thought-stopping skill

[Marblehead]

6 minutes ago, allinone said:

 

Your hair will erect sensation.

That's the only kind of erection I get any more.

 

[Spotless]

Do not attempt to follow a thought back to its origination - it is an exercise IN monkey mind.

 

It empowers the noise ( automated flow of nonesense and position / polarity) support.

 

You can arrive to zero thought - it is possible. 

 

One becomes intuition in Presence - this is very difficult as an objective. 

 

Truly begin to not participte in the loops of thought - as you notice them they are like flies in the mind and will lesson over time if you simply drop them into the lower dan tien.

 

The biggest key is learning to "Drop it" - the willfulness.

 

Initially you are caught up in your thoughts, caught up in your positions, caught up in their inertia.

You begin not to participate in the loops - they are easy to see and it is astounding how much we repeat and repeat them.

You see the regurgitation of thinking that is reactionary and comes up in a thousand automated ways and gets "better and better" each time - this is the willfulness - a patina of pushing your positions into yourself like a virus.

 

Drop it - let it fall to the LDT - give it nothing - no fight, no resistance, zip.

 

Breath into the LDT - all the time.

Edited June 26, 2017 by Spotless

[qicat]

in Mental Dao Yin I was taught a simple trick to this.All you do ( since it is assumed you have an awareness of your thoughts at this point) is to say to the thought either "Yes", "No", or "Not now".  It is amazing how much "Not now"s I have:) But it allows to 1) not run with the emotion 2) observe and 3) focus on the task...

 

Try it:P

[shazlor]

I used to utilisze a little trick to eliminate pesky re-occurring thoughts fueled and given tangible thought-form by subconscious or conscious unresolved emotion. Apparently it severs the neurological links and thus starves the node... or whatever the correct terms and context is, I'm not a brain scientist. But it worked. Perhaps too well lol. I now find it quite simple to blank my mind or pinpoint a focus. However, maintaining personal discipline or intruding thought influence from outside of your mental circle is another matter. Individuals, groups, locations, egregores, faerie folk etc these will still consciously/unconsciously strive to impress upon ones malleable mind. Ever read Glenn Morris' advice about the Blue Girl?   or ever hear the advice, "Never interfere in the affairs of a VViszard?"  ... Etc. 

 

Anyway, when that naughty thought intrudes upon your peaceful domain of vital+mental+nothingness and begins to feed on your I and bending your will rather than your will bending or ignoring it.... begin a little counting game! Two simultaneous counts by twos, odd and even, in an ascending and descending order.

 

1 - 3

100 - 98

5 - 7

96 - 94

9 - 11

92 - 90

ETC.

 

The ascending count must reach 99

The descending count must reach 0

 

If you fuck it up and lose count, guess what.....

 

*

 

*

 

*

 

Yes indeed fellow forum member, you thought correct....

 

Thou shalt begin again, from the beginnings. YEEAAAEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!

 

Repeat, etc.

 

After a few attempts it becomes relatively simple, the crossover at the 50ish mark is fun.

 

Try this severalteen times and you may be surprised at it's effectiveness. A simple tool to assist in the clearance of thy fertile mindsoil and nothing more. 

 

* * *

 

"Meeeeeemmmmmmmmmories drift in and out of my mind, And the little thiiiiinnnnnnnnngs get left behind,

So, whatevaaaaaaaaaa."         *Edited for dyslexic fingers.

Edited June 27, 2017 by shazlor

[Small Fur]

On June 23, 2017 at 10:19 PM, Goldleaf said:

Hi there,

 

I have searched and found some info on this already, and feel free to let me know if another more direct thread already exists.

 

But I have noticed when people talk about combatting the monkey mind, there seems to be an agreement that it will take quite a long time of dedicated work and meditation.

 

Withoiut meaning to be rude bgut i find this unacceptable!!

 

Why can we not use direct methods daily to limit thoughts, and within say, a few months, be able to stop thoughts at will??

