EMPTINESS MEDITATION FOR ENLIGHTENMENT

[C T]

Zoom.. have you come across this clip before?

 

 

 

and this:

 

Edited January 18, 2015 by C T

[voidisyinyang]

see 28. translations footnote on Secrets of the Golden Flower

[ChiForce]

Zoom.. have you come across this clip before?

 

 

 

and this:

 

Yeah, but the likelihood to become liberated at the moment of your death is pretty slim if you haven't achieved any degree of mind cultivation level. Your bardo experiences would be driven by your karmic forces in this life, mostly. It is beneficial to cultivate the mind to see the Clear Light and to recognize the Clear Light either in dreams or in your meditation. When your death does come, you will be liberated. Sleep and dreams are very close to the death bardo experiences. The difference is that you do eventually wake up and repeating the entire cycle again on your next sleep.

Edited January 19, 2015 by ChiForce

[Wells]

.

Edited February 11, 2015 by ZOOM

[C T]

Actually, I would go even further... If one still perceives that there are such things as meditative states, it is not truly possible to realize "ultimate" emptiness.

 

Best wishes.

Yes, thats true, but for the purpose of discussion, we assume that relatively there are meditative and non-meditative states - this helps to clarify and evaluate the difference between meditative absorption (samadhi) at one end, where it gradually becomes easier to recognise a certain pervasive sense of spaciousness and borderlessness, and, at the other end, non-distraction, where a prevailing freedom from having to depend on meditation to sustain that same sense of spaciousness and unbounded awareness remains indefinitely, without one having to consciously manipulate anything in particular, whether awake or about to fall asleep.

 

The true measure of an adept is how stable he or she is in sustaining that easeful resting in dharmata outside of formal practice.

[voidisyinyang]

There are several chapters.

All chapters have footnotes.

The footnotes for every chapter begin every time again with 1.

 

So footnote 28. for chapter number...?

 

But I guess I found the one you meant anyways.

Page 113?

yeah

[Bearded Dragon]

The nature of mind is neither empty nor full. It is beyond that. Inconceivability. The reason people never find "it" is that there is nothing to find. One can only work with what you've got. In that sense it's quite simple. You probably already know what needs refining so just pick whatever works.

[seekingbuddha]

JEFF,

Thank you for posting that wisdom (http://www.keithdowman.net/mahamudra/tilopa.htm). For me, coming into this forum has been well timed, and it is amazing to see the extent of scholarly people here. I don't know about the various discipline's of buddhism and consequently many of the technical words don't make sense to me. But the essense of wisdom is the same, no matter where it comes from and what words are used to describe it.

 

Something we need to keep in mind : A great teacher teaches depending on the capacity of the student. Here, the student was already at a high state of liberation, ready for enlightenment (i infer mahamudra to mean enlightenment or supreme knowledge or 8 ways liberation of mind as taught by Gotama Buddha). So, some of this teaching, given to this high level student is not applicable to average humans. For example.....

Follow no path to follow the path of the Buddhas;
Employ no technique to gain supreme enlightenment.

Buddha himself has spoken equivalent words, but also said, it is to be practiced at high stages of liberation. Until that time, he has prescribed a path to follow. I sense that Jeff and many others are already aware of this, so this note is perhaps for the sake of some other casual visitor here, who might misunderstand this wisdom, and think - I can do whatever i please in life.

 

As i am unaware of lot of terminology used in this forum, my only question is What is the meaning of the word Samaya ?

 

CHIFORCE,

I saw the sleep experience you posted. Have you considered the experiences posted by DAWG, in relation to yours ? I suspect some here might say that there are devas called Clear Light Mind devas. Can we consider the possibility that while we drift into sleep, mindful (aware,with clarity etc.) and equanimous (tranquil, neutral, unbiased, non-opinonated etc), there is a state where mind is neither asleep nor awake and then there is another state where part of mind (concious ?) is asleep but another part of mind (unconcious/subconcious/purity mind/clear light mind/kamma mind etc) is awake ? Can we consider the possibility that you wake up with Clear Light Mind because you just had a visit to/from Clear Light Mind devas(world).

 

Brian,

 

"Then I taught my mind to switch at will between thinking and not-thinking. Then I taught my mind to do both at the same time."

 

Could you please expound on your experiences, struggles and steps you took in this part of your journey ?.......I understand and experience that words are of limited/no use, while trying to convey the higher wisdom/experience that we all try to understand/experience.

 

ZOOM,

I think your question has been answered (and more), by Jeff's post (i have linked to it).

Edited January 27, 2015 by seekingbuddha

[joeblast]

Emptiness Meditation is not my area of expertise.

I'd like to learn if there is good evidence and historical reports that people became Buddhas

by simple emptiness meditation as their single practice.

Did not the historical Buddha achieve Buddhahood and leave reincarnation for good

by simply contemplating void or going into emptiness?

Then why following long-winded and complicated paths

when these are just detours to a goal which can be approached directly by going into emptiness?

Why doing when the goal can be achieved through non-doing?

whatever gave you the idea it was either or?

 

all the breathstuffz I describe are just laying the foundation. emptiness built from intention into deep neurological habituation.

 

a spark of yang will come from that, but I dont ever recall anyone saying nothing else was required. (I certainly havent)

 

one should be under no illusions that the neurological habituation alone will carry the entire trip. (it wont)

 

but one should also be under no illusions that neurological habituation will carry the trip. (as a crucial component such as...) I'd rather hike in proper boots instead of those angry hard plastic ones that were needed for the glacier - but the right boots can do both, and keep your feet happy the entire way.

