,

paul

 

great questions!

 

yes it is a state of 'percieved' fragmentation... and most of us humans behave 'as if we are fragmented'... so it's also a 'functional' fragmentation.

 

the spiritual game is to unveil our deeper, uncoscious completeness.

[Pietro]

i have a question

 

who is getting into whos body?

 

is this not a state of fragmentation?

 

peace,

paul

 

THE awareness is getting into THIS body (finger pointing).

What need there is of a 'whos'?

[fatherpaul]

THE awareness is getting into THIS body (finger pointing).

What need there is of a 'whos'?

who is aware?

[Pietro]

who is aware?

there is no need of a who. Awareness just is.

[forestofsouls]

I dont disagree wildly from you, Ian... I think getting deeply into your body is the biggest component of silencing thought. I do, however, differentiate thought into two categories - thought as 'content' and thought as 'process'...

 

 

 

Thought as process and content. This is an interesting, and useful discrimination.

 

However, I wonder what the difference is between thoughts as objects and sensory things as objects. Sometimes when I sit, I cross the line between dreaming and being awake. The thought as content will suddenly become as seemingly solid and real as, well, the real world. Then, in a moment, it is gone and I am sitting.

 

I suppose what I'm aiming at with emptiness of mind is a mental space that has no objects, either sensory or mental. Focusing on the senses or on a thought are both elements of concentration from my view.

[fatherpaul]

there is no need of a who. Awareness just is.

 

 

indeed.

[forestofsouls]

IMO, very, yes, and only by getting into the body.

 

Thoughts are past and future and only the body is present.

 

I agree that there is a lot of wisdom to be learned by using the body, and it is a good anchor as well as a vantage point. However, by focusing on the body, are we unnecessarily limiting ourselves? The body and the sensations of the body are one dimension. By focusing on one dimension, are we missing many others? Are we caging our consciousness?

[Pietro]

I agree that there is a lot of wisdom to be learned by using the body, and it is a good anchor as well as a vantage point. However, by focusing on the body, are we unnecessarily limiting ourselves? The body and the sensations of the body are one dimension. By focusing on one dimension, are we missing many others? Are we caging our consciousness?

not really.

This is like asking if you would be limiting yourself by starting a house from the foundations. You need to start somwhere, and it is better (according to taoism) to start from something you can touch and feel, and then expand.

 

The definition of body also is not fixed. You start from your phisical body.

Once you are feeling your energetic body you are already beyond your mere phyisical body.

At the level of your emotional body you are, according to some school, going as far out as the stars you can see with a naked eye. And then on and on it goes, until your reach the body of the Tao. So, no, you are not limiting yourself.