Practice/Forms/Meditation: Dietary, or Medicinal?

[silent thunder]

Do you find that inner work, meditation, forms and praxis are predominantly medicinal or dietary in nature for you?

Are they pursued each day like meals, to provide basic needs?  Or are they preventative and situational like medicine?

If you keep a journal, or from recall, have you noticed your daily habits, mental notions, behaviors and practices altering?

Is practice something you do and pursue, or does it arise of its own accord?

 

 

Over recent years my daily process has shifted rather radically.  This shift has gained inertia particularly over the last couple years and it's been striking in recent months, the arching comparison when looking back at old journals and recalling the tone of former processes with current flow.  What used to be daily, dietary practice of regimented and disciplined pursuits fueled by seeking have shifted into a place of no formal practice at all. 

 

Practices have not been abandoned, dismissed, nor rejected.  But former regimented pursuits have fallen away utterly however.  They arise now seemingly spontaneously and are incorporated as they occur when possible.  I'm semi-retired, working a few months each year, so my days are my own for the most part.  Former self had always assumed when this point in life arrived, it would bring more intense daily pursuits and who knows, it still easily could, but at present, just the opposite has unfolded quite naturally.

 

As release unfolded, it seemed to fuel deeper release.  This was unsought and at first, resisted for a time.

 

Formal daily praxis, seasonal rites of behavior, cyclical pursuits fell away effortlessly, like flower petals.   Mental seeking and assumptions steadily became utterly intangible and unsustainable as well.   Along with old loved passtimes that used to be a respite, or enjoyably playfully engaging that brought relief and escape, have lost all gravity and inertia for them has dissipated.  I still play them on occasion and participate in them when they arise, but they no longer have teeth to pull me anywhere, or drag me along on storylines of daily achievement and some kind of growth being required.  They are experienced now as natural breathing occurs, rising and passing without forthought or mental fanfare.

 

i am this.  what else is there but to be as i am?  aware.  present.

 

At one point particularly while I resisted the falling away, I played along in a story about it and assumed this was due to having healed and it was easy to allow myself to indulge in assuming it was due to some achieved progress, growth, or accomplishment on my part.  Any notions of any achievement great or otherwise dissolved in presence and now seem like shadow projections that were played out on a screen that no longer exists.  Simple presence seemingly dissolves all the old addon storylines. 

 

Don't feel like 'the work' is in any way finished, there is no sense of achievement, quite the contrary. 

Any notion of a finish line has likewise dissolved. 

The Work unfolds in presence instead of pursuit.

 

[vonkrankenhaus]

31 minutes ago, silent thunder said:

Formal daily praxis, seasonal rites of behavior, cyclical pursuits fell away effortlessly, like flower petals.   Mental seeking and assumptions steadily became utterly intangible and unsustainable as well.   Along with old loved passtimes that used to be a respite, or enjoyably playfully engaging that brought relief and escape, have lost all gravity and inertia for them has dissipated.

 

This is letting go of Brainwashing and Conditioning.

 

Essential.

 

 

 

 

-VonKrankenhaus

[silent thunder]

Yea, seems currently, there is no mountain.

[silent thunder]

speaking of daily process changing over time...

found this piece interesting, about a group of Yakuza who upon getting out of prison, opened an udon shop.

 

 

[doc benway]

On 4/30/2019 at 6:56 PM, silent thunder said:

Do you find that inner work, meditation, forms and praxis are predominantly medicinal or dietary in nature for you?

Are they pursued each day like meals, to provide basic needs?  Or are they preventative and situational like medicine?

 

Meditation is my core essence 

It is as it is, highly nutritious and healing both 

I actively engage whenever not engaged and remember, then reconnect and continue

That is my experience

 

On 4/30/2019 at 6:56 PM, silent thunder said:

If you keep a journal, or from recall, have you noticed your daily habits, mental notions, behaviors and practices altering?

Is practice something you do and pursue, or does it arise of its own accord?

 

 

Yes, changing and growing with peaks and valleys and storms and sunlight. Practices fluid and responsive to need. At times I pursue it, at others it pursues me, and best of all is when we are

 

On 4/30/2019 at 6:56 PM, silent thunder said:

 

 

Over recent years my daily process has shifted rather radically.  This shift has gained inertia particularly over the last couple years and it's been striking in recent months, the arching comparison when looking back at old journals and recalling the tone of former processes with current flow.  What used to be daily, dietary practice of regimented and disciplined pursuits fueled by seeking have shifted into a place of no formal practice at all. 

 

Practices have not been abandoned, dismissed, nor rejected.  But former regimented pursuits have fallen away utterly however.  They arise now seemingly spontaneously and are incorporated as they occur when possible.  I'm semi-retired, working a few months each year, so my days are my own for the most part.  Former self had always assumed when this point in life arrived, it would bring more intense daily pursuits and who knows, it still easily could, but at present, just the opposite has unfolded quite naturally.

 

As release unfolded, it seemed to fuel deeper release.  This was unsought and at first, resisted for a time.

