truly effortless meditation.....a new way of meditating

[rene]

(-:

 

warm greetings

[roger]

This really resonates with me roger.

 

My process of late, is almost entirely based on radical release.

Complete acceptance of the now and letting go of all process, expectation and aversion.

 

In this complete release, illusions fall away as water flows downhill.  Effortlessly.

That which abides... pure being, clarity, bliss, these words come to mind, but it's nigh on impossible to describe it in words.

 

simple being.

pure awareness.

raw, potent beyond description

blissfully calm and centered

deeply grounded while floating free

 

all these words bring a tiny sense of the experiential awareness of it... yet they pale to the task of transmitting the experience.

few truer words for me in the TTC than " the tao that can be spoken, is not the eternal tao."

 

Thanks for sharing this, ST.

 

I feel like you've expressed the essence of Buddhism, the gist of the teaching.

 

Buddhist teacher Jack Kornfield sums up the Buddhist teaching as letting go.

 

You've masterfully articulated that imo.

 

It's also probably what I needed to hear, as I tend to cling and seem to avoid letting go.

 

You know, it really does take serious guts to do what you're saying.

[silent thunder]

Thanks for sharing this, ST.

 

I feel like you've expressed the essence of Buddhism, the gist of the teaching.

 

Buddhist teacher Jack Kornfield sums up the Buddhist teaching as letting go.

 

You've masterfully articulated that imo.

 

It's also probably what I needed to hear, as I tend to cling and seem to avoid letting go.

 

You know, it really does take serious guts to do what you're saying.

 

I'd like to claim I'm brave for following this path, but really, it is out of desperate need.  It was either release and let go, or continue to live long periods in rage, projection, judgement and sadness and potentially chase my wife away and live in the inertia of the storm. 

 

And I'm no great master.  I'm an idiot who still will have days where for no apparent reason, I wake up in a rage and cannot shake it for a day or two.  Or I come across a story in the news that wounds me deeply and I retreat into the maelstrom of sadness and rage at the audaciously unnecessary nature of humans' evil nature...

 

Though any longer, instead of stomping around the house screaming at the world, I am silent in these bouts and I take myself out of the house, or I sit with it.  Even when I am angry for a righteous reason, it is no pleasant thing for the others in my life to witness my pain and to suffer the waves of anger, without any manner to help... so first I learned silence, instead of projection... then as I sat with it, without feeding it... as you say, without any effort, or seeking, just allow it to flow through me, I began to really be able to let go with sincerity and eventually joy.  Effort, seeking both bring tension and tension creates resistance which just slows down the flow of energy through a system, causing it to remain longer.

 

I spent years falling into long bouts of focusing almost exclusively on what was wrong with the world... always getting bent out of shape over the petty, spiteful, mean-spirited or outright evil actions of those around me and around the world.  It filled my days with constant tension, judgement and rage.  My wife and I were together for 18 years before I relented to her long desire for a child and agreed to try for a child...  Part of me knew that it would be the height of foolishness to bring a young one into my field of energy before then as I was lost in the inertia of near constant strife. 

 

But thankfully, through the grace and some hard lessons of my teachers (human, animal and forest) and through my deep need and desire to let it go, that epiphanies manifested in my awareness as vajra and showed me beyond doubt, that I have only so much time and energy in this form and I can either use my energy stewing on what I hate... or I can focus my energy on nurturing what I love.

 

As with most processes and particularly with new habits, inertia is a key component for me... and as I fully committed to the process of silence and release, slowly at first, then with more potency, the inertia of these energies grew and though I'm far from where I'd like to be, I'm no great master... I can say I'm also far from where I used to live and the merit of it, is a vibrant resonance in the laughter and love that now rings through my home from my wife, son and I.

 

As I was climbing into bed last night, I said to the universe... "is there any greater thing than to spend a simple night at home with the people we love?  then climb into bed and sleep?  thank you!" 

[rene]

Thank you, silent thunder, for sharing your story. Your words reflect how you are manifesting the balanced perspective. Rather than trying to escape into the empty half, you are bringing its ways into the fullness (hard things and easy things) of life. Breathing both. (-:

[roger]

Silent thunder,

 

Your words are very inspiring, thanks for sharing them.

 

You seem like you've really learned some very valuable lessons. Of course, pain is a great teacher, and it's through experience that we grow and acquire wisdom.

 

It's like you've seen the light, found the answer, through much experience and suffering.

 

You've really got a beautiful story.

[sillybearhappyhoneyeater]

I think it is fair to say that there are many different ideas about these practices (there are at least 500 meditation documents in Dao zang, all written from  a slightly different perspective) and that there may be different approaches to achieving the true meditation state.

 

I personally practice from this perspective:

When seated, I follow the rational of not moving, not looking, not listening, the whole body and mind completely still.  this allows the energy to return to its origin and the mind returns to its root.   In seated meditation only a very little seed of intention is needed and only just enough to control the process.

 

When walking around and doing things, I treat the mind like forging a sword (wang Chongyang talked about this), too hard and it will break, too soft and it will bend.   Tempering xing is much easier than tempering ming when the body is in  movement.  tempering ming is much easier than tempering xing when the body is still.

 

Wang Chongyang thought that meditation has three major worlds to ascend:

The world of desire:  this is the world of thought and what we want.

The colour world:   This is the world of our natural environment and our natural post heaven mind.

the non colour world:  This is the environs of the world when we are still trying to "rub against emptiness."

 

Today you can ascend the world of desire simply by being quiet, but can you ascend the world of the natural environs of your mind?

When you can do that, can you diminish the intention required to do this and go beyond the world of no colour?

 

This is one world view, but Zhang Boduan believed that by continually building up the golden elixir, after enough times (seven turns and nine time ovurturning) the pill will naturally develop in the body.

 

they have different benefits and detracting elements.   Wang Chongyang's method is easy to do all the time, it just requires you to show up.   zhang boduan's method is very hard to do when you are in movement, so it requires you to sit a lot.   Zhang's method has a bigger effect, but it is harder to practice.  Everything is a trade off.

 

Nei Dan is a big school with many different ideas, but I think the best thing that anyone can do is when they catch their minds running around and irrationally chattering, find a single point around which to gather the consciousness and emotions, and allow them to gradually calm down, retain quiet, and return to the origin of the human mind, which is quiet and deep.  

 

So yeah, your practice when you are driving sounds like it is useful to you, good luck continuing to develop it