 

If I can stop my mind chattering and just enjoy, then I know I will also get great benefit from my chi kung practice, from daily life, from eating, meeting girls, music... everything!!

 

So I feel I have enough motivation to stop.  I just wanted to start a discussion on those things others have used that have been the most effective, besides meditation / mindfullness.  Are there more direct methods for destroying this age-old habit which is ultimately destroying me?

 

Please feel free to contribute, in the hope that your contribution will benefit future readers!!

 

Thanks for reading

GL

 

 

 

 

First of all, being without thought is not a skill. As in, its not something you acquire, but rather a way that you release. It is a process without strife that in still-action is itself non-acquisiton.

 

Thus the motivations of psychological desire that you describe (such as self-enjoyment, making romantic social connections, etc.,) will not get you there. 

 

In addition, your idea that this internal quietude will bring you the kind of pleasure you speak of is misguided. Because in order to become this state, you must and will transform your theoretical and experiential notions of existence. These mundane pleasures you speak of, once transformed in the alchemy of silence, will not effect you in the common, daily (and often trite) ways that most humans experience pleasure. In this way, these ‘enhanced life pleasures’ that you think could come from such transformation are nil and not applicable.

 

This question seems also to imply that you are in a hurry to by-pass the value and necessity of deeper personal transformation in order to achieve a kind of supposed reward. And while you are right that it need not take decades or life times- and in fact, it need not take months, days or even minutes!- the fact of the matter remains that the perspective in desire for a quick-fix solution is itself the becoming of the very long path that you so summarily reject.

 

So, fundamentally and thus far, your own orientation to this concept is integral to the obstacle that you’ve created.

 

Contrary to majority experience of even long-time meditators and teachers, it is wholly possible to be without even a trace of mental thought, chatter or its associated movements. I know this because it is something I both teach and transmit and also know others who have such experience and capacity in silence. 

 

As you have found, there are many practices to absolute stillness. 

And, I can tell you that the most direct method is found very simply in these three keys:

-the quality of your sincerity

-the state of absolute fearlessness

-and the willingness for Truth

 

All other guidance- such as subtle attunements of the system, be these through initiation, ritual or practices, and especially those done in the presence of and with the guidance of an enlightened teacher; can and do aid the process exponentially and deeply. But ultimately the passage can only be traversed in yourself. And in this, your state must itself, be truthful so as to know truth.

 

Do not dismiss these three keys. They are the fundamental requisites necessary for passage though your own system to a more profound consciousness.

Edited January 12, 2018 by Small Fur

[C T]

There is a gross misunderstanding surrounding the idea of stilling the mind - that there is a common assumption which implies a mind empty of thoughts. To quench one's thirst, one does not deprive the body of liquids. In the same way, to reach lasting peace, one ought to feed the mind constantly with awareness - this practice is the right approach to 'recognising the real nature of mind'. When resting in awareness becomes more important than following thoughts, when that relaxed beingness becomes effortless and naturally manifested/embodied, what then occurs is the instant recognition of thoughts' empty essence, and this will allow thoughts and also the thinker to spontaneously subside with ease. 

[Spotless]

14 hours ago, Small Fur said:

 

 

 

 

First of all, being without thought is not a skill. As in, its not something you acquire, but rather a way that you release. It is a process without strife that in still-action is itself non-acquisiton.

 

Thus the motivations of psychological desire that you describe (such as self-enjoyment, making romantic social connections, etc.,) will not get you there. 

 

In addition, your idea that this internal quietude will bring you the kind of pleasure you speak of is misguided. Because in order to become this state, you must and will transform your theoretical and experiential notions of existence. These mundane pleasures you speak of, once transformed in the alchemy of silence, will not effect you in the common, daily (and often trite) ways that most humans experience pleasure. In this way, these ‘enhanced life pleasures’ that you think could come from such transformation are nil and not applicable.

 

This question seems also to imply that you are in a hurry to by-pass the value and necessity of deeper personal transformation in order to achieve a kind of supposed reward. And while you are right that it need not take decades or life times- and in fact, it need not take months, days or even minutes!- the fact of the matter remains that the perspective in desire for a quick-fix solution is itself the becoming of the very long path that you so summarily reject.