Edited January 28, 2015 by joeblast

[Spotless]

The basic mechanics of meditation - stillness emptiness meditation is in the process of running cosmic energy through the body while in the body.

 

In meditation simply being with the great vehicle you have received and created for yourself and allowing its voice to resonate with you and you with it - increasing this communion and coming to unfold within it - this is the great form of meditation.

 

The cosmic energy will ebb away at those blocks and bindings from the life you have chosen to be - and both refresh and enliven that path. Your conscious non-doing participation (meditation) increases many fold the communication possible with this great vehicle you inhabit - many forms of meditation continue the pattern of "whipping the reins of control" upon your great vehicle from which whippings the voice will not emerge and from which a vast treasure house of abilities can only remain dormant and enfeebled.

 

Within the meditation structures one can practice various "mind" abilities and they are certainly very useful and certain aspects of mind prowess are actually required - though they are somewhat trivial in the greater sense and yet truely important. They primarily reside in learning the skill of not wandering. The idea of creating the "laser mind" is incorrect thinking or verbiage from someone who likes the word laser. A piercing laser like intense focus is not of much value and in most cases it is more a fixation than necessary.

Simply learning to remain mentally aware in one spot - in zero effort and with no strain or "laser like focus" is a great skill and will unfold upon Awakening but learning to become near to this skill level is very helpful.

 

Trance states allow for one to attain some insight into other realms and skills - they also dupe one into believing they have aquired these skills as they do acquire the ability to view from these levels. It is a bit like learning how to go to the theater and view and walk within a movie and a movie set - except it is all virtual reality. We have within these pages here at TTB a few very accomplished within the trance states and they do not yet see the problems this has been for them in understanding profound levels outside the context of their certainty within what they see as true vision. This is a very fine line but a very different result.

Edited January 29, 2015 by Spotless

[Brian]

<snip>

Brian,

 

"Then I taught my mind to switch at will between thinking and not-thinking. Then I taught my mind to do both at the same time."

 

Could you please expound on your experiences, struggles and steps you took in this part of your journey ?.......I understand and experience that words are of limited/no use, while trying to convey the higher wisdom/experience that we all try to understand/experience.

<snip>

Yes, it is difficult to explain the taste of a strawberry...

 

Perhaps including some mundane examples will be illustrative?

 

Teaching the mind to think involves learning single-threaded thought -- the ability to hold one line of thought without either diverging onto alternate or tangent paths, or entertaining random or irrelevant thoughts. For example, solving a long-division problem without thinking about lunch or other mathematical techniques or something the teacher said or how the solution might be used or the legs of the cheerleader sitting in front of you (substitute other distractions as you wish...)

 

This is a surprisingly uncommon ability.

 

Teaching the mind to think also involves learning focused multi-threaded thought. Unfocused multi-threaded thought seems to be a natural state of mind but focused multi-threaded thought is more nuanced. I think most people develop a fairly effective level of this -- driving a car while carrying on a conversation with a passenger and simultaneously listening to music -- but it is generally a time-slicing exercise with attention being shifted between tasks based on a conscious evaluation of priorities in near-real-time. Much harder to consciously manage is a parallel-processing approach. This is really simple when the tasks don't overlap or have very little overlap -- like watching a ballgame on TV and drinking a frosty beverage at the same time -- but is exceedingly difficult when the tasks overlap -- like texting and driving in traffic. Even something like reading a book and listening to a weather forecast on the radio at the same time are nearly impossible -- for most people, trying to do both results in accomplishing neither.

 

I found that learning single-threaded thought substantially changed my perspective on thought in general and gave me a better understanding of multi-threaded thought. Not saying that I perfected multi-threaded thought, mind you -- I think the conscious mind has hardware limitations in the regard -- but awareness greatly improved both understanding and ability (as well as the ability to recognize these various situations).

 

Learning to not-think, for me, started with consciously playing a game of whack-a-mole with thoughts, knocking them down as they arose. Eventually, the conscious mind would subside and I could briefly reside in mental silence. Thoughts would then begin to emerge again (often with the rational mind attempting trickery, like thinking about thinking, for instance) and whack-a-mole would continue anew.

 

The next step, for me, was a conscious multi-threaded variation, in which one aspect of my awareness observes thoughts as they arise but does not engage with them. More subtle than whack-a-mole, this took a while but also results in the conscious mind acquiescing and resting in stillness. This is a more stable mode than thought-suppression but still has a conscious aspect.

 

The next conscious mode is one of selective mode-switching, based on desire and environment. You are driving along the open road on mental auto-pilot, lost in thought, when a deer springs into view. Or you are shooting pool, listening to music and joking with friends when you notice there's a breaking news report on the TV across the room. We all do this mode-switching instinctively, and sometimes do it exceedingly well -- we accidentally knock a cup off the table and catch it in mid-air "without even thinking about it" -- it is much harder, though, and deeply impactful, do consciously switch between these various modes of thought.

 

 

You'll notice, I trust, that I didn't touch at all on any mode which does not involve conscious thought. This is a different paradigm. Personally, it is one to which I was introduced by someone far more experienced than me, a place to which I was taken, a state into which I was led when I was ready -- rather than one into which I progressed.

[seekingbuddha]

Thanks Brian. Interesting approach to think about thinking. I have seen a demonstration of that multi-threaded thought/awareness - a person who did about 10 different things (like counting number of random bells, counting flowers that randomly fall on his back etc), over a period 30 mins or 1 hr. At the end, he would reveal the various answers (like counts), which perfectly tallied with correct answers. This was performed in my high school, with students assisting - so no cheating for sure - it was simply his sidhi.