 

Formal daily praxis, seasonal rites of behavior, cyclical pursuits fell away effortlessly, like flower petals.   Mental seeking and assumptions steadily became utterly intangible and unsustainable as well.   Along with old loved passtimes that used to be a respite, or enjoyably playfully engaging that brought relief and escape, have lost all gravity and inertia for them has dissipated.  I still play them on occasion and participate in them when they arise, but they no longer have teeth to pull me anywhere, or drag me along on storylines of daily achievement and some kind of growth being required.  They are experienced now as natural breathing occurs, rising and passing without forthought or mental fanfare.

 

i am this.  what else is there but to be as i am?  aware.  present.

 

At one point particularly while I resisted the falling away, I played along in a story about it and assumed this was due to having healed and it was easy to allow myself to indulge in assuming it was due to some achieved progress, growth, or accomplishment on my part.  Any notions of any achievement great or otherwise dissolved in presence and now seem like shadow projections that were played out on a screen that no longer exists.  Simple presence seemingly dissolves all the old addon storylines. 

 

Don't feel like 'the work' is in any way finished, there is no sense of achievement, quite the contrary. 

Any notion of a finish line has likewise dissolved. 

The Work unfolds in presence instead of pursuit.

 

 

For me the formal practice is a refuge and a gift, healer and healed, the Five Wisdoms.

I integrate with the Nature as often as possible but life intervenes with me.

Practice deepens the connection and leads to progressively more subtle and fertile places.

Beyond the releasing and falling away is opportunity for ripening and full expression of perfected qualities.

My life and practice unfold together in surprising and wonderful ways.

[freeform]

My practice is like an investigation... a spontaneous curiosity. Not medicinal, not nutritive...

 

I sometimes have catchup calls with my peers... they ask how practice has been and I say ‘oh I’ve not engaged much’ - my girlfriend overhears and flashes a funny expression - ‘but you’ve been standing for 8hrs today’ 

 

It doesn’t feel like practice when it’s like reading a book.

 

For overall direction I always defer to my teachers - they tell me what I need to do. I assume that my view of my process is myopic - and I trust my teachers. Sometimes they tell me to do practices that I loathe... sometimes they tell me to work on correcting a specific error...

 

Often when I feel very spacious, present and expanded they tell me to engage in some hard moving practice. And when I feel like I’m getting somewhere with a really physically demanding practice they tell me to engage somewhere else. It can feel frustrating. But I’m fine with that.

[OldDog]

On 4/30/2019 at 5:56 PM, silent thunder said:

Do you find that inner work, meditation, forms and praxis are predominantly medicinal or dietary in nature for you?

 

Definitely not solely mechanical. There is a mechanical aspect of doing but he practice goes way beyond that ... and, it is not intentional ... at least in terms of a focused objective. Practice is irregular. I like the peaks and valleys image.

 

For me the practice has the purpose of integrating the whole. Bringing my whole being ... physical, mental and spiritual ... into a harmonious condition. That is the being that I want to encounter the world with.

[silent thunder]

2 hours ago, OldDog said:

 

Definitely not solely mechanical. There is a mechanical aspect of doing but he practice goes way beyond that ... and, it is not intentional ... at least in terms of a focused objective. Practice is irregular. I like the peaks and valleys image.

 

For me the practice has the purpose of integrating the whole. Bringing my whole being ... physical, mental and spiritual ... into a harmonious condition. That is the being that I want to encounter the world with.

[silent thunder]

Another shift in regards to localized awareness' relationship to praxis unfolding...

 

Forms and pursuits/meditation/various Gong used to be dietary, daily.  Sustenance.  Pursued rigidly and dedicatedly daily.

 

Then after decades came a rather painful shift to medicinal.  No longer could daily practice be played without impeding.  The practice had become the impedition to the process, rather than revealing.  Eventually the love of meditating became a hurdle to meditating.  Kali, holding the severed head of her husband.  One must, to experience source/god/dao, move beyond mental notions of such, as mental notions of such, do not and can not convey the unconveyable...

 

Practice and form re-emerged after a time of 'no mountain', but then a period where they arose medicinally/occasionally spontaneously and seemingly sporadically (to conscious mind)  Over time, the pattern to the spontaneous medicinal nature becomes revealed and an inkling of the process is perceived on occasion through a window in local awareness.

 

In the spontaneous medicinal phase, forms seemingly arise in response to requisite balancing, or preventatively and receding upon completion of shift... all seemingly stemming from an open wei wu wei framework, from beneath the level of conscious awareness.

 

tzu jan

 

Lately life is practice and forms are life process.  There is no longer meaningful distinction for local awareness between formal practices and non pursuit.

 

Life and practice are one fluidly unfolding awareness involving form and void.  Making eggs is meditation and qi gong.  Alchemy is constant unfolding of awareness and form with formless.

 

Self notions, assumptions, storytelling self dissolves in experietial co-arising aggregates and void of simplest beingness.

 

bliss in simple raw being.

 

not a manic bliss... softest, simple, gentle, yet utterly pervasive... thoroughly permeative.

 

 

Edited April 27, 2020 by silent thunder