 

So, fundamentally and thus far, your own orientation to this concept is integral to the obstacle that you’ve created.

 

Contrary to majority experience of even long-time meditators and teachers, it is wholly possible to be without even a trace of mental thought, chatter or its associated movements. I know this because it is something I both teach and transmit and also know others who have such experience and capacity in silence. 

 

As you have found, there are many practices to absolute stillness. 

And, I can tell you that the most direct method is found very simply in these three keys:

-the quality of your sincerity

-the state of absolute fearlessness

-and the willingness for Truth

 

All other guidance- such as subtle attunements of the system, be these through initiation, ritual or practices, and especially those done in the presence of and with the guidance of an enlightened teacher; can and do aid the process exponentially and deeply. But ultimately the passage can only be traversed in yourself. And in this, your state must itself, be truthful so as to know truth.

 

Do not dismiss these three keys. They are the fundamental requisites necessary for passage though your own system to a more profound consciousness.

Very well put!

 

"Being without thoughts is not a skill"

 

The entire quote is excellent.

 

We tend to think of The Mind as though it is in a cage and fully trainable with input - but we take great assumption in thinking we actually know this will change the automation of the output. This approach will only have some fairly superficial benifit.

But like so many who want want want the fast result - 100 years of meditation in this persuit will not yield the goal - incorrect thinking of this sort must give way.

 

Wilfulness will not win the day, year or centuries.

 

One can begin looking under the covers in seeing that the mind will play a far lesser part of ones awareness when we begin to listen to the stillness that already abides in us all the time.

 

The mind is far less necessary than it would have you believe.

 

We can begin not participating in the general noise which our minds are so exercised in - not participate in the looping thoughts and we can begin to change what we take in everyday in terms of the foods we eat, the media we listen to and view.

We can begin to move from crass and uncouth dialog.

 

But great transformation within is necessary - it is not a matter of modification and perfecting of the mind - that thinking is the epitome of the monkey mind.

 

Mind is 99.99% an exercise (happening) in dissipation (simply noise).

 

When you abide in Awareness - thoughts fall away.

Edited January 12, 2018 by Spotless

[nyerstudent]

The more calm I am, the quieter my mind is and the easier it is to reach stillness.

 

I find that when I’m not calm, my breathing is not calm, and vice-versa. When that happens, you can move your awareness to breathing, slow it down and involve your whole body, and you’ll calm down, with your mind quieting in turn. 

 

If you do do this multiple times throughout the day, it can have a great effect!

[doc benway]

In my opinion, being without thoughts can be looked at as a skill, particularly for beginning and intermediate practitioners.

The tendency of most people living in modern society is to be perpetually lost in thought - dwelling in the past, planning the future, and judging the present. It is a rare phenomenon for someone to spontaneously recognize the essence of mind and effortlessly rest in non-thought or non-identification with thought. 

 

I acknowledge the truth of what I believe is the intent of the message that "being without thoughts is not a skill."

Being in that state is an act of release, doing anything at all takes us away from that space, this is why dzogchen meditation is referred to as non-meditation. Nevertheless, for most of us there are steps that need to be taken between being perpetually lost in thought and being able to rest in the essence of clear and open awareness with stability. When we experience the fruit of our cultivation we can look back and see how unnecessary all of that effort was. Sharing that perspective may be useful to some lucky beings but for many it is simply beyond their capability and can lead to feelings of bitterness, envy, and frustration. We see that here regularly. That is the motivation for this post.

 

I'll paraphrase Peter Fenner: 'If we didn't do what we didn't need to do we wouldn't know that we didn't need to do it.'

 

When we first investigate the mind and its essence, it is an effortful process.

We must first recognize that we are lost in thought.

We then must clearly and definitively recognize what it is to not be lost in thought.

We then must stabilize this experience through repetitive recognition we are in distraction, release, and continue...

