Getting our Meditation off the mat

[thelerner]

In Aikido there was a saying, Don't leave your Aikido on the mat.  It meant this stuff is to be used in real life.  Not the martial techniques, but lessons in awareness, movement, mind body stuff.  Lately I'm going over Adyashanti's stuff.  He seems pretty down to earth.  What I'm pondering is his saying that if we keep meditation special and as a separate consciousness, then its not affecting our every day life, ie its either not going to get us to enlightenment, or its a slow rout, as long as meditation is separate 'special' activity.

 

I think Musashi said your warrior walk should be your everyday walk.  Adyanshanti seems to want our meditation to be our every day mind.  Not even quieting mind, nothing special, just watching it.  Thus it'll settle down by itself, but keep watching it, for its tricks, its moods. 

 

Anyhow.. I suppose we need to do things mindfully.. yet beyond that.. how do we stay in meditation.. what mindset do we need.. ?  Its kind of Pollyannish, but the mindset It's All Good, seems to be a good one.  And when the shits hits the fan heavily, it can be naturally dropped.  Or is no mindset the best.  

thoughts..

Edited January 22, 2019 by thelerner

[thelerner]

hit quote instead of edit, when I wanted clean up the prose.

Edited January 22, 2019 by thelerner

[Lost in Translation]

31 minutes ago, thelerner said:

I think Musashi said your warrior walk should be your everyday walk.  Adyanshanti seems to want our meditation to be our every day mind.  Not even quieting mind, nothing special, just watching it.

 

I heartily agree. Watching, observing, being mindful, being present, living in the moment, living in the now - whatever you choose to call it - is the key. This is 24/7 - like breathing, except unlike breathing one can forget for a long time.

[Fa Xin]

for me, it’s just paying attention to what I’m doing. Nothing more than that. I don’t encourage my mind to play with itself or watch it play with itself. Best to stick to and merge with whatever I’m doing. 

[Lost in Translation]

3 hours ago, Fa Xin said:

Best to stick to and merge with whatever I’m doing

 

And feeling! Pay attention to what you are feeling. 

[Fa Xin]

26 minutes ago, Lost in Translation said:

 

And feeling! Pay attention to what you are feeling. 

 

 

On one hand, I do completely agree with you - feeling is huge, it's the best way to get out of our head.  The way one feels a great song they enjoy, or the way one feels driving a car on a summer night with the windows down. Yes! Totally!

 

On the other hand, if I am paying attention to something... let's say I'm washing the dishes.  To notice how I'm feeling at that moment will distract me from the task, and it is easy to get lost from there.  The next day, my girlfriend is complaining how her coffee tastes like detergent.

 

To break down my practice a little bit more...

 

Let's say I'm washing dishes and I'm off in la-la land, thinking about yesterday's dinner.  I notice this, and I start to pay attention to washing the dishes.  Pretty soon, after maybe 30 seconds, I will start to feel a very calm, peaceful energy come over me.  My mind is quiet, colors are brighter and everything is vivid.  This is the presence I relax into and reside in....... until tomorrow's breakfast pops into my head and I start the whole process over again.

 

Edited January 23, 2019 by Fa Xin

[Nintendao]

This reminds me of a neat mindfulness practice found in the movie Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs. Sometimes when the scientist guy would be working on something, he'd say out loud with dramatic effect whatever verb he was doing in that moment. At the time it just seemed cute, but later I tried it just messing around and it actually seems to help concentration. Say I'm using a knife in the kitchen, if i think "I hope i don't cut my finger," I'm actually much more likely to cut my finger than if i simply say "Slicing!"  Then if i'm transferring some contents of one container to another and i say "Pouring!" I'm just less prone to having my mind wander off and end up spilling things and making a mess.

[Fa Xin]

One of my favorite quotes

 

"Sometimes people misunderstand the principle of "not-correcting" anything in Dzogchen and they allow themselves to become distracted. But the practice of Dzogchen means that one learns to relax whilst all the time maintaining one's presence in whatever circumstances one finds oneself in."  Chogyal Namkhai Norbu The Self Perfected Sate

 

[Zen Pig]

5 hours ago, Fa Xin said:

On the other hand, if I am paying attention to something... let's say I'm washing the dishes.  To notice how I'm feeling at that moment will distract me from the task, and it is easy to get lost from there.  The next day, my girlfriend is complaining how her coffee tastes like detergent.

 

To break down my practice a little bit more...

for me,  this is one of the reasons,  that I focus on my hara/tanden doing classic focus meditation, along with what the west calls "mindfulness"  at some point both merge,  I can be focused on my center, and still aware of the whole shabang .   very much like MA training when one is both focused on what is going on right in front of him'/her,  and also focused on what is going on around him/her. it all merges.  also, taking my walk in the hills is meditation, laying in bed at night is also meditation. I just don't use the excuse that I have heard from many neo-non-dual folks that "I meditate 24/7, because I don't need to go somewhere and sit for a couple of hours every day",  which I suppose could be true, but a sitting practice is kind of laser focus like lifting weights or going for a run, it lets me go deeper, and hopefully I can take that in my daily life. 

[Everything]

Meditation is like slowing down to perfect your art so that you can speed up more comfortably.

 

Because the learning process is a journey unto itself. So you might aswell enjoy it, because it's never gonna end. So you learn to learn in a way that is more enjoyable.

Edited January 23, 2019 by Everything

[dwai]

This topic reminds me of a discussion of the nature of the ever-present samādhi in our experience. It shines forth in the gap between thoughts. This "constant mediation" concept is basically (imho) the practice of abiding as the underlying awareness in all activities. A thread relevant to this topic is here -- 

 

[dwai]

15 hours ago, Fa Xin said:

 

 

On one hand, I do completely agree with you - feeling is huge, it's the best way to get out of our head.  The way one feels a great song they enjoy, or the way one feels driving a car on a summer night with the windows down. Yes! Totally!

 

On the other hand, if I am paying attention to something... let's say I'm washing the dishes.  To notice how I'm feeling at that moment will distract me from the task, and it is easy to get lost from there.  The next day, my girlfriend is complaining how her coffee tastes like detergent.

 

To break down my practice a little bit more...

 

Let's say I'm washing dishes and I'm off in la-la land, thinking about yesterday's dinner.  I notice this, and I start to pay attention to washing the dishes.  Pretty soon, after maybe 30 seconds, I will start to feel a very calm, peaceful energy come over me.  My mind is quiet, colors are brighter and everything is vivid.  This is the presence I relax into and reside in....... until tomorrow's breakfast pops into my head and I start the whole process over again.

 

Beautiful! It reminds of a story about Bodhidharma and some students who went to meet him. One day Bodhidharma was sitting in his cave when two students came to him. They wanted to learn chan/dhyana (zen). Bodhidharma gestured them to sit in front of him. One of his disciples served them tea. Bodhidharma quietly drank the tea. The two seekers were impatient and getting annoyed at having to wait in silence, hardly paid any attention to their tea. After Bodhidharma was done with his tea, the two showered questions on him - "Teacher...please show us zen...we didn't come all this way to drink tea!"

To that, Bodhidharma replied "When I drink tea, I drink tea. I don't do( or think of) anything else. That is Zen!"