I just wrote this post on Meditation...

[DreamBliss]

I just wrote this post on meditation:

http://adifferentpath.blog.com/2014/08/31/meditation/

 

I do not normally "toot my own horn" outside of sharing such things on Facebook and Twitter. But I think I have stumbled onto something worth sharing here. These words may be of some help or use to someone.

 

Feel free to discuss this post in this thread. all feedback is welcome.

[Marblehead]

Very nice article.

 

However, as I practice empty-minded meditation I cannot speak to it.

[bax44]

Nice:) very helpful thanks for that.

[soaring crane]

Hi

 

your article resonates for the most part with the approach to meditation I've been practicing for a few years now. I used to try to separate my meditating self from my everyday self, for fear that the everyday would interfere with the meditative. But I realised a while ago (and may well have picked up on the idea from an external source, a line in a book or a forum or whatever, or not, I really don't know anymore) that the two selves are one and the same and that by accepting the everyday into the practice, the meditative practice leaks into the everyday, making it more enjoyable :-)

 

Perhaps in the way a revolving door lets guests from the hotel lobby flow into the street while bringing people from the street into the hotel lobby. When the door is blocked, so is the flow.

 

Fighting against the everyday has the effect of coloring it negative. So, when I say 'no' to my everyday during meditation, my everyday is less pleasant when I return to it as a result. And the sum result of my practice is to make my life more miserable.

 

Does that sound about similar to your thoughts?

[Spotless]

This may be a bit confusing:

 

From your (Dreambliss) article:

 

"This is what I share with you, right now. You are told, during meditation, to focus on something. A mantra you chant in your mind or with your mouth. Sounds. Tastes. Smells. Your breath coming in and going out of your body. Numbers you count up and down, up and down. You are told to become aware of your thoughts. But this is where you may make my mistake.

 

You focus on whatever it is you have chosen to focus on, and you do so to the exclusion of your thoughts! I dont know if this is the minds way of wriggling out of you becoming aware of your thoughts, or your egos way of ensuring control or what. But there you are, like I was, a little over a year into my meditation practice, and the whole time I was doing it wrong!"

 

In meditation it is generally taught that in the beginning we either gently focus on something or to not focus on anything.

I started with the non- focus approach though I did both. I never felt that I was "chanting" a mantra, but when I gently repeated a mantra it would resonate for quite some time before being repeated. It became like breathing in many ways though with much longer intervals.

 

The teachings I was exposed to (Hatha, Raja yoga and others) did not ask me to become aware of my thoughts but to simply allow them to be and not cling to them. If I became identified with one, then gently come back from it when I became aware I drifted into it.

No admonishment.

 

"Distractions" such as the ticking of a clock or a drip from the faucet could also become a focal point but in general these dropped away. Focus specifically on the relative such as small sounds and the stirring of the streets or rain upon the roof - these were not focused on and if noticed they were like thoughts, one let them be noticed and moved back into the stillness.

 

During the day I sometimes used a practice that I employed in meditation, counting from 100 to 0 and from 0 to 100 simultaneously.

This was simply another tool for allowing the banter to subside. Nearly 100% of thought is automated reactive gibberish - though we take it very seriously and hone it and use many of our thoughts to parry with others. Our thoughts become our arsenal for our story.

 

If you would like to see a perfect example of just how vehement this torch carrying effect can take a hold of us - read the forum post entitled " Women & TTB ". On page 14 I write a post about torch carrying - but be sure to read the prior posts - the "best" posts are real jail cells for those people even though I do not disagree with a single thing they say - it is not a matter of content - it is the amount that one has become adamant and identified with the concepts that jails them.

 

It is precisely in this regard that we meditate - we have steadfast patterns, compressions and mental automations that deplete us, distort us and blocks and or patterns our energies in un-natural ways and in ways that are vulgar, base, dis-eased etc.. These patterns habituate us into automated thought and away from ourselves.

 

"Our story" is an illusion, 100% of the thoughts from our mind are of no importance - higher mind excluded - but this higher mind is not used by many - if you have a distain for philosophy, mathematics, Geometry - you have a distain for higher mind - at least your ego does - it is not automated in these areas and so it losses the control it encompasses you with.

 

This is what happens in meditation, you learn to see the lower regular "100% of the time mind" as a background noise so to speak.

You learn to Be.

Soaring Crane speaks of this in his recent post above, and taking this into the everyday life.

This is what the awakened individual does though now they are primarily in a hyper aware space of the All and Now while occasionally being ebbed back into the noise or buzz.

 

The forum post " Women & TTB " is a perfect example of Buzz. Read it and witness the hold it takes of you. We spend our entire lives in this. It is everything to us - we kill for this - we divorce for this - we obliterate for this. You will see in the very "best posts" the people admitting they would just as soon kill blah blah blah ..... That they have to stop themselves from swearing and slamming about because they are so entirely identified with the subject and their thoughts on it - the patterns on their space which they have come to own and treasure and steel against attack. (the building blocks of our jail cells).

 

The most brilliant and "gallant" posts there beautifully outline some of those peoples jail cells in technicolor - the brilliant clarity of their lower mind clenched tightly by their vitality and sureness and wielded by a profound command of the language - (no locks from the outside needed). They would make great speech writers - and they have the emotional appeal as well as the scientific all rolled into one! This type makes for a good interview - but essentially it is all illusion that must fall away - and it is such a good illusion that it will probably not lose its hold in this lifetime. If it does they would become great teachers - sadly this is rare - the intelligence solidifies the patterns like diamonds and protects them with ease because they are so well honed.

Edited September 1, 2014 by Spotless

[Spotless]

Addition - edit:

 

Meditation allows the great forces to move through us and clear the energy channels while also refining the energies and creating higher vibrations or fuels for abilities and possibilities that are dormant.