This takes effort and concentration and this is a skill that can be cultivated.

Perhaps there are a few fortunate folks who can simply recognize there is nothing to be done but release and that is enough.

E Ma Ho!

 

I am not one of those...

 

A good illustration of this progression is in the practice of calm abiding or zhiné.

This is a basic Tibetan meditation practice that cultivates concentration while simultaneously pointing out the mind's essence, and helping to achieve stability. It's a powerful practice that shows results within a few weeks or even days when practiced properly. In zhiné practice, there are 3 stages:

1. Effortful zhiné - the attitude towards maintaining concentration is sometimes described as being similar to an old person threading the eye of a needle

2. Natural zhiné - at this level of skill we can rest in the experience of concentration with no effort, when distracted we can once again simply release into that experience

3. Ultimate zhiné - at this level resting in the nature of mind is already always there, there is not even the effort of recognizing distraction and returning to calm abiding as any and all potential distractions self-liberate spontaneously, never reaching the point of true distraction.

 

Once we have gained sufficient clarity and stability, we can begin to let go of all effort and remain in non-distraction.

At that point, we clearly see that the only way to be in that state of being is through non-effort.

At that point, resting in the simple state of being is not a skill, it is simply happening. 

If no skill was involved, we would be able to simply be in that space of effortless, unfabricated being without distraction at will.

I respectfully suggest that this is not the case for most people de novo.

 

Without question, Small Fur and Spotless both offer superb advice and genuine insight to practitioners. Anyone who can recognize and sustain clarity through simple release of effort are indeed fortunate. For those who are unable to simply rest effortlessly in clarity, effortful practice engaging the monkey mind in a productive direction are necessary and beneficial. 

 

_/\_

 

[joeblast]

That's why I cut it all down to the dynamic of the cranial nerves and likened it to normal sensate mode yang, and its a juggling of the energy dynamics and efficiencies to resolve extraneous energies.  Changing the resonant mode of the cranial nerve dynamic from its yang sensate mode to where they are all brought over to the ostensible yin-hibernation mode, on a daily basis, resolves the extraneous energies.  Ergo random thought is a sort of spillover, a neural crosstalk...

 

its like how the lightning progressed amongst the network of human-pods in the matrix

 

From the unresolved energies resultant from sensate input processing, sparks harness themselves and ride the neurology train into higher brain centers, where it emerges as a thought.  But that unresolved delta in energies absolutely unequivocally originates at the niwan.

 

"The brain builds its neural networks based on habit and experience" as dr Austin says, so this means in order to resolve the leaky energy pattern that is known as the monkey mind, the neural networks need to be trained by habit and experience to resolve the extraneous energies.

 

*This* is why train breathwork to a very deep and efficient level, first by rote repetition and then with a specific target of enhancing efficiencies, always keeping awareness on that which one is doing.  That's what I refer to as "the focus of awareness" and it absolutely serves to increase the efficiency of training whatever it is that one is training.  Training the breath thusly, literally reprograms the instruction set that resonates at the medulla where the subconscious breath program is kept, and it carries forth with more inertia, to the point where the breathwork will continue with the programmed form even while sleeping.

 

Perhaps it'd be amusing to map out those pathways precisely, but its really not entirely necessary to know how the thalamus, hypothalamus, cingulate gyrus and hippocampus interact with cn0 to help produce these effects...

 

 

 

and the "monkey mind" that Rene mentions....well....the aforementioned actually winds up serving to enhance the efficiency of said reminders.  curiously, this sort of consciousness training, while it denies energy to the "random thoughtform," it does not dull one's internal set of reminders.    signal to noise ratio enhancement, and all that!

Edited January 20, 2018 by joeblast

[Limahong]

On 6/24/2017 at 1:19 PM, Goldleaf said:

But I have noticed when people talk about combating the monkey mind, there seems to be an agreement that it will take quite a long time of dedicated work and meditation.

 

Hi Goldleaf,

 

I am nicknamed the cheeky monkey at home. So, without trying to disrespectful, this post is tongue in cheek - with me biting my own tongue at times.