 

Meditation is a space for us to learn trust between ourselves and this beast we inhabit.

Our DNA is a great automating pattern but it is also reactive, protective and trusts itself.

 

We have little if any idea just how many reactions and thoughts we gravitate to or have that originate passively from our DNA and to which we may even essentially disagree with but are over-ridden by it.

 

As the body and awareness sit with each other, fear of each other transforms to trust and the light of much higher awareness not only can be accessed, but it is eventually allowed to transcend the blinders that the beast would prefer. And when the blinders are removed the beast transcends the lowly state that it has become accustomed to and would never wish blinders upon anyone again.

 

The blinders are the automated DNA howlings, our identifications with them, and our story, our torches.

Edited September 1, 2014 by Spotless

[aboo]

That's how I view things Spotless. Although I find it difficult not to get totally distracted by "the story" eventually and it takes a heap of time and effort to return to a 'pure' state of being. What you say is in line with what Sri Ramana Maharshi taught. To me, it's such a subtle truth, it soon gets washed away by all the noise, and of course, survival in the physical.

Edited September 1, 2014 by aboo

[silent thunder]

I enjoyed the perspective in your article quite a bit.

 

I wonder, more and more often of late, if there are any 'exterior' sounds at all...

good stuff.

[Spotless]

That's how I view things Spotless. Although I find it difficult not to get totally distracted by "the story" eventually and it takes a heap of time and effort to return to a 'pure' state of being. What you say is in line with what Sri Ramana Maharshi taught. To me, it's such a subtle truth, it soon gets washed away by all the noise, and of course, survival in the physical.

 

Between the noise and survival in the physical it can be very hard to sort it out.

 

Paying attention to what we take in (consume) from media and those we choose to involve ourselves with has a great effect on the buzz. I have enjoyed group work on many levels, one of them is having many friends and functions that involve other practitioners.

Outside of places like this and meeting with other practitioners, ones personal practice can scarcely be share with others except by passive interchange and the occasional and typically shallow interest sometimes expressed.

 

Qi gong and meditation are very helpful with the survival energies - tending to bring into perspective "time" and reducing urgency angst and "future" pressure.

[Spotless]

I just wrote this post on meditation:

http://adifferentpath.blog.com/2014/08/31/meditation/

 

I do not normally "toot my own horn" outside of sharing such things on Facebook and Twitter. But I think I have stumbled onto something worth sharing here. These words may be of some help or use to someone.

 

Feel free to discuss this post in this thread. all feedback is welcome.

 

One of the great themes in your post is the idea of "meditating correctly" and transcending this impossible worry.

If you are meditating - you are doing it "correctly" however incorrectly you are doing it. The process of learning meditation is one that unfolds.

 

Certainly some activities are so off the mark that one is not actually meditating but rather sitting and doing something else, but that is far from what you have brought up in your post.

 

Even the "epitome" of meditation is a subject of great debate and the final forms have far more to do with the environment of the "epitome" being written about than the actual "epitome":

 

If you see a Lama surrounded by students - what you will witness is quite different than a equally high master sitting in a room with a child nearby who he is watching over, or an equally high master sitting for a few hours during business hours with the full awareness that he will be seeing a secretary from time to time or possible be needed to answer a phone call.

 

In a high meditation practice, one in high awareness (not trance), breath can be near complete stillness (even the heart beating pulses the lungs) or it can be calm but quite near normal. The "epitome" of total stillness of the physical body is more of style than actual value - this statement may cause some to spontaneously combust but it is true - it is entirely dependent on the nature of the meditation. At the higher levels the nature of the meditation can vary considerably and the master may attain extremely high levels while itching an itch or clearing a nostril (picking his or her nose).

 

Everything we see through the eyes of a new practitioner should be taken with a grain of salt. And every translation we read and teaching we read about but do not hear from the teachers mouth - these should be taken with a 1000 grains of salt.

 

While many teachings have been Westernized, many Eastern teachings have been glorified, mystified and petrified (though not petrified to the extent of the Christian petrification).

Eastern teachings by their constitution tend to be somewhat inherently resistant to petrification - but the tendency to exult practice features to a dogmatic "this is the true and only example of the truly enlightened" is pretty close to the way Christians so often talk for God on his behalf.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[DreamBliss]

Everyone, thank you for your feedback! This is a learning process for me. I will need to take more time to read through this again to make sure I "get" what you are all saying.

 

Spotless thank you for this additional perspective. I am having trouble absorbing it right now but I will return to what you have written. I would like a link to this thread you advised I read if you don't mind providing it.

 

Speaking generally then, is it the consensus of everyone who has posted here that what I have stated is accurate? Or is there anything I should add, perhaps insert into the text somewhere with the user name of whoever said it? Did I miss anything?

 

Please understand I have no guru or teacher other than what you read about in spiritual texts that you already have inside. Everything I have written was experiential, from I guess a beginner's perspective, although maybe I am not a beginner, I would have to leave that up to someone else to determine. Inexperienced would be a better word. In any case my purpose was to provide information that I had not yet encountered, which I thought was valuable enough to share.

 

As Ram Dass says, it may be someone's "game" to struggle with meditation for years, but if I can do anything to help others not go through what I went through, if I can help in any way, I will. But ultimately, everyone has their own path up the mountain. Everyone has to make their own choices and decisions. Everyone grows their own way. The best a teacher can do, I think, is put the information out there and trust that it will get to those who need or want it.

 

Or maybe we are just setting the foundation for the development of the human race as a whole. Well whatever the case may be, I will gladly set the stones of my experience in place if they will be of any benefit to anyone.

Edited September 14, 2014 by DreamBliss