 

What is a monkey mind? Me trying to be a monkey - not minding my own business? As a monkey, the word 'agreement' means nothing to me. I will only behave if I am given more peanuts. So don't waste any dedicated time on me.

 

On 6/24/2017 at 1:19 PM, Goldleaf said:

Without meaning to be rude but i find this unacceptable!!

 

But of course. I am not offended.

 

On 6/24/2017 at 1:19 PM, Goldleaf said:

Why can we not use direct methods daily to limit thoughts, and within say, a few months, be able to stop thoughts at will??

 

Can I suggest something? Live as a monkey without a tail so there is no swinging from tree to tree. 

 

On 6/24/2017 at 1:19 PM, Goldleaf said:

If I can stop my mind chattering and just enjoy, then I know I will also get great benefit from my chi kung practice, from daily life, from eating, meeting girls, music... everything!!

 

Partake in a Balinese monkey dance. Believe you me, it can be a therapeutic experience.

 

Strive to be the White Monkey...

 

 

On 6/24/2017 at 1:19 PM, Goldleaf said:

So I feel I have enough motivation to stop.  I just wanted to start a discussion on those things others have used that have been the most effective, besides meditation / mindfullness.  Are there more direct methods for destroying this age-old habit which is ultimately destroying me?

 

On a serious note, not everything about a monkey is a chatter. Why? (A) and (B):

 

(A) Sun Wukong

 

 

 

(B) Hanuman

 

 

Hanuman is the White Monkey in the Balinese dance.

 

Please do not send any post to tell me off. Why? Immediately after this I will sleep - it is approaching 4 am at my end.

 

Good night.

 

- LimA

[doc benway]

In keeping with the Hanuman theme, here's a concert poster I recently picked up..

 

[joeblast]

*chuckles* looks like Munch in half lotus

 

[Songtsan]

Thought stopping is useful but overrated. Why take a stance which originates from aversion? One branch of techniques neither tries to stop thoughts, or contributes to adding thoughts, it simply witnesses the flow in a non-attached manner; another way is to choose a specific object of focus and keep returning the mind to it. Thought stopping could be useful at times, but I think it also involves attachment to the thoughts, one way or another, so wouldn't be considered an advanced practice. 

[joeblast]

On 2/2/2018 at 2:21 PM, Songtsan said:

Thought stopping is useful but overrated. Why take a stance which originates from aversion? One branch of techniques neither tries to stop thoughts, or contributes to adding thoughts, it simply witnesses the flow in a non-attached manner; another way is to choose a specific object of focus and keep returning the mind to it. Thought stopping could be useful at times, but I think it also involves attachment to the thoughts, one way or another, so wouldn't be considered an advanced practice. 

If anything, its an attachment to awareness.  Its really a marvelous energy dynamic that develops once the cranial nerves are able to smoothly flip their resonant mode and relax into their low frequency, high amplitude yin mode for a good length of time each day.  Its literally a neural & awareness dynamic that manifests from proper practice, from attaining a good level of mastery of anapanasati.  From "shutting off the signal to the olfactory nerve" and streamlining all of the signal inputs to the cranial nerves - and then keeping the dynamic thusly, for the duration of the meditative session!

 

So while it is not "an advanced practice"....it is perhaps the most fundamental one, and mastery of what I've described takes some time, training, and gung to achieve -so it invariably winds up being that one takes significant steps towards "advanced" by thoroughly completing and mastering these aspects.

 

Let' face it - one doesnt become a good taiji player by learning super secret advanced techniques.  One does so by thoroughly mastering the fundamental aspects that form a good foundation for solid taiji. 

 

SSDP   Aint no different with meditation!

 

"Thought-stopping-skill" is at root, a certain energetic coherence - its a tool in the toolbox, not its own practice.  Its like upgrading your tools from garbage stamped white metal to some forged super steel alloy.  Maybe the jobs one is doing wont break the crappy